Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41
For the worship leader. A song of David.
The first four books of Psalms end with a variation of the doxology found in verse 13: “Blessed is the Eternal, the True God of Israel. Always and Eternal. Amen and Amen.” This declaration not only provides a natural break—a seam—between the five books, but it also summarizes an essential theme of the psalms. You see, the Book of Psalms is primarily a book of praise to God for His creation, mercy, and salvation. Even when life is hard, our enemies strong, and our health poor, God can be praised for life itself and the ultimate victory to come for those who trust Him.
1 Blessed are those who consider the helpless.
The Eternal will stay near them, leading them to safety in times of bitter struggle.
2 The Eternal defends them and preserves them,
and His blessing will find them in the land He gave them.
He moves ahead to frustrate their enemies’ plans.
3 When sickness comes, the Eternal is beside them—
to comfort them on their sickbeds and restore them to health.
4 And me? I cry out to Him,
“Heal my soul, O Eternal One, and show mercy
because I have sinned against You!”
5 My enemies are talking about me even now:
“When will death come for him and his name be forgotten?”
6 As they sit with me under my roof, their well wishes are empty lies.
They listen to my story
and then turn it around to tell their own version on the street.
7 Across the city, crowds whisper lies about me.
Their hate is strong, and they search for ways to harm me.
8 Some are saying: “Some vile disease has gotten hold of him.
The bed he lies in will be his deathbed.”
9 Even my best friend, my confidant
who has eaten my bread will stab me in the back.[a]
10 But You, Eternal One, show mercy to me.
Extend Your gracious hand, and help me up.
I need to pay them back for what they’ve done to me.
11 I realize now that Your favor has come to me,
for my enemies have yet to declare victory over me.
12 You know and uphold me—a man of honor.
You grant me strength and life forever in Your presence.
13 Blessed is the Eternal, the True God of Israel.
Always and Eternal. Amen and Amen.
Psalm 52
For the worship leader. A contemplative song[a] of David when the Edomite Doeg told Saul that David had received help from Ahimelech.
Psalm 52 recalls the callous way Doeg and Saul put to death the 85 priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:6–19). The psalm ends with a memorable image: the one who keeps faith with God is like a lush olive tree cared for in His garden. While those who do not trust in Him are snatched up and torn away, those who do right will flourish under His care.
1 Why do you boast of all the trouble you stir up, O mighty one,
when the constant, unfailing love of God is what truly lasts?
2 Have you listened to yourself?
Your tongue is like a sharp razor,
full of lies that slash and tear right to the soul.
3 You’ve fallen in love with evil and have no interest in what He calls good.
You prefer your own lies to speaking what is true.
[pause][b]
4 You love words that destroy people, don’t you,
lying tongue?
5 You won’t be smiling
when the True God brings His justice and destroys you forever.
He will come into your home, snatch you away,
and pull you from the land of the living.
[pause]
6 Those who are just will see what happens to you and be afraid.
And some of them will laugh and say,
7 “Hey, look! Over there is the one who didn’t take
shelter in the True God;
Instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and got what he wanted by destroying others!”
8 But my life is abundant—like a lush olive tree
cared for at the house of the one True God.
I put my trust in His kind love
forever and ever; it will never fail.
9 Because of all You have done,
I will humble myself and thank You forever.
With Your faithful people at my side,
I will put my hope in Your good reputation.
Psalm 44
For the worship leader. A contemplative song[a] of the sons of Korah.
1 With our own ears, O God, we have heard the stories
our ancestors recited of Your deeds in their days, days long past—
how You saved the day.
2 With a powerful hand, You drove the nations from this land,
but then You planted our parents here.
You fought for us against people of this land;
You set our parents free to enjoy its goodness.
3 They did not win the land with their swords.
It wasn’t their strength that won them victory.
It was Your strength—Your right hand, Your arm,
and the light of Your presence that gave them success,
for You loved them.
4 You are my King, my God!
You ordained victories for Jacob and his people!
5 You are our victory, pushing back the enemy;
at the sound of Your name, we crush the opposition.
6 I don’t trust in my weapons
or in my strength to win me victory.
7 But You rescue us from our foes;
You shame our enemies.
8 We shout Your name all day long;
we will praise Your name forever!
[pause][b]
9 But wait, God, where have You gone? Why have You shamed us?
Why do our armies stand alone?
10 Without Your help we must retreat from our enemy,
and the very ones who despise us pillage us.
11 You have offered us up to our enemies,
like sheep to the slaughter, meat for their feast,
and You have dispersed us among the nations.
12 You sold Your people for mere pennies,
and You gained nothing from the deal.
13 You have made us a joke to our friends and neighbors,
mocked and ridiculed by all those around us.
14 You have brought us infamy among the nations
and made us an object of scorn and laughter to our neighbors.
15 Disgrace follows me everywhere I go; I am constantly embarrassed.
Shame is written across my face
16 Because of the taunting and berating of those who are against me,
because the enemy seeks revenge against me.
17 All this has happened to us,
yet we have never forgotten You;
we have not broken Your covenant with us.
18 Our hearts stayed true to You;
we have never left Your path;
we follow on.
19 Yet You have tested us, left us defeated in a land of jackals,
and shrouded us with the veil of death.
20 Even if we had forgotten the name of our God
or offered praise to another god,
21 Would not the True God have known it?
For He can see the hidden places of our hearts.
22 On Your behalf, our lives are endangered constantly;
we are like sheep awaiting slaughter.[c]
23 Wake up, Lord! Why do You slumber?
Get up! Do not reject us any longer!
24 Why are You still hiding from us?
Why are You still ignoring our suffering and trouble?
25 Look and You will see our souls now dwell in the dust;
our bodies hug the earth.
26 Rise up and help us;
restore us for the sake of Your boundless love.
God who provides a place of safety and security for those who trust in Him is the same God who puts obstacles in the way of those who disregard Him.
16 Now take care to keep this message as it is.
Seal up this teaching
and hand it over to my disciples.
17 As for me, I will wait for the Eternal, even though He feels absent, even though He has hidden His face from the family of Jacob. I will put all hope in Him. 18 You see, I and my children whom the Eternal One gave to me, we personify the promise. We are signs of what God intends and will do in Israel, what amazing things the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies has in mind, the One who is indeed present in Zion, this heaven on earth.
19 People might tell you to ask the fortune-tellers, consult the babbling astrologers, conjure the dead to tell the living what’s to come, but shouldn’t they ask their God? 20 Go to God’s teaching and His testimony to guide your thoughts and behavior! If any response disagrees with the word of God, then it’s muddling and wrong and not the least bit illuminating. 21 It leaves the people bedraggled and desperate, drifting here and there. In their hunger, the people are bound to be infuriated and curse their king and God. They’ll look up to the heavens 22 and down to the earth, yet see nothing but trouble, gloom, anguish, and darkness. They will be driven out into the darkness.
When God’s people haven’t seen a hint of light or hope of day, God will do something new.
9 But there will be no more gloom for those who knew such hardship. In times past, God humbled the land of Zebulun and Naphtali; later, He will restore the honor and glory to the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee, home of the nations.
1 Simon Peter, a servant and emissary[a] of Jesus the Anointed One, to those who have received the same precious faith we share through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus the Anointed. 2 I wish you a full measure of grace and peace as you grow in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need to experience life and to reflect God’s true nature through the knowledge of the One who called us by His glory and virtue. 4 Through these things, we have received God’s great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature.
God took the first step to rescue us from this corrupt world. He has granted us His power, revealed to us true knowledge, and spoken to us great promises. He has done all this for a reason: that we might participate in His own nature and reflect His own life. But we are not passive observers of God’s saving actions. We must receive His grace, grow in knowledge, and join Him in this work of redemption.
5 To achieve this, you will need to add virtue to your faith, and then knowledge to your virtue; 6 to knowledge, add discipline; to discipline, add endurance; to endurance, add godliness; 7 to godliness, add affection for others as sisters and brothers; and to affection, at last, add love. 8 For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with our Lord Jesus the Anointed; 9 but if you don’t have these qualities, then you will be nearsighted and blind, forgetting that your past sins have been washed away. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, work that much harder to confirm that God has called you and claimed you. If you do this, then you will never fall along the way; 11 and you can be sure that you will be richly welcomed into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King.
There is powerful consistency in Jesus’ life. Again and again, He withdraws from the crowds to pray in solitude. Now, at this dramatic moment, Jesus again withdraws to pray—in a solitude made more intense by the fact that He has asked His disciples to pray, too, but they have fallen asleep. And in this moment of anguished emotion, Jesus mouths a prayer that resonates with His consistent message of the Kingdom. He has taught His disciples to pray, “May Your kingdom come,” which is a request for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, drenched in sweat, Jesus Himself prays simply for God’s will to be done, even if it means He must drink the cup of suffering that awaits Him in the hours ahead.
We often speak of having faith in Jesus; but we seldom speak of the faith of Jesus, a faith He demonstrated consistently throughout His life and especially at its end. In a moment of agony, Jesus still trusted God, still yielded His will to God, and still approached God as “Father,” placing Himself in the position of a child, in trust—profound, tested, sincere.
39 Once again He left the city as He had been doing during recent days, returning to Mount Olivet along with His disciples. 40 And He came to a certain place.
Jesus: Pray for yourselves, that you will not sink into temptation.
41 He distanced Himself from them about a stone’s throw and knelt there, 42 praying.
Jesus: Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me. Yet not My will, but Your will, be done.
[43 Then a messenger from heaven appeared to strengthen Him. 44 And in His anguish, He prayed even more intensely, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.][a] 45 When He rose from prayer and returned to the disciples, He found them asleep, weighed down with sorrow. 46 He roused them.
Jesus: Why are you sleeping? Wake up and pray that you will not sink into temptation.
47 Even as He said these words, the sound of a crowd could be heard in the distance, and as the crowd came into view, it was clear that Judas was leading them. He came close to Jesus and gave Jesus the traditional greeting of a kiss.
Jesus: 48 Ah, Judas, is this how you betray the Son of Man—with a kiss?
Disciples (realizing what was going on): 49 Lord, is this why You told us to bring the swords? Should we attack?
50 Before Jesus could answer, one of them had swung his sword at the high priest’s slave, cutting off his right ear.
Jesus: 51 Stop! No more of this!
Then He reached out to touch—and heal—the man’s ear. 52 Jesus turned to the chief priests, the captains of the temple, and the elders and spoke.
Jesus: Do you think I’m some sort of violent criminal? Is that why you came with swords and clubs? 53 I haven’t been hard to find—each day I’ve been in the temple in broad daylight, and you never tried to seize Me there. But this is your time—night—and this is your power—the power of darkness.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.