Book of Common Prayer
This is a special song that the sons of Korah wrote for the music leader. Sing it to the music that they call ‘Lilies.’
A love song[a]
45 This beautiful song makes my heart very happy.
I will sing this special poem to the king.
My voice is ready to sing it very well,
as well as a clever writer can write with a pen.
2 You are the most handsome man that there is.
You speak kind words in a beautiful way.
And so God will continue to bless you for ever.
3 Brave soldier, wear your sword at your side!
Show what a great king you are!
4 Wear your royal clothes
and ride out to win against your enemies!
Win the war on behalf of truth and justice!
Then your strong right hand will do powerful things!
5 Your sharp arrows will cut into the heart of your enemies.
Nations will fall down under your feet.
6 God, you will continue to rule as king
always and for ever.
Your authority as king will bring justice to your people.
7 You love people to do what is right,
and you hate anything that is evil.
So God, your God, has chosen you
to be greater than all your people.
He has put special olive oil on you,
to make you happy.
8 All your clothes have the beautiful smell
of myrrh, aloes and cassia.
You hear the music of stringed instruments
that comes from beautiful palaces.
That makes you happy.
9 The daughters of kings are among your visitors.
Your royal bride stands at your right hand.
She is wearing gold from Ophir.
10 Royal daughter, listen to me.
Listen carefully to what I am saying.
Forget your people and your family.
11 You are very beautiful
and the king will want to be with you.
He is your master, so respect him.
12 Rich people will come from Tyre to give gifts to you.
They will want you to help them.
13 The king's bride is in the palace,
and she looks beautiful!
Her dress has gold threads in it.[b]
14 Now they lead her to the king in her beautiful clothes.
Her young friends follow after her
to bring her to the king.
15 They are very happy as they walk together
and they go into the king's palace.
16 You will have sons to become kings,
as your ancestors were kings before you.
You will make them princes
to rule over all the land.
17 In future years I will cause people to remember
that you are a great king!
Then people will praise you always and for ever.
The sons of Korah wrote this psalm for the music leader.
God rules the earth!
47 People from every nation,
clap your hands together.
Shout aloud to God,
with the sound of happy songs.
2 The Lord, the Most High God, is wonderful.
He is the great King
who rules over the whole earth.
3 He has won the battle against our enemies,
and those nations are now under our power.
4 He chose a special land to belong to us.
Jacob's descendants are proud of that land.
They are his own people that he loves.
Selah.
5 God has gone up to sit on his throne,
while the people shout aloud.
The Lord has gone up there,
while the trumpets make a loud noise.
6 Sing to praise God! Yes, sing!
Sing to praise our king! Sing!
7 God is the King who rules over the whole earth!
So sing a special song to praise him!
8 God rules over the nations.
God is sitting on his holy throne.
9 The leaders of the nations have met together.
They have joined with the people who serve Abraham's God.[a]
God has authority over all the world's rulers
and their armies.
Everyone should praise him,
for he is great!
This is a psalm that the sons of Korah wrote.
Zion is God's city
48 The Lord is great.
He deserves that people praise him
in the city of our God,
on his holy mountain.
2 That place is high up and it is beautiful.
It brings joy to the whole world.
Mount Zion is the city of the great King.
It is where the true God lives.[b]
3 God is there in its strong places
and he keeps the city safe.
4 Look! There are kings of other nations
who join together to attack our city.
5 But when they come near and they see it,
they are very surprised.
It frightens them so much
that they quickly run away!
6 They cannot stop themselves shaking,
like a woman who is giving birth to a baby!
7 You push them away,
like an east wind that destroys great ships.
8 We had heard about the great things that God has done.
Now we have seen them for ourselves,
here in the city of the Lord Almighty,
the city of our God.
It is God who keeps the city safe for ever!
Selah.
9 When we are in your temple, God,
we think about your faithful love.
10 You are famous all over the world,
so that people praise you as you deserve.
You are powerful
and you rule with justice.
11 Because you judge people in a right way,
Mount Zion and all the towns of Judah will be happy.
12 Walk all round Zion and look at it.
Count the towers.
13 Look at its strong buildings and its strong walls.
Then you will be able to describe it to your children.[c]
14 Yes, this is our God, who is with us for ever!
He will always be our guide.
16 People forget about wise people
as quickly as they forget about fools.
One day, nobody will remember any of them.
It is true! As fools all have to die, wise people will also die.
