Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 97
97 The Lord rules! Let the earth rejoice!
Let all the islands celebrate!
2 Clouds and thick darkness surround God.
His throne is built on righteousness and justice.
3 Fire proceeds before him,
burning up his enemies on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees it and trembles!
5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of the whole world!
6 Heaven has proclaimed God’s righteousness,
and all nations have seen his glory.
7 All those who worship images,
those who are proud of idols,
are put to shame.
All gods bow down to the Lord!
8 Zion has heard and celebrates,
the towns[a] of Judah rejoice,
because of your acts of justice, Lord,
9 because you, Lord, are the Most High
over all the earth,
because you are so superior to all other gods.
10 Those of you who love the Lord, hate evil!
God guards the lives of his faithful ones,
delivering them from the power of the wicked.
11 Light is planted like seed for the righteous person;
joy too for those whose heart is right.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, righteous ones!
Give thanks to his holy name!
Psalm 99
99 The Lord rules—
the nations shake!
He sits enthroned on the winged heavenly creatures—
the earth quakes!
2 The Lord is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
3 Let them thank your great and awesome name.
He is holy!
4 Strong king[a] who loves justice,
you are the one who established what is fair.
You worked justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Magnify the Lord, our God!
Bow low at his footstool!
He is holy!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel too among those who called on his name.
They cried out to the Lord, and he himself answered them—
7 he spoke to them from a pillar of cloud.
They kept the laws and the rules God gave to them.
8 Lord our God, you answered them.
To them you were a God who forgives
but also the one who avenged their wrong deeds.
9 Magnify the Lord our God!
Bow low at his holy mountain
because the Lord our God is holy!
Psalm 100
A psalm of thanks.
100 Shout triumphantly to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with celebration!
Come before him with shouts of joy!
3 Know that the Lord is God—
he made us; we belong to him.[b]
We are his people,
the sheep of his own pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanks;
enter his courtyards with praise!
Thank him! Bless his name!
5 Because the Lord is good,
his loyal love lasts forever;
his faithfulness lasts generation after generation.
Psalm 94
94 Lord, avenging God—
avenging God, show yourself!
2 Rise up, judge of the earth!
Pay back the arrogant exactly what they deserve!
3 How long will the wicked—oh, Lord!—
how long will the wicked win?
4 They spew arrogant words;
all the evildoers are bragging.
5 They crush your own people, Lord!
They abuse your very own possession.
6 They kill widows and immigrants;
they murder orphans,
7 saying all the while,
“The Lord can’t see it;
Jacob’s God doesn’t know
what’s going on!”
8 You ignorant people better learn quickly.
You fools—when will you get some sense?
9 The one who made the ear,
can’t he hear?
The one who formed the eye,
can’t he see?
10 The one who disciplines nations,
can’t he punish?
The one who teaches humans,
doesn’t he know?[a]
11 The Lord does indeed know human thoughts,
knows that they are nothing but a puff of air.
12 The people you discipline, Lord, are truly happy—
the ones you teach from your Instruction—
13 giving them relief from troubling times
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 The Lord will not reject his people;
he will not abandon his very own possession.
15 No, but justice will once again meet up with righteousness,
and all whose heart is right will follow after.
16 Who will stand up for me against the wicked?
Who will help me against evildoers?
17 If the Lord hadn’t helped me,
I[b] would live instantly in total silence.
18 Whenever I feel my foot slipping,
your faithful love steadies me, Lord.
19 When my anxieties multiply,
your comforting calms me down.
20 Can a wicked ruler be your ally;
one who wreaks havoc by means of the law?
21 The wicked gang up against the lives of the righteous.
They condemn innocent blood.
22 But the Lord is my fortress;
my God is my rock of refuge.
23 He will repay them for their wickedness,
completely destroy them because of their evil.
Yes, the Lord our God will completely destroy them.
Psalm 95
95 Come, let’s sing out loud to the Lord!
Let’s raise a joyful shout to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let’s come before him with thanks!
Let’s shout songs of joy to him!
3 The Lord is a great God,
the great king over all other gods.
4 The earth’s depths are in his hands;
the mountain heights belong to him;
5 the sea, which he made, is his
along with the dry ground,
which his own hands formed.
6 Come, let’s worship and bow down!
Let’s kneel before the Lord, our maker!
7 He is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
the sheep in his hands.
If only you would listen to his voice right now!
8 “Don’t harden your hearts
like you did at Meribah,
like you did when you were at Massah,
in the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors tested me
and scrutinized me,
even though they had already seen my acts.
10 For forty years I despised that generation;
I said, ‘These people have twisted hearts.
