Book of Common Prayer
David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judah wilderness.
A morning song[a]
63 God, you are my God.
I want to be near to you.
I need you to give me life,
like a thirsty person in a dry desert.
As a person needs water to live,
that is how I need you.[b]
2 When I have gone into your temple,
I have seen what you are like.
I have seen your great power and your glory.
3 Your faithful love for me is better than life itself.
So I will speak out to praise you.
4 Yes, I will thank you for as long as I live.
I will lift up my hands and I will pray to you.
5 You make me very happy,
better than a feast of good food.
I will sing happy songs to praise you.
6 When I lie on my bed,
I think about you all through the night.
7 You are the one who keeps me safe,
like a bird protects its babies under its wings.
So I sing happy songs.
8 I keep very near to you
and your strong right hand keeps me safe.
9 My enemies are trying to kill me,
but I know that they themselves will die.
They will go down into the deep hole of death.
10 Soldiers will kill them with swords.
Wild dogs will eat their dead bodies.
11 But the king will sing songs to praise God.[c]
Everybody who promises to serve God
will speak aloud to praise him.
But everyone who tells lies
will not be able to say anything!
God rules the world[a]
98 Sing a new song to praise the Lord.
He has done great things.
He has used his own power and his holy strength
to win against his enemies.
2 The Lord has shown everybody
that he has the power to save.
All the nations of the world
can see that he does what is right.
3 He has kept his promise
that he made to the people of Israel.
He has continued to take care of them
with his faithful love.
Everyone who lives everywhere on the earth can see
that God has the power to save people.
4 All people on the earth should shout aloud
to praise the Lord![b]
Sing happy songs to praise him!
5 Make music on your harps to praise him!
Make beautiful music!
6 Make a happy sound with trumpets and horns!
Shout aloud to praise the Lord, your king!
7 The sea and everything that is in it
should shout to praise the Lord!
The earth and all those who live in it
should shout as well!
8 The rivers should clap their hands,
and the mountains should all sing together,
9 to praise the Lord.
He is coming to judge the earth.[c]
He is a fair judge.
He will judge all the people of the world honestly.
This is a song that David wrote.
The love of God[a]
103 I say to myself, ‘Praise the Lord!’
Everything that is in me, praise his holy name!
2 I say to myself, ‘Praise the Lord!’
Never forget all the good things that he has done for you!
3 He forgives all my sins.
He makes me well again when I am ill.
4 He saves me from the deep hole of death's power.
He always loves me and he is kind to me.
That is how he blesses me so much!
5 He gives me many good things for my life here.
So I become strong again, with the strength of a young eagle.
6 The Lord does what is right and fair.
He helps poor people who suffer.
7 He showed Moses how he works to help his people.
He showed the Israelites the great things that he could do.
8 The Lord is kind to people and he forgives them.
He is slow to get angry and his love always continues.
9 He will not always tell us that we are wrong.
He will not always continue to be angry.
10 We should receive much punishment for the bad things that we do.
But the Lord does not punish us so much.
11 For people who worship him, his faithful love is very great.
How far is the sky above the earth? His love is greater than that!
12 How far is the east from the west?
The Lord has taken our sins further away than that!
He no longer says that we are guilty.
13 As a father is kind to his children, the Lord is kind to us.
He is kind to people who worship him.
14 He knows that we are weak humans.
He remembers that he used dust to make us.
15 A person's life is like grass that quickly dies.
He is strong only for a short time, like wild flowers in a field.
16 A hot wind blows over flowers and they die!
Nobody even remembers where they were growing.
17 But the faithful love of the Lord
will always be with people who worship him.
He promises to be kind to their children's children for ever.
18 He continues to love people who obey his covenant.
Those are the people who obey his laws.
19 The Lord rules from his throne in heaven.
He rules as king over everything.
20 You who are the Lord's angels,
you strong angels who do what he tells you to do,
praise the Lord!
21 All of you who belong to his armies in heaven,
his servants who do what he wants,
praise the Lord!
22 Yes, everything that the Lord has made,
in all the places that he rules over,
praise the Lord!
I say to myself, ‘Praise the Lord!’
God's message to Babylon
47 ‘Babylon, get down on the ground, and sit in the dirt!
Come down off your throne, young lady!
In the past, nobody has touched you,
but people will no longer say that you are so pretty.
2 Use heavy stones to make grain into flour.
Take the veil off your face.
Lift up your skirt.
Walk through streams of water with bare legs.
3 Stand there with your body completely bare!
Everybody will see your great shame.
I will punish you for your sins,
and nobody will escape.’
4 This is what the Lord Almighty says. He is our Redeemer, Israel's Holy God.
5 ‘You city of the Babylonians, sit there quietly!
Go and hide in a dark place.
People will no longer call you the queen of all kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my own people.
They belonged to me as my special people,
but I punished them like ordinary people.
I gave you the power to hurt them,
and you were not kind to them.
You were very cruel to old people.
7 You boasted,
“I will rule other nations as queen for ever!”
But you did not think about what you were doing.
You did not think about what would happen in the end.
8 So listen to me, Babylon!
You love to enjoy expensive things.
You think that you are strong and safe.
You say to yourself, “Here I am!
There is nobody as good as I am.
I will never be alone as a widow.
I will never lose my children.”
9 But both of those things will happen to you!
They will happen suddenly, in only one day.
