Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 20
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 May the Eternal’s answer find you, come to rescue you,
when you desperately cling to the end of your rope.
May the name of the True God of Jacob be your shelter.
2 May He extend hope and help to you from His holy sanctuary
and support you from His sacred city of Zion.
3 May He remember all that you have offered Him;
may your burnt sacrifices serve as a prelude to His mercy.
[pause][a]
4 May He grant the dreams of your heart
and see your plans through to the end.
5 When you win, we will not be silent! We will shout
and raise high our banners in the great name of our God!
May the Eternal say yes to all your requests.
6 I don’t fear; I’m confident that help will come to the one anointed by the Eternal:
heaven will respond to his plea;
His mighty right hand will win the battle.
7 Many put their hope in chariots, others in horses,
but we place our trust in the name of the Eternal One, our True God.
8 Soon our enemies will collapse and fall, never to return home;
all the while, we will rise and stand firm.
9 Eternal One, grant victory to our king!
Answer our plea for help.
Psalm 21
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 The king is glad because You, O Eternal, are strong.
In light of Your salvation, he is singing Your name.
2 You have given him all he could wish for.
After hearing his prayer, You withheld nothing.
[pause][b]
3 True blessings You lavished upon the king;
a crown of precious gold You placed upon his head.
4 His prayer was to live fully. You responded with even more—
a never-ending life to enjoy.
5 With Your help, his fame and glory have grown;
You raise him high and cover him in majesty.
6 You shower him with blessings that last forever;
he finds joy in knowing Your presence and loving You.
7 For the king puts his trust in the Eternal,
so he will not be shaken
because of the persistent love of the Most High God.
8 King, your hand will reach for all your enemies;
your right hand will seize all who hate you.
9 When you arrive at the battle’s edge,
you will seem to them a furnace.
For the fire of the Eternal’s anger, the heat of His wrath
will burn and consume them.
10 You will cut off their children,
lop off the branches of their family tree.
The earth will never know them,
nor will they ever be numbered among Adam’s kin.
11 When they scheme against you,
when they conspire their mischief, such efforts will be in vain.
12 At the sight of you, they will sound the retreat;
your bows, drawn back, will aim directly at their faces.
13 Put Your strength, Eternal One, on display for all to see;
we will sing and make music of Your mighty power.
Psalm 110
A song of David.
Psalm 110 may have been written to celebrate the coronation of one of David’s sons as king. The Eternal invites the royal son of David to take his rightful place at His right hand, the place of power and authority—not just over Jerusalem but over his enemies as well. But the royal son is to be more than a king, he is to be a priest according the order of that mysterious and enigmatic figure, Melchizedek (Genesis 14:17-24). God promises to give this royal priest-king victory over his enemies as he marches out to war.
This psalm is the psalm most quoted by early Christian writers in the New Testament. As they considered the significance of Jesus, they found that this psalm, more than any, expressed their conviction that the risen Jesus now occupies a unique place at God’s right hand and will be victorious over His enemies.
1 The Eternal said to my lord,
“Sit here at My right hand,
in the place of honor and power,
And I will gather your enemies together,
lead them in on hands and knees;
you will rest your feet on their backs.”
2 The Eternal will extend your reach as you rule
from your throne on Zion.
You will be out in enemy lands, ruling.
3 Your people will come as volunteers that day; they will be a sight to see:
on that day, you will lead your army, noble in their holiness.
As the new day dawns and dew settles on the grass,
your young volunteers will make their way to you.
4 The Eternal has sworn an oath
and cannot change His mind:
“You are a priest forever—
in the honored order of Melchizedek.”
5 The lord is at Your right hand;
on the day that his fury comes to its peak, he will crush kings.
6 You will see the dead in heaps at the roadside,
corpses spread far and wide in valleys and on hillsides.
Rulers and military leaders will lie among them without distinction.
This will be his judgment on the nations.
7 There is a brook along the way.
He will stop there and drink;
And when he is finished,
he will raise his head.
Psalm 116
1 I love the Eternal; for not only does He hear
my voice, my pleas for mercy,
2 But He leaned down when I was in trouble and brought His ear close to me.
So as long as I have breath, I will call on Him.
3 Once I was wound in the wrappings of death;
the terror of dying and the grave had a grip on me;
I could not get away, for I was entombed in distress and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the Eternal:
“O Eternal One—I am begging You—save me!”
5 The Eternal is full of grace and naturally just;
our God is compassionate and merciful.
6 And the Eternal watches over the naive.
Whenever I was knocked down, He reached down and saved me.
7 O my soul! Return and relax. Come to your true rest,
for the Eternal has showered you with His favor.
8 God, You alone rescued my soul from the grips of death,
my eyes from weeping,
and my feet from slipping.
9 I will come before the Eternal
as long as I journey in the land of the living.
10 I believed Your promise; therefore I spoke,
“I am in deep trouble.”
11 In my confusion I blurted out,
“All people are liars!”
12 How will I pay back the Eternal
for all His graciousness toward me?
13 I will raise the cup of deliverance
and call out the name of the Eternal.
14 I will fulfill the promises I made to Him
here as a witness to all His people.
15 Precious in the eyes of the Eternal
are the deaths of those who follow after Him.
