Book of Common Prayer
David wrote this song. Tell the music leader to use stringed instruments.
God will keep me safe[a]
61 God, please hear me when I call to you for help.
Listen carefully to my prayer.
2 I will call out to you from far away,
because I am sad and weak.
Lead me to a strong, safe rock
that is higher than I am.
3 You are the safe place where I can hide.
You are like a strong tower
that keeps me safe against my enemies.[b]
4 I want to live in your house for ever.
I want you to keep me safe,
like birds protect their babies under their wings.
Selah.
5 You, God, have heard my promises to you.
You have blessed me,
as you bless all those people who serve you.
6 Please give the king a long life.
Let him live to see many descendants.
7 Let him rule for ever
with your authority.
Cause your faithful love and your truth to keep him safe.[c]
8 Then I will always praise your name.
Every day I will give to you
the offerings that I have promised.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader, Jeduthun.
Only God can save me!
62 I will be patient as I wait for God to help me.
He is the only one who can make me safe.
2 He alone is the strong rock
where I can hide and be safe.
With him, nothing will make me fall.
3 How long will you all continue to attack me?
I am just one man,
and you want to kill me!
You want to knock me down,
like a weak wall or a fence that is falling down.[d]
4 You only want to push me off my high place.
You love to tell lies to deceive people.
When you say words to bless people,
you are cursing them in your thoughts.
Selah.
5 I must be patient as I wait for God to help me.
He is the only one that I can trust for help.
6 He alone is the strong rock
where I can hide and be safe.
With him, nothing will make me fall.
7 It is God who has kept me safe,
and he has made me great.
He is the strong place
where I can hide and be safe.
8 Yes, my friends,
you should always trust in God!
Tell him about all the troubles in your thoughts.
God is our safe place to hide!
Selah.
9 People are only as light as a breath!
Whoever they are, they are not important.
If you try to weigh them, all together,
they weigh less than a breath of air.[e]
10 Do not cheat people,
or rob them to get money!
That will not give you anything
that you can trust to help you.
Even if you become very rich,
do not think it is important.
11 I have heard God speak his truth
once, no twice!
God has great strength.
12 And also, my Lord, you have a faithful love.
You pay back to everybody what they should get
for the things that they have done.
This psalm is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
God will win![a]
68 God will rise up
and he will chase his enemies away!
The people who hate him
will quickly run away from him![b]
2 God, blow them away,
as wind blows smoke away.
Destroy those wicked people,
as wax melts near a fire!
3 But righteous people will be happy,
when they come near to you.
They will shout with joy,
because they are so happy!
4 Sing songs to God!
Sing to praise his name!
He is the one who rides on the clouds,
so praise him aloud!
His name is the Lord!
Shout with joy to worship him!
5 God is a father for those who have no father.
He takes care of widows.
He rules from his holy home.
6 God gives homes and a family to lonely people.
He makes prisoners go free
so that they are happy.
But people who turn against him
have to live in a hot, dry land.[c]
7 God, you led your people out.
You took them across the desert.
Selah.
8 Then the ground shook,
and rain poured down from the sky.
You showed your power at Sinai mountain.
You are the God who rules at Sinai.[d]
You are the God that Israel's people serve.
9 God, you caused much rain to fall
on your special land.
You made it fresh again
when it had been dry.[e]
10 Your own people came to live in it.
God, because you are kind,
you gave many good things to poor people.
11 The Lord gives a command!
Very many women take his message to other places.
12 Kings with large armies quickly run away.
Yes, they run away!
The women at home share the valuable things
that the armies have left behind.
13 Even those who stayed to take care of the sheep
found valuable things,
like a dove with silver wings
and bright gold feathers.[f]
14 When the Almighty God chased away foreign kings,
it was like snow that fell on Mount Zalmon.
15 Bashan mountain is great, like God.
It has many high rocks.
16 You high mountains, why are you jealous
when you look at Zion mountain?
That is the mountain where God has chosen to live.
Yes, that is where the Lord will live for ever!
17 God has millions of chariots.
The Lord has come from Sinai mountain
to his own holy place.
18 When you went up to the highest place,
you took many prisoners with you.
You received gifts from men,
even from the men who had fought against you.
Yes, the Lord God lives there!
19 Praise the Lord, as he deserves!
Every day he helps us with our troubles.
He is the God who keeps us safe!
Selah.
20 Our God is the God who rescues people.
The Almighty Lord saves us from death.
21 He will knock down the heads of his enemies.
He will destroy their skulls and their long hair,
if they continue to turn against him.
22 The Lord says, ‘I will bring my enemies back from Bashan,
even from deep down in the sea.
23 Then you can wash your feet in their blood.
Your dogs can have as much as they want!’[g]
24 God, you are my God and my King.
People will see the great crowd that goes with you,
as you go to your holy temple.
25 The singers will march in front.
The musicians will follow them.
Young women will be with them
as they beat their tambourines.
26 They all sing,
‘Praise God, all you crowd of people!
All you people of Israel,
praise the Lord!’
27 Benjamin, the smallest tribe, will lead them all.
The leaders of Judah, with their big group, will follow.
Then will come the leaders of Zebulun and Naphtali.[h]
28 God has commanded that you should be strong.
God, please show again how strong you are,
as you have used your strength to help us in past times.
29 As you live in your temple in Jerusalem,
kings will bring gifts to you.
30 Speak against your enemies!
Some are like wild animals that live in the reeds.[i]
Some are proud nations,
like bulls among their young cows.