You will lose your children
and you will become a widow.
All these troubles will come to hurt you.
You can use all your powerful magic
but you will not stop this trouble!
10 You thought that your evil deeds would keep you safe.
You said, “Nobody sees me!”
You think that you are very wise
and that you know everything.
But your wisdom has deceived you.
You say, “Here I am!
There is nobody as good as I am.”
11 But trouble will suddenly come to you.
Your magic words will not stop it.
Trouble will come and destroy you.
You cannot pay anyone to take it away.
It will suddenly hit you,
before you even recognize it.
12 So continue with your magic, if you want to.
Say your magic words.
You have always used that magic,
since you were young.
Perhaps your magic will help you.
Perhaps you will frighten your enemies!
13 You receive a lot of advice,
and it has made you become tired.
Let your advisors come and stand there.
They study the sky and the stars to decide what will happen.
They say what will happen each month.
So let them come and help you!
See if they can rescue you from the trouble that is coming!
14 But they are as useless as straw
that quickly burns in a fire.
They cannot save themselves,
because the fire is too hot!
This is not a nice fire to sit beside and enjoy the heat.
15 You have worked with those magicians since you were young,
but you will have no help from them now.
They have gone their own separate ways.
There is nobody left who can save you.’
We must continue to trust God
19 So then, Christian friends, we see that Jesus died as a sacrifice on our behalf. Because of that, we may go into God's Most Holy Place. We are not afraid to do that. 20 Jesus has opened a new way for us to come near to God. That way gives us life with God. It leads us through the curtain into God's Most Holy Place. Jesus opened that curtain for us when he offered his own body to God as a sacrifice.[a] 21 We have a great priest who rules the people of God's house. 22 So we should come near to God and we should not be afraid. But we must be honest and we must continue to trust him. He has made us clean from the dirt of our sins. Our thoughts no longer give us trouble about our sins. We have become clean. It is like he has washed our bodies with clean water.[b]
23 We know that we can trust God to do the things that he has promised. So we must continue to expect those things. We must tell other people that we trust God. We should not stop doing that. 24 We should think about how we can help one another. We want everyone to show love to each other. We want everyone to do good things to help one another. 25 Some people have stopped meeting with the group of Christians. But that is not good. We should all continue to meet together. We need to help one another to be strong and brave. That is now even more important, because the Lord's great day is coming. You know that the Lord will return soon.
We must not turn away from Jesus Christ
26 Now that we have learned what is true, we must continue to believe in Jesus. If we know God's true message, but we still choose to do wrong things, God will not forgive us. There is no other sacrifice that will take away our sins. 27 We know that God will judge us, and that will make us very afraid. Because we know that God will punish everyone who is against him. That punishment will be a very hot fire that destroys people. 28 In the old agreement, anyone who refused to obey Moses' rules had to die. If two or three people said that he had done a bad thing, that person had to die. They would not forgive him.[c]
29 So think about a person who has turned against the Son of God. That person's punishment will surely be much worse! He says that Christ's sacrifice has no value for him. He has made God's new agreement seem like something bad. It was Christ's death on the cross that made that person clean, so that he belonged to God. But now that person has insulted God's Spirit, who brings God's kind help to us. 30 We know God and his message. And God said this: ‘I am the one who will punish people for their sins. I will give them the punishment that they ought to receive.’[d] God also said this: ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ 31 Yes, if God takes hold of you to punish you, that will make you very afraid! He is the powerful God who lives for ever.[e]
2 There is a pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. Its name in the Jewish language is Bethesda. Round the pool, there is a building with five places that have a roof over them. 3 A large number of sick people were lying in these places. Some of them were blind. Some of them could not walk properly. Some of them could not move their legs or their arms. [[a] They were waiting for when the water started to move. 4 An angel would go down into the pool at certain times and move the water about. When that happened, all the sick people tried to get into the pool. The first person who got into the water became well, whatever his illness was.]
5 One man who was lying there had been ill for 38 years. 6 Jesus saw this man. He knew that the man had been ill like this for a very long time. So he asked the man, ‘Do you want to get well?’ 7 The sick man said, ‘Sir, I do not have anyone who will help me. I need somebody who will put me into the pool. When the water starts to move, I try to get in. But someone else always gets in before me.’ 8 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ 9 The man became well immediately. He picked up his mat and he walked.
The day when this happened was a Jewish day of rest.[b] 10 Because of this, the Jewish leaders spoke to the man that Jesus had made well. They said to him, ‘You must not carry your mat on our day of rest. You are not obeying the rules.’ 11 The man replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.” ’ 12 So they asked him, ‘Who is this man? Who said to you, “Pick up your mat and walk”?’ 13 The man did not know who had made him well. Jesus had gone away and joined the crowd that was there.
14 Some time after that, Jesus found the man in the temple. Jesus said to him, ‘See, you have become well. Stop doing wrong things. If you do not stop, something worse may happen to you.’ 15 Then the man went to the Jewish leaders. He told them that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16 The Jewish leaders were angry because Jesus had made a man well on their day of rest.[c] As a result, they began to cause a lot of trouble for Jesus. 17 But Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is still working, and I too must work.’ 18 Because Jesus said this, the Jewish leaders became really angry. They wanted even more to kill him. Jesus not only worked on the day of rest. He was also calling God his own Father, so he was making himself equal with God.
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