Book of Common Prayer

This is a special song that Ethan the Ezrahite wrote.

God's special love^[a]

God's covenant with David

A sad song

Jacob's family

30 Rachel now knew that she could not give birth to any children for Jacob. So she became jealous of her sister. Rachel said to Jacob, ‘Please give me children. If not, I will die.’^{[a] 2} Jacob became angry with Rachel. He said, ‘Am I God? God has stopped you from giving birth to children!’ ³ Rachel said, ‘Take my servant Bilhah and have sex with her. Then she can have children on my behalf. Through her, I can have a family.’^[b]

⁴ So Rachel gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob to become his wife. ⁵ Bilhah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ⁶ Rachel said, ‘God has shown that I am right. He has listened to me and he has given a son to me.’ Because of this, she called the boy Dan. ⁷ Rachel's servant Bilhah became pregnant again. She gave birth to another son for Jacob. ⁸ Rachel said, ‘I have fought with my sister and I have won.’ She called this son Naphtali.

⁹ Leah saw that she had stopped having children. So she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Zilpah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ¹¹ Leah said, ‘This is very good.’ She called the boy Gad. ¹² Leah's servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. ¹³ Leah said, ‘I am very happy! Women will call me happy.’ So she called this boy Asher.

¹⁴ It was the time for the harvest of wheat. Reuben went out and he found some mandrake plants in a field. He took them to his mother, Leah. Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of the mandrakes that your son gave to you.’^{[c] 15} But Leah said to Rachel, ‘You took my husband from me. That was bad enough! Now you want to take my son's mandrakes too!’ Rachel said, ‘OK. If you give me some of your son's mandrakes, Jacob can sleep with you tonight.’

¹⁶ In the evening, Jacob came in from the fields. Leah went out to meet him. She said, ‘You must sleep with me tonight. I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes.’ So Jacob slept with Leah that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah and she became pregnant again. She gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. ¹⁸ Leah said, ‘God has helped me because I gave my servant to Jacob as a wife.’ She called her son Issachar.

¹⁹ Leah became pregnant again and she gave Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰ Leah said, ‘God has given me this valuable gift. Now my husband will respect me because I have given him six sons.’ She called this son Zebulun.

²¹ After some time, Leah became pregnant again. She gave birth to a daughter. She called her daughter Dinah.

²² Then God decided to help Rachel. He listened to her and he let her become pregnant. ²³ She became pregnant and she gave birth to a son. Rachel said, ‘I am not ashamed any longer, because God has given me a son.’ ²⁴ Rachel called her son Joseph. She said, ‘I pray that the Lord will give me another son.’

Jesus is God's message to people

1 We have an important message to tell you. We want to tell you about the person who was already there before the beginning of the world. We have heard him speak. We have seen him with our own eyes. We watched him and we touched him. He is the Word that gives us life with God.^[a]

² He showed himself clearly when he lived on this earth. From long ago he was together with God the Father, and he lives for ever. We saw him and we are telling you what is true. He is the one who has shown himself to us. ³ We also want you to share this new life with us. We share this life with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. That is why we are telling you about everything that we have seen and heard. ⁴ We are writing to you so that together we all may be completely happy.

God is light

⁵ We are telling you the good news that Jesus Christ told to us. This is the message: God is completely good and clean. He is like light. There is nothing dark about him. ⁶ Do you say that you share in the life that God gives? If you say that, but if you still live in the dark, you are telling a lie. You are not living in God's true way. ⁷ But when we live in a right way, it is like living in the light. God is always in the light. So, if we live in the light, we share together in the life which God gives. And when Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross, he saved us from all our sins. The blood of his sacrifice makes us clean.

⁸ If we say that we never do any wrong thing, we are deceiving ourselves. Even though we may think it is true, it is a lie. ⁹ Instead, we should agree that we have done wrong things and tell that to God. Then God will forgive us for our sins. He always does what he has promised to do. He always does what is right. He will forgive us and he will make us clean again, whatever bad things we may have done. ¹⁰ God says that all people have done wrong things. So, if we say that we have not done any wrong thing, we are saying that God tells lies. It shows that we have not accepted his message at all.

Jesus makes a blind man able to see

9 While Jesus was walking along, he saw a certain man. This man had been blind since he was born. ² Jesus' disciples asked him, ‘Teacher, why was this man blind when he was born? Was it because he himself did something wrong? Or was it because his parents did something wrong?’ ³ Jesus answered, ‘It was not because either this man or his parents did something wrong. It happened so that God could show his great work in this man. ⁴ While it is still day, we must continue to work. God has sent me and we must do his work. We must work now because it will be night soon. Then nobody can work. ⁵ While I am still here in the world, I am the world's light.’

⁶ When Jesus had finished speaking, he spat on the ground. He mixed it with dirt on the ground so that he made mud. Then he put some of the mud on the eyes of the blind man. ⁷ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and wash in the Siloam pool.’ (The name Siloam means ‘Sent’.) So the man went there and he washed himself. When he returned, now he could see.

⁸ People began to talk about him. Some of these people lived near him. Others had seen him when he was asking for money. They said, ‘This is the man who sat here. He asked people to give him money. Isn't that right?’ ⁹ Some people said, ‘Yes, it is him.’ But other people said, ‘No, it is someone who seems to be like him.’ But the man himself said, ‘I am that man.’

¹⁰ They asked him, ‘How did your eyes now become able to see?’ ¹¹ He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made some mud. He put the mud on my eyes. Then he sent me to wash in the Siloam pool. So I went there and I washed. Then I could see.’

¹² They asked him, ‘Where is this man?’ He replied, ‘I do not know.’

The Pharisees talk to the man who had been blind

¹³ The people brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. ¹⁴ It was a Jewish day of rest when Jesus had done this miracle. He had used mud to make the man's eyes able to see. ¹⁵ So the Pharisees asked the man again, ‘How did you become able to see?’ The man replied, ‘Jesus put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I can see.’

¹⁶ So some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man Jesus cannot have come from God. He does not obey the rules about our day of rest.’ But other Pharisees said, ‘Nobody who is bad could do great things like this!’ So they did not agree with each other. ¹⁷ The Pharisees spoke again to the man who had been blind. They said to him, ‘What do you yourself say about this man? It was your eyes he has now made able to see.’ The man replied, ‘He is a prophet.’