Book of Common Prayer
True Worship[a]
50 The Almighty God, the Lord, speaks;
he calls to the whole earth from east to west.
2 God shines from Zion,
the city perfect in its beauty.
3 Our God is coming, but not in silence;
a raging fire is in front of him,
a furious storm around him.
4 He calls heaven and earth as witnesses
to see him judge his people.
5 He says, “Gather my faithful people to me,
those who made a covenant with me by offering a sacrifice.”
6 The heavens proclaim that God is righteous,
that he himself is judge.
7 “Listen, my people, and I will speak;
I will testify against you, Israel.
I am God, your God.
8 I do not reprimand you because of your sacrifices
and the burnt offerings you always bring me.
9 And yet I do not need bulls from your farms
or goats from your flocks;
10 all the animals in the forest are mine
and the cattle on thousands of hills.
11 All the wild birds are mine
and all living things in the fields.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not ask you for food,
for the world and everything in it is mine.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Let the giving of thanks be your sacrifice to God,[b]
and give the Almighty all that you promised.
15 Call to me when trouble comes;
I will save you,
and you will praise me.”
16 But God says to the wicked,
“Why should you recite my commandments?
Why should you talk about my covenant?
17 You refuse to let me correct you;
you reject my commands.
18 You become the friend of every thief you see,
and you associate with adulterers.
19 “You are always ready to speak evil;
you never hesitate to tell lies.
20 You are ready to accuse your own relatives
and to find fault with them.
21 You have done all this, and I have said nothing,
so you thought that I am like you.
But now I reprimand you
and make the matter plain to you.
22 “Listen to this, you that ignore me,
or I will destroy you,
and there will be no one to save you.
23 Giving thanks is the sacrifice that honors me,
and I will surely save all who obey me.”
(A)A Prayer for Safety[a]
59 Save me from my enemies, my God;
protect me from those who attack me!
2 Save me from those evil people;
rescue me from those murderers!
3 Look! They are waiting to kill me;
cruel people are gathering against me.
It is not because of any sin or wrong I have done,
4 nor because of any fault of mine, O Lord,
that they hurry to their places.
5 Rise, Lord God Almighty, and come to my aid;
see for yourself, God of Israel!
Wake up and punish the heathen;
show no mercy to evil traitors!
6 They come back in the evening,
snarling like dogs as they go about the city.
7 Listen to their insults and threats.
Their tongues are like swords in their mouths,
yet they think that no one hears them.
8 But you laugh at them, Lord;
you mock all the heathen.
9 I have confidence in your strength;
you are my refuge, O God.
10 My God loves me and will come to me;
he will let me see my enemies defeated.
11 Do not kill them, O God, or my people may forget.
Scatter them by your strength and defeat them,
O Lord, our protector.
12 Sin is on their lips; all their words are sinful;
may they be caught in their pride!
Because they curse and lie,
13 destroy them in your anger;
destroy them completely.
Then everyone will know that God rules in Israel,
that his rule extends over all the earth.
14 My enemies come back in the evening,
snarling like dogs as they go about the city,
15 like dogs roaming about for food
and growling if they do not find enough.
16 But I will sing about your strength;
every morning I will sing aloud of your constant love.
You have been a refuge for me,
a shelter in my time of trouble.
17 I will praise you, my defender.
My refuge is God,
the God who loves me.
(B)A Prayer for Deliverance[b]
60 You have rejected us, God, and defeated us;
you have been angry with us—but now turn back to us.[c]
2 You have made the land tremble, and you have cut it open;
now heal its wounds, because it is falling apart.
3 You have made your people suffer greatly;
we stagger around as though we were drunk.
4 You have warned those who have reverence for you,
so that they might escape destruction.
5 Save us by your might; answer our prayer,
so that the people you love may be rescued.
6 From his sanctuary[d] God has said,
“In triumph I will divide Shechem
and distribute Sukkoth Valley to my people.
7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh too;
Ephraim is my helmet
and Judah my royal scepter.
8 But I will use Moab as my washbowl,
and I will throw my sandals on Edom,
as a sign that I own it.
Did the Philistines think they would shout in triumph over me?”
9 Who, O God, will take me into the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Have you really rejected us?
Aren't you going to march out with our armies?
11 Help us against the enemy;
human help is worthless.
12 With God on our side we will win;
he will defeat our enemies.
A Prayer of Thanks for Victory
118 (A)Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.
2 Let the people of Israel say,
“His love is eternal.”
3 Let the priests of God say,
“His love is eternal.”
4 Let all who worship him say,
“His love is eternal.”
5 In my distress I called to the Lord;
he answered me and set me free.
6 (B)The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid;
what can anyone do to me?
7 It is the Lord who helps me,
and I will see my enemies defeated.
8 It is better to trust in the Lord
than to depend on people.
9 It is better to trust in the Lord
than to depend on human leaders.
10 Many enemies were around me;
but I destroyed them by the power of the Lord!
11 They were around me on every side;
but I destroyed them by the power of the Lord!