16 O Eternal One, You know I am Your servant.
I am Your servant, a child of Your maidservant, devoted to You;
You have cut me loose from the chains of death that bind me.
17 And I come, eager to offer a sacrifice of gratitude
and call on the name of the Eternal.
18 I will fulfill the promises I made to Him
here as a witness to all His people
19 In the courts of the Eternal’s temple,
among the people of God’s city, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Eternal!
Psalm 117
1 Praise the Eternal, all nations.
Raise your voices, all people.[a]
2 For His unfailing love is great, and it is intended for us,
and His faithfulness to His promises knows no end.
Praise the Eternal!
17 Three days after his arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders.
Paul: Brothers, although I committed no wrong against our Jewish people or our ancestral customs, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. 18 The Romans examined me and wanted to set me free because I had committed no capital offense. 19 But my Jewish opponents objected, so I had to appeal to the emperor—even though I had no charges against me and had filed no charges against my nation. 20 I wanted to gather you together and explain all this to you. I want you to understand that it is because of Israel’s hope that I am bound with this chain.
Luke’s account of the early church ends abruptly: one of the story’s heroes, Paul, is under house arrest in Rome awaiting trial. Other sources will recount how Paul is later martyred in Rome, a victim of Nero’s paranoia and cruelty. But Luke’s story isn’t a biography of Paul; it is a narration about “the Way” as it moved geographically and culturally from Jerusalem (at the edge of the empire) to Rome (the celebrated center of the world). Therefore, Luke’s story finishes once the message of Jesus is spreading without hindrance.
As it moves geographically, “the Way,” as Jesus’ followers preferred to call it, crosses cultural, linguistic, and religious boundaries. At each and every point, Luke assures, the Spirit is there demonstrating God’s blessing on and approval of the emissaries who walk in the footsteps of Jesus and in fulfillment of prophecies. Clearly what happened in those early decades was driven by the Spirit-wind of heaven; and God’s purposes are realized through the faithful obedience of disciples such as Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul.
Luke’s account has ended, but the story about the acts of God through the church continues into our day. We are the characters in the current volume of salvation history. Through our faithful obedience, also empowered by the Spirit-wind of heaven, our stories are part of the anthology of God’s new creation.
Jewish Leaders: 21 We haven’t received letters from Judea about you, and no visiting brother has reported anything or said anything negative about you. 22 So we are interested in hearing your viewpoint on the sect you represent. The only thing we know about it is that people everywhere speak against it.
23 They scheduled a day to meet again, and a large number came to his lodging. From morning until evening, he explained his message to them—giving his account of the kingdom of God, trying to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets’ writings. 24 Some were convinced, but others refused to believe.
Paul (adding as they left in disagreement): 25 The Holy Spirit rightly spoke to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah,
26 Go to this people and say,
“You certainly do hear, but you will never understand;
you certainly do see, but you will never have insight.
27 Make their hearts hard,
their ears deaf, and their eyes blind.
Otherwise, they would look and see,
listen and hear,
understand and repent,
and be healed.”[a]
28 So let it be known to you that God’s liberation, God’s healing, has been sent to the outsiders, and they will listen.
[29 Then the local Jewish leaders left Paul to discuss all he had told them.][b]
30 For two full years, he lived there in Rome, paying all his own expenses, receiving all who came to him. 31 With great confidence and with no hindrance, he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the ultimate authority—the Lord Jesus, God’s Anointed, the Liberating King.
37 They came down the mountain, and the next day yet another huge crowd gathered around Jesus. There was a man in the crowd who shouted out.
Man in Crowd: 38 Teacher! Please come and look at my son here, my only child. 39 From time to time, a demonic spirit seizes him. It makes him scream and go into convulsions. He foams at the mouth. It nearly destroys him and only leaves after causing him great distress. 40 While You were up on the mountain, I begged Your disciples to liberate him from this spirit, but they were incapable of helping us.
Jesus: 41 O generation faithless, twisted, and crooked, how long can I be with you? How much can I bear? Bring your boy here.
42 The boy had taken a few steps toward Jesus when suddenly the demon seemed to rip into the boy, throwing him into convulsions. Jesus spoke sternly to the demonic spirit, and the boy was healed. Jesus presented the boy to his father.
43 The crowd began cheering and discussing this amazing healing and the power of God, but Jesus turned to His disciples.
Jesus: 44 Listen. Listen hard. Let these words get down deep: the Son of Man is going to be turned over to the authorities and arrested.
45 They had no idea what He meant by this; they heard the words but missed the meaning, and they felt too afraid to ask Him to explain further.
46 Later the close followers of Jesus began to argue over the stupid and vain question, “Which one of us is the greatest disciple?”
47 Jesus saw what was going on—not just the argument, but the deeper heart issues—so He found a child and had the child stand beside Him.
Jesus: 48 See this little one? Whoever welcomes a little child in My name welcomes Me. And whoever welcomes Me welcomes the One who sent Me. The smallest one among you is therefore the greatest.
John: 49 Master, we found this fellow casting out demons. He said he was doing it in Your name, but he’s not one of our group. So we told him to stop.
Jesus: 50 What? No! Don’t think like that! Whoever is not working against you is working with you.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.