They must be humble and offer to you
gifts of valuable silver things.
Chase away those nations that like to fight wars.
31 Egypt's leaders will come with gifts.
People will come from Cush
and they will agree to serve God.[j]
32 All you kingdoms of the earth,
sing to God!
Yes, sing to praise the Lord!
Selah.
33 He is the one who rides in the sky,
as he has done from the beginning of time.
Listen! He shouts with a powerful voice.
34 Agree that God is very powerful!
He is the King who rules over Israel.
He shows his power in the skies.
35 God, how great you are,
as you come from your holy temple!
He is the God of Israel.
He gives power to his people,
and he makes them strong.
Praise God as he deserves!
Abraham's sons
21 The Lord was kind to Sarah. He did what he had promised to do for her. 2 Sarah became pregnant. She gave birth to a son for Abraham when he was very old. This happened at the time when God had said that it would.[a]
3 Abraham called his son ‘Isaac’. This is the son that Sarah gave birth to. 4 When Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him. That is what God had told him to do.[b]
5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son, Isaac, was born. 6 Sarah said, ‘Now God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears about what has happened will be happy with me.’ 7 She also said, ‘Abraham would never have thought that I would feed a child at my breasts. But I have given birth to a son for him, even when he is old.’
8 The child grew stronger, and he began to eat food. On that day, Abraham prepared a big party meal.
9 Then Sarah saw that Ishmael was laughing at Isaac. (Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian servant.) 10 So Sarah said to Abraham, ‘Send that slave woman and her son away from here. Ishmael must never receive any of our family's things. Everything must belong to my own son, Isaac.’
11 This made Abraham very sad, because Ishmael was his own son.
12 God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be upset about Ishmael or about Hagar. Do whatever Sarah tells you. Your family's descendants will come through Isaac, not Ishmael. 13 But, because Ishmael is also your son, I will make his descendants become a great nation of people too.’
14 Abraham woke up early the next morning. He took some food and some water in a bottle that was made from animal skin. He gave them to Hagar and he put them on her shoulders. Then he sent Hagar away, with their son, Ishmael.
She went and she travelled round the wilderness of Beersheba.[c] 15 After they had drunk all the water, Hagar put her son in the shade under a bush. 16 She herself went and sat down about 100 metres away from him. She thought, ‘I cannot watch the boy die.’ As she sat there, she began to cry.
17 Ishmael was crying and God heard him. The angel of God spoke to Hagar from heaven. He said, ‘What is the trouble, Hagar? Do not be afraid. God has heard the boy while he is crying there. 18 Go over to him and lift him up. Take hold of his hand and help him to stand. I will make him become a great nation of people.’[d]
19 Then God helped Hagar to see clearly. She saw a well with water in it. She went to the well and she filled the bottle with water. She gave the boy some water to drink.
20 God took care of Ishmael while he grew up. The boy lived in the desert. He became a hunter of wild animals. 21 He lived in the Paran wilderness. Hagar, his mother, found an Egyptian wife for him to marry.
13 All these people continued to believe God until they died. But they did not receive all the things that God had promised to give them. They were like people who saw those things far away. That made them happy. These people understood that they lived as strangers and travellers on the earth. 14 People who live in that way show that they expect to live somewhere else one day. That is the place where they will really be at home. 15 They were not thinking about the country that they had left. They could have gone back there if they really wanted to. 16 No, they wanted very much to go to a better place, in heaven. For that reason, God is not ashamed for them to call him their God. He has already prepared a city for them to live in.
17 Here is another example of Abraham's faith. God wanted to see whether Abraham really trusted him. Because Abraham believed God, he offered his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. God had promised Abraham that he would have many grandchildren. But Abraham was still ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice. 18 God had said to Abraham, ‘It is through Isaac that your family will continue.’ 19 But Abraham was sure that, if Isaac died, God could raise Isaac to life again. We could even say that is a picture of what really happened. It was like Abraham did receive Isaac back from death.[a]
20 Isaac himself also believed God. As a result of his faith, he asked God to bless his sons, Jacob and Esau. He trusted that God would help them in the future time.[b]
21 Jacob believed God. As a result of his faith, he asked God to bless each of Joseph's sons. Jacob did that when he was dying. At that time, he used his stick to hold himself up while he worshipped God.[c]
22 Joseph also believed God. At the end of his life, he spoke about what would happen to the family of Israel's people after his death. He understood that they would leave Egypt one day. As a result of his faith, he told his family where they should bury his bones.[d]
41 Jesus had said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ When he said this, the Jewish leaders there did not like it. So they started to say bad things about Jesus. 42 They said, ‘This is Jesus, the son of Joseph. We know his father and his mother. He should not say that he came down from heaven.’
43 Jesus answered, ‘Stop saying these bad things about me to each other. 44 The Father has sent me. Nobody can come to me unless the Father brings them to me. I will raise those people up on the last day, so that they have life for ever. 45 The prophets wrote in the Bible, “God will teach all the people.” Everyone who hears the Father's message and learns from him will come to me.[a] 46 I came from God and I am the only one who has seen the Father. Nobody else has seen him. 47 I tell you this: The person who believes my message has life for ever. 48 I am the bread that causes you to live. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, but they died. 50 This bread that comes down from heaven is different. Anyone who eats this bread will not die. 51 I am the bread that gives life to people. This bread came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live for ever. The bread that I will give is my own body. I will give it so that all people in the world may have life with God.’
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