17 So I hated life. Everything that happens on the earth only brings me trouble. Nothing has any purpose. It is as useless as somebody who tries to catch the wind.
Work has no purpose
18 I thought about all the hard work that I have done here on the earth. When I die, all the things that I worked so hard to get will belong to the next king. So I hated all my hard work. 19 The next king may be a wise man, or he may be a foolish man. Nobody knows! But all the things that I used my wisdom and hard work to get will belong to him. All this has no purpose. 20 So I was very upset when I thought about all my hard work on the earth. 21 Some people are very wise and clever. They use their knowledge to provide good things for themselves. But after they die, someone else will have all their things. Their good things will belong to someone who did not have to work to get them. This also has no purpose. It only brings trouble.
22 People have to do a lot of hard work on this earth and it causes them to worry. But in the end, they have nothing. 23 Every day, their work causes their bodies to suffer. At night, their minds do not have any rest. All this has no purpose.
24 So I decided what is best for us to do. We should be happy to eat and to drink. And we should enjoy our work. I realized that all these things are gifts from God. 25 Without God's help, nobody can eat anything or enjoy anything. 26 God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy to people who please him. Wicked people may work hard and become rich. But God takes away their valuable things and he gives them to someone who pleases him. So their hard work has no purpose. It is like somebody who tries to catch the wind.
18 Then, three years later, I did go to Jerusalem. I stayed there with Christ's apostle Peter for 15 days, so that he could teach me. 19 I did not see any other apostles, except James, who is the Lord's brother. 20 God knows that what I am writing to you is completely true! 21 Later, I went to different places in Syria and Cilicia.[a] 22 The Christians in the churches in Judea had never met me.[b] 23 They had only heard people say this about me: ‘This man caused bad trouble against us Christians before. He tried to destroy God's message about Jesus. But now he himself is telling people the good news about Jesus, so that they believe.’ 24 When the believers in Judea heard that, they praised God because of me.
The apostles in Jerusalem accept Paul
2 14 years later, I went to Jerusalem again. This time I went with Barnabas, and I also took Titus with me. 2 I went there because God had shown me that I should go. I talked to the Christian leaders there. I explained to them the good news that I teach to the Gentiles. But I talked only to those men who seemed to be the leaders. I wanted to be sure that they agreed with the message that I taught. I did not want my work, both in past times and now, to be worth nothing. 3 Titus was with me then. He is a Greek person and nobody had circumcised him. But the leaders in Jerusalem did not say that we must circumcise him.[c]
4 But some men did want us to obey all the Jewish rules. Those men came secretly among our group. They said that they were believers, but they were not really true believers. They wanted to see how we lived as believers. They wanted to know how Christ Jesus has made us free from the Jewish rules. They wanted to make us slaves to those rules. 5 But we did not allow them to do this to us. They wanted to spoil the true good news that you have believed. We kept the good news safe for you.
6 The church leaders in Jerusalem did not argue with me. (They were the people who seemed to be the leaders. It does not matter to me whether they were really important people or not. God does not respect some people more than others.) Those leaders did not tell me to change the message that I teach. 7 Instead they saw that God had given a special job to me. God wanted me to tell the good news about Christ to the Gentiles. In the same way, he had told Peter to tell the good news to the Jews. 8 God gave Peter the authority to be his apostle to the Jews. God also gave me the authority to be his apostle to the Gentiles.
9 James, Peter and John understood that God had given this special job to me. They are the leaders that the church in Jerusalem respects. And they were happy to accept Barnabas and me as their friends. They agreed that we should teach God's message to the Gentiles. They themselves would continue to teach the Jews. 10 They only asked us to do this: We should remember to help the poor people among their group. That is something that I myself wanted very much to do.
53 When Jesus had finished telling these stories, he went away from that place.
Jesus goes to Nazareth
54 Jesus returned to his own town. He taught the Jewish people in their meeting room there. The people were very surprised about the things that he taught them. They said to each other, ‘We do not know how this man learned all these things. And we do not know how he does all these powerful things. 55 We know who he is. He is the son of the carpenter here.[a] Mary is his mother. We also know his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. 56 All his sisters also live here in the town among us. So then, where did he learn all these things?’ 57 So the people there did not accept Jesus.
Jesus said to them, ‘If a man is a prophet from God, people everywhere will say good things about him. But the people in his own town will not accept him. Even the people of his own house will not say good things about him.’
58 Jesus did not do many powerful things in that town because the people would not believe in him.
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