Book of Common Prayer
70 (0) For the leader. By David. As a reminder:
2 (1) God, rescue me!
Adonai, hurry and help me!
3 (2) May those who seek my life
be disgraced and humiliated.
May those who take pleasure in doing me harm
be turned back and put to confusion.
4 (3) May those who jeer, “Aha! Aha!”
withdraw because of their shame.
5 (4) But may all those who seek you
be glad and take joy in you.
May those who love your salvation say always,
“God is great and glorious!”
6 (5) But I am poor and needy;
God, hurry for me.
You are my helper and rescuer;
Adonai, don’t delay!
71 In you, Adonai, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
2 In your righteousness, rescue me;
and help me to escape.
Turn your ear toward me,
and deliver me.
3 Be for me a sheltering rock,
where I can always come.
You have determined to save me,
because you are my bedrock and stronghold.
4 My God, help me escape from the power of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and ruthless.
5 For you are my hope, Adonai Elohim,
in whom I have trusted since I was young.
6 From birth I have relied on you;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
7 To many, I am an amazing example;
but you are strong protection for me.
8 My mouth is full of praise for you,
filled with your glory all day long.
9 Don’t reject me when I grow old;
when my strength fails, don’t abandon me.
10 For my enemies are talking about me,
those seeking my life are plotting together.
11 They say, “God has abandoned him;
go after him, and seize him,
because no one will save him.”
12 God, don’t distance yourself from me!
My God, hurry to help me!
13 May those who are opposed to me
be put to shame and ruin;
may those who seek to harm me
be covered with scorn and disgrace.
14 But I, I will always hope
and keep adding to your praise.
15 All day long my mouth will tell
of your righteous deeds and acts of salvation,
though their number is past my knowing.
16 I will come in the power of Adonai Elohim
and recall your righteousness, yours alone.
17 God, you have taught me since I was young,
and I still proclaim your wonderful works.
18 So now that I’m old, and my hair is gray,
don’t abandon me, God, till I have proclaimed
your strength to the next generation,
your power to all who will come,
19 your righteousness too, God,
which reaches to the heights.
God, you have done great things;
who is there like you?
20 You have made me see much trouble and hardship,
but you will revive me again
and bring me up from the depths of the earth.
21 You will increase my honor;
turn and comfort me.
22 As for me, I will praise you with a lyre
for your faithfulness, my God.
I will sing praises to you with a lute,
Holy One of Isra’el.
23 My lips will shout for joy;
I will sing your praise, because you have redeemed me.
24 All day long my tongue
will speak of your righteousness.
For those who are seeking to harm me
will be put to shame and disgraced.
74 (0) A maskil of Asaf:
(1) Why have you rejected us forever, God,
with your anger smoking against the sheep you once pastured?
2 Remember your community, which you acquired long ago,
the tribe you redeemed to be your very own.
Remember Mount Tziyon, where you came to live.
3 Hurry your steps to these endless ruins,
to the sanctuary devastated by the enemy.
4 The roar of your foes filled your meeting-place;
they raised their own banners as a sign of their conquest.
5 The place seemed like a thicket of trees
when lumbermen hack away with their axes.
6 With hatchet and hammer they banged away,
smashing all the carved woodwork.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire,
tore down and profaned the abode of your name.
8 They said to themselves, “We will oppress them completely.”
They have burned down all God’s meeting-places in the land.
9 We see no signs, there is no prophet any more;
none of us knows how long it will last.
10 How much longer, God, will the foe jeer at us?
Will the enemy insult your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand?
Draw your right hand from your coat, and finish them off!
12 God has been my king from earliest times,
acting to save throughout all the earth.
13 By your strength you split the sea in two,
in the water you smashed sea monsters’ heads,
14 you crushed the heads of Livyatan
and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
15 You cut channels for springs and streams,
you dried up rivers that had never failed.
16 The day is yours, and the night is yours;
it was you who established light and sun.
17 It was you who fixed all the limits of the earth,
you made summer and winter.
18 Remember how the enemy scoffs at Adonai,
how a brutish people insults your name.
19 Don’t hand over the soul of your dove to wild beasts,
don’t forget forever the life of your poor.
20 Look to the covenant, for the land’s dark places
are full of the haunts of violence.
21 Don’t let the oppressed retreat in confusion;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, God, and defend your cause;
remember how brutish men insult you all day.
23 Don’t forget what your foes are saying,
the ever-rising uproar of your adversaries.
14 Now as for a person whose trust is weak, welcome him — but not to get into arguments over opinions. 2 One person has the trust that will allow him to eat anything, while another whose trust is weak eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats anything must not look down on the one who abstains; and the abstainer must not pass judgment on the one who eats anything, because God has accepted him — 4 who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? It is before his own master that he will stand or fall; and the fact is that he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.
5 One person considers some days more holy than others, while someone else regards them as being all alike. What is important is for each to be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes a day as special does so to honor the Lord. Also he who eats anything, eats to honor the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; likewise the abstainer abstains to honor the Lord, and he too gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives only in relation to himself, and none of us dies only in relation to himself; 8 for if we live, we live in relation to the Lord; and if we die, we die in relation to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord — 9 indeed, it was for this very reason that the Messiah died and came back to life, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. 10 You then, why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For all of us will stand before God’s judgment seat; 11 since it is written in the Tanakh,
“As I live, says Adonai, every knee will bend before me,
and every tongue will publicly acknowledge God.”[a]
12 So then, every one of us will have to give an account of himself to God.
26 They sailed on and landed in the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite the Galil. 27 As Yeshua stepped ashore, a man from the town who had demons came to meet him. For a long time he had not worn clothes; and he lived, not in a house, but in the burial caves. 28 Catching sight of Yeshua, he screamed, fell down in front of him and yelled, “Yeshua! Son of God Ha‘Elyon! What do you want with me? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Yeshua had ordered the unclean spirit to come out of the man. It had often taken hold of him — he had been kept under guard, chained hand and foot, but had broken the bonds and been driven by the demon into the desert. 30 Yeshua asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he said, because many demons had entered him. 31 They begged Yeshua not to order them to go off into the Bottomless Pit.
32 Now there was a herd of many pigs, feeding on the hill; and the demons begged him to let them go into these. So he gave them permission. 33 The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, whereupon the herd rushed down the hillside into the lake and were drowned.
34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the town and in the country; 35 and the people came out to see for themselves. They came to Yeshua and found the man out of whom the demons had gone, sitting — dressed and in his right mind — at the feet of Yeshua; and they were frightened. 36 Those who had seen it told how the formerly demonized man had been delivered.
37 Then all the people of the Gerasene district asked him to leave them, for they had been seized with great fear. So he boarded the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might go with him; but Yeshua sent him away, saying, 39 “Go back to your home and tell how much God has done for you.” He went away proclaiming throughout the whole town how much Yeshua had done for him.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.