They don’t know my ways.’
11 So in anger I swore:
‘They will never enter my place of rest!’”
Jacob’s household leaves Laban
31 Jacob heard that Laban’s sons were saying, “Jacob took everything our father owned and from it he produced all of this wealth.” 2 And Jacob saw that Laban no longer liked him as much as he used to.
3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your ancestors and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”
4 So Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah and summoned them into the field where his flock was. 5 He said to them, “I am aware that your father no longer likes me as much as he used to. But my father’s God has been with me. 6 You know that I’ve worked for your father as hard as I could. 7 But your father cheated me and changed my payment ten times. Yet God didn’t let him harm me. 8 If he said, ‘The speckled ones will be your payment,’ the whole flock gave birth to speckled young. And if he said, ‘The striped ones will be your payment,’ the whole flock gave birth to striped young. 9 God took away your father’s livestock and gave them to me. 10 When the flocks were mating, I looked up and saw in a dream that the male goats that mounted the flock were striped, speckled, and spotted. 11 In the dream, God’s messenger said to me, ‘Jacob!’ and I said, ‘I’m here.’ 12 He said, ‘Look up and watch all the striped, speckled, and spotted male goats mounting the flock. I’ve seen everything that Laban is doing to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a sacred pillar and where you made a solemn promise to me. Now, get up and leave this country and go back to the land of your relatives.’”
14 Rachel and Leah answered him, “Is there any share or inheritance left for us in our father’s household? 15 Doesn’t he think of us as foreigners since he sold us and has even used up the payment he received for us? 16 All of the wealth God took from our father belongs to us and our children. Now, do everything God told you to do.”
17 So Jacob got up, put his sons and wives on the camels, 18 and set out with all of his livestock and all of his possessions that he had acquired[a] in Paddan-aram in order to return to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. 19 Now, while Laban was out shearing his sheep, Rachel stole the household’s divine images that belonged to her father. 20 Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not sending word to him that he was leaving. 21 So Jacob and his entire household left. He got up, crossed the river, and set out directly for the mountains of Gilead.
22 Three days later, Laban found out that Jacob had gone, 23 so Laban took his brothers with him, chased Jacob for seven days, and caught up with him in the mountains of Gilead. 24 That night, God appeared to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said, “Be careful and don’t say anything hastily to Jacob one way or the other.”
Living in the light
2 My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you don’t sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. 2 He is God’s way of dealing with our sins, not only ours but the sins of the whole world. 3 This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. 4 The one who claims, “I know him,” while not keeping his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in this person. 5 But the love of God is truly perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know we are in him. 6 The one who claims to remain in him ought to live in the same way as he lived.
7 Dear friends, I’m not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the message you heard. 8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines. 9 The one who claims to be in the light while hating a brother or sister is in the darkness even now. 10 The person loving a brother and sister stays in the light, and there is nothing in the light that causes a person to stumble. 11 But the person who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and lives in the darkness, and doesn’t know where to go because the darkness blinds the eyes.
Conflict over the healing
18 The Jewish leaders didn’t believe the man had been blind and received his sight until they called for his parents. 19 The Jewish leaders asked them, “Is this your son? Are you saying he was born blind? How can he now see?”
20 His parents answered, “We know he is our son. We know he was born blind. 21 But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who healed his eyes. Ask him. He’s old enough to speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they feared the Jewish authorities. This is because the Jewish authorities had already decided that whoever confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be expelled from the synagogue. 23 That’s why his parents said, “He’s old enough. Ask him.”
24 Therefore, they called a second time for the man who had been born blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner.”
25 The man answered, “I don’t know whether he’s a sinner. Here’s what I do know: I was blind and now I see.”
26 They questioned him: “What did he do to you? How did he heal your eyes?”
27 He replied, “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
28 They insulted him: “You are his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but we don’t know where this man is from.”
30 The man answered, “This is incredible! You don’t know where he is from, yet he healed my eyes! 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God’s will. 32 No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man wasn’t from God, he couldn’t do this.”
34 They responded, “You were born completely in sin! How is it that you dare to teach us?” Then they expelled him.
Jesus finds the man born blind
35 Jesus heard they had expelled the man born blind. Finding him, Jesus said, “Do you believe in the Human One?”[a]
36 He answered, “Who is he, sir?[b] I want to believe in him.”
37 Jesus said, “You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
38 The man said, “Lord,[c] I believe.” And he worshipped Jesus.
Jesus teaches the Pharisees
39 Jesus said, “I have come into the world to exercise judgment so that those who don’t see can see and those who see will become blind.”
40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard what he said and asked, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t have any sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible