Book of Common Prayer
A Prayer for the Nation's Restoration[a]
80 (A)Listen to us, O Shepherd of Israel;
hear us, leader of your flock.
Seated on your throne above the winged creatures,
2 reveal yourself to the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
Show us your strength;
come and save us!
3 Bring us back, O God!
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved!
4 How much longer, Lord God Almighty,
will you be angry with your people's prayers?
5 You have given us sorrow to eat,
a large cup of tears to drink.
6 You let the surrounding nations fight over our land;
our enemies insult us.
7 Bring us back, Almighty God!
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved!
8 You brought a grapevine out of Egypt;
you drove out other nations and planted it in their land.
9 You cleared a place for it to grow;
its roots went deep, and it spread out over the whole land.
10 It covered the hills with its shade;
its branches overshadowed the giant cedars.
11 It extended its branches to the Mediterranean Sea
and as far as the Euphrates River.
12 Why did you break down the fences around it?
Now anyone passing by can steal its grapes;
13 wild hogs trample it down,
and wild animals feed on it.
14 Turn to us, Almighty God!
Look down from heaven at us;
come and save your people!
15 Come and save this grapevine that you planted,
this young vine you made grow so strong!
16 Our enemies have set it on fire and cut it down;
look at them in anger and destroy them!
17 Preserve and protect the people you have chosen,
the nation you made so strong.
18 We will never turn away from you again;
keep us alive, and we will praise you.
19 Bring us back, Lord God Almighty.
Show us your mercy, and we will be saved.
Comfort in Time of Distress[a]
77 I cry aloud to God;
I cry aloud, and he hears me.
2 In times of trouble I pray to the Lord;
all night long I lift my hands in prayer,
but I cannot find comfort.
3 When I think of God, I sigh;
when I meditate, I feel discouraged.
4 He keeps me awake all night;
I am so worried that I cannot speak.
5 I think of days gone by
and remember years of long ago.
6 I spend the night in deep thought;[b]
I meditate, and this is what I ask myself:
7 “Will the Lord always reject us?
Will he never again be pleased with us?
8 Has he stopped loving us?
Does his promise no longer stand?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has anger taken the place of his compassion?”
10 Then I said, “What hurts me most is this—
that God is no longer powerful.”[c]
11 I will remember your great deeds, Lord;
I will recall the wonders you did in the past.
12 I will think about all that you have done;
I will meditate on all your mighty acts.
13 Everything you do, O God, is holy.
No god is as great as you.
14 You are the God who works miracles;
you showed your might among the nations.
15 By your power you saved your people,
the descendants of Jacob and of Joseph.
16 When the waters saw you, O God, they were afraid,
and the depths of the sea trembled.
17 The clouds poured down rain;
thunder crashed from the sky,
and lightning flashed in all directions.
18 The crash of your thunder rolled out,
and flashes of lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
19 You walked through the waves;
you crossed the deep sea,
but your footprints could not be seen.
20 You led your people like a shepherd,
with Moses and Aaron in charge.
A Prayer for the Nation's Deliverance[a]
79 (A)O God, the heathen have invaded your land.
They have desecrated your holy Temple
and left Jerusalem in ruins.
2 They left the bodies of your people for the vultures,
the bodies of your servants for wild animals to eat.
3 They shed your people's blood like water;
blood flowed like water all through Jerusalem,
and no one was left to bury the dead.
4 The surrounding nations insult us;
they laugh at us and mock us.
5 Lord, will you be angry with us forever?
Will your anger continue to burn like fire?
6 Turn your anger on the nations that do not worship you,
on the people who do not pray to you.
7 For they have killed your people;
they have ruined your country.
8 Do not punish us for the sins of our ancestors.
Have mercy on us now;
we have lost all hope.
9 Help us, O God, and save us;
rescue us and forgive our sins
for the sake of your own honor.
10 Why should the nations ask us,
“Where is your God?”
Let us see you punish the nations
for shedding the blood of your servants.
11 Listen to the groans of the prisoners,
and by your great power free those who are condemned to die.
12 Lord, pay the other nations back seven times
for all the insults they have hurled at you.
13 Then we, your people, the sheep of your flock,
will thank you forever
and praise you for all time to come.
A Good Land to Be Possessed
8 “Obey faithfully all the laws that I have given you today, so that you may live, increase in number, and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you on this long journey through the desert these past forty years, sending hardships to test you, so that he might know what you intended to do and whether you would obey his commands. 3 (A)He made you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, food that you and your ancestors had never eaten before. He did this to teach you that you must not depend on bread alone to sustain you, but on everything that the Lord says. 4 During these forty years your clothes have not worn out, nor have your feet swollen up. 5 (B)Remember that the Lord your God corrects and punishes you just as parents discipline their children. 6 So then, do as the Lord has commanded you: live according to his laws and obey him. 7 The Lord your God is bringing you into a fertile land—a land that has rivers and springs, and underground streams gushing out into the valleys and hills; 8 a land that produces wheat and barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and honey. 9 There you will never go hungry or ever be in need. Its rocks have iron in them, and from its hills you can mine copper. 10 You will have all you want to eat, and you will give thanks to the Lord your God for the fertile land that he has given you.
1 (A)From James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ:
Greetings to all God's people scattered over the whole world.
Faith and Wisdom
2 (B)My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, 3 for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. 4 Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 (C)But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. 6 But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind. 7-8 If you are like that, unable to make up your mind and undecided in all you do, you must not think that you will receive anything from the Lord.
Poverty and Riches
9 Those Christians who are poor must be glad when God lifts them up, 10 (D)and the rich Christians must be glad when God brings them down. For the rich will pass away like the flower of a wild plant. 11 The sun rises with its blazing heat and burns the plant; its flower falls off, and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way the rich will be destroyed while they go about their business.
Testing and Tempting
12 Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him. 13 (E)If we are tempted by such trials, we must not say, “This temptation comes from God.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires. 15 Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Peter's Declaration about Jesus(A)
18 One day when Jesus was praying alone, the disciples came to him. “Who do the crowds say I am?” he asked them.
19 (B)“Some say that you are John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say that you are Elijah, while others say that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
20 (C)“What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are God's Messiah.”
Jesus Speaks about His Suffering and Death(D)
21 Then Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell this to anyone. 22 He also told them, “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will be raised to life.”
23 (E)And he said to them all, “If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me. 24 (F)For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. 25 Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but are yourself lost or defeated? Of course not! 26 If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Kingdom of God.”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.