12 They swarmed around me like bees,
but they burned out as quickly as a brush fire;
by the power of the Lord I destroyed them.
13 I was fiercely attacked and was being defeated,
but the Lord helped me.
14 (C)The Lord makes me powerful and strong;
he has saved me.
15 Listen to the glad shouts of victory in the tents of God's people:
“The Lord's mighty power has done it!
16 His power has brought us victory—
his mighty power in battle!”
17 I will not die; instead, I will live
and proclaim what the Lord has done.
18 He has punished me severely,
but he has not let me die.
19 Open to me the gates of the Temple;
I will go in and give thanks to the Lord!
20 This is the gate of the Lord;
only the righteous can come in.
21 I praise you, Lord, because you heard me,
because you have given me victory.
22 (D)The stone which the builders rejected as worthless
turned out to be the most important of all.
23 This was done by the Lord;
what a wonderful sight it is!
24 This is the day of the Lord's victory;
let us be happy, let us celebrate!
25 (E)Save us, Lord, save us!
Give us success, O Lord!
26 (F)May God bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
From the Temple of the Lord we bless you.
27 The Lord is God; he has been good to us.
With branches in your hands, start the festival
and march around the altar.
28 You are my God, and I give you thanks;
I will proclaim your greatness.
29 Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good,
and his love is eternal.
15 (A)Hagar bore Abram a son, and he named him Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old at the time.
Circumcision, the Sign of the Covenant
17 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the Almighty God. Obey me and always do what is right. 2 I will make my covenant with you and give you many descendants.” 3 Abram bowed down with his face touching the ground, and God said, 4 “I make this covenant with you: I promise that you will be the ancestor of many nations. 5 (B)Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham,[a] because I am making you the ancestor of many nations. 6 I will give you many descendants, and some of them will be kings. You will have so many descendants that they will become nations.
7 (C)“I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants. 8 (D)I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever, and I will be their God.”
9 God said to Abraham, “You also must agree to keep the covenant with me, both you and your descendants in future generations. 10 (E)You and your descendants must all agree to circumcise every male among you. 11-12 From now on you must circumcise every baby boy when he is eight days old, including slaves born in your homes and slaves bought from foreigners. This will show that there is a covenant between you and me. 13 Each one must be circumcised, and this will be a physical sign to show that my covenant with you is everlasting. 14 Any male who has not been circumcised will no longer be considered one of my people, because he has not kept the covenant with me.”
10 The Jewish Law is not a full and faithful model of the real things; it is only a faint outline of the good things to come. The same sacrifices are offered forever, year after year. How can the Law, then, by means of these sacrifices make perfect the people who come to God? 2 If the people worshiping God had really been purified from their sins, they would not feel guilty of sin any more, and all sacrifices would stop. 3 As it is, however, the sacrifices serve year after year to remind people of their sins. 4 For the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.
5 (A)For this reason, when Christ was about to come into the world, he said to God:
“You do not want sacrifices and offerings,
but you have prepared a body for me.
6 You are not pleased with animals burned whole on the altar
or with sacrifices to take away sins.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am,
to do your will, O God,
just as it is written of me in the book of the Law.’”
8 First he said, “You neither want nor are you pleased with sacrifices and offerings or with animals burned on the altar and the sacrifices to take away sins.” He said this even though all these sacrifices are offered according to the Law. 9 Then he said, “Here I am, O God, to do your will.” So God does away with all the old sacrifices and puts the sacrifice of Christ in their place. 10 Because Jesus Christ did what God wanted him to do, we are all purified from sin by the offering that he made of his own body once and for all.
Witnesses to Jesus
30 “I can do nothing on my own authority; I judge only as God tells me, so my judgment is right, because I am not trying to do what I want, but only what he who sent me wants.
31 “If I testify on my own behalf, what I say is not to be accepted as real proof. 32 But there is someone else who testifies on my behalf, and I know that what he says about me is true. 33 (A)John is the one to whom you sent your messengers, and he spoke on behalf of the truth. 34 It is not that I must have a human witness; I say this only in order that you may be saved. 35 (B)John was like a lamp, burning and shining, and you were willing for a while to enjoy his light. 36 But I have a witness on my behalf which is even greater than the witness that John gave: what I do, that is, the deeds my Father gave me to do, these speak on my behalf and show that the Father has sent me. 37 (C)And the Father, who sent me, also testifies on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his face, 38 and you do not keep his message in your hearts, for you do not believe in the one whom he sent. 39 (D)You study the Scriptures, because you think that in them you will find eternal life. And these very Scriptures speak about me! 40 Yet you are not willing to come to me in order to have life.
41 “I am not looking for human praise. 42 But I know what kind of people you are, and I know that you have no love for God in your hearts. 43 I have come with my Father's authority, but you have not received me; when, however, someone comes with his own authority, you will receive him. 44 You like to receive praise from one another, but you do not try to win praise from the one who alone is God; how, then, can you believe me? 45 Do not think, however, that I am the one who will accuse you to my Father. Moses, in whom you have put your hope, is the very one who will accuse you. 46 If you had really believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.