Book of Common Prayer
God and His People(A)
105 Give thanks to the Lord,
proclaim his greatness;
tell the nations what he has done.
2 Sing praise to the Lord;
tell the wonderful things he has done.
3 Be glad that we belong to him;
let all who worship him rejoice.
4 Go to the Lord for help;
and worship him continually.
5-6 You descendants of Abraham, his servant;
you descendants of Jacob, the man he chose:
remember the miracles that God performed
and the judgments that he gave.
7 The Lord is our God;
his commands are for all the world.
8 He will keep his covenant forever,
his promises for a thousand generations.
9 (B)He will keep the agreement he made with Abraham
and his promise to Isaac.
10 (C)The Lord made a covenant with Jacob,
one that will last forever.
11 “I will give you the land of Canaan,” he said.
“It will be your own possession.”
12 God's people were few in number,
strangers in the land of Canaan.
13 They wandered from country to country,
from one kingdom to another.
14 (D)But God let no one oppress them;
to protect them, he warned the kings:
15 “Don't harm my chosen servants;
do not touch my prophets.”
16 (E)The Lord sent famine to their country
and took away all their food.
17 (F)But he sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.
18 (G)His feet were kept in chains,
and an iron collar was around his neck,
19 until what he had predicted came true.
The word of the Lord proved him right.
20 (H)Then the king of Egypt had him released;
the ruler of nations set him free.
21 (I)He put him in charge of his government
and made him ruler over all the land,
22 with power over the king's officials
and authority to instruct his advisers.
23 (J)Then Jacob went to Egypt
and settled in that country.
24 (K)The Lord gave many children to his people
and made them stronger than their enemies.
25 He made the Egyptians hate his people
and treat his servants with deceit.
26 (L)Then he sent his servant Moses,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
27 They did God's mighty acts
and performed miracles in Egypt.
28 (M)God sent darkness on the country,
but the Egyptians did not obey[a] his command.
29 (N)He turned their rivers into blood
and killed all their fish.
30 (O)Their country was overrun with frogs;
even the palace was filled with them.
31 (P)God commanded, and flies and gnats
swarmed throughout the whole country.
32 (Q)He sent hail and lightning on their land
instead of rain;
33 he destroyed their grapevines and fig trees
and broke down all the trees.
34 (R)He commanded, and the locusts came,
countless millions of them;
35 they ate all the plants in the land;
they ate all the crops.
36 (S)He killed the first-born sons
of all the families of Egypt.
37 (T)Then he led the Israelites out;
they carried silver and gold,
and all of them were healthy and strong.
38 The Egyptians were afraid of them
and were glad when they left.
39 (U)God put a cloud over his people
and a fire at night to give them light.
40 (V)They[b] asked, and he sent quails;
he gave them food from heaven to satisfy them.
41 (W)He opened a rock, and water gushed out,
flowing through the desert like a river.
42 He remembered his sacred promise
to Abraham his servant.
43 So he led his chosen people out,
and they sang and shouted for joy.
44 (X)He gave them the lands of other peoples
and let them take over their fields,
45 so that his people would obey his laws
and keep all his commands.
Praise the Lord!
Individual Responsibility
18 The Lord spoke to me 2 (A)and said, “What is this proverb people keep repeating in the land of Israel?
‘The parents ate the sour grapes,
But the children got the sour taste.’
3 “As surely as I am the living God,” says the Sovereign Lord, “you will not repeat this proverb in Israel any more. 4 The life of every person belongs to me, the life of the parent as well as that of the child. The person who sins is the one who will die.
19 “But you ask, ‘Why shouldn't the son suffer because of his father's sins?’ The answer is that the son did what was right and good. He kept my laws and followed them carefully, and so he will certainly live. 20 (A)It is the one who sins who will die. A son is not to suffer because of his father's sins, nor a father because of the sins of his son. Good people will be rewarded for doing good, and evil people will suffer for the evil they do.
21 “If someone evil stops sinning and keeps my laws, if he does what is right and good, he will not die; he will certainly live. 22 All his sins will be forgiven, and he will live, because he did what is right. 23 Do you think I enjoy seeing evil people die?” asks the Sovereign Lord. “No, I would rather see them repent and live.
24 “But if a righteous person stops doing good and starts doing all the evil, disgusting things that evil people do, will he go on living? No! None of the good he did will be remembered. He will die because of his unfaithfulness and his sins.
25 “But you say, ‘What the Lord does isn't right.’ Listen to me, you Israelites. Do you think my way of doing things isn't right? It is your way that isn't right. 26 When a righteous person stops doing good and starts doing evil and then dies, he dies because of the evil he has done. 27 When someone evil stops sinning and does what is right and good, he saves his life. 28 He realizes what he is doing and stops sinning, so he will certainly not die, but go on living. 29 And you Israelites say, ‘What the Lord does isn't right.’ You think my way isn't right, do you? It is your way that isn't right.
30 “Now I, the Sovereign Lord, am telling you Israelites that I will judge each of you by what you have done. Turn away from all the evil you are doing, and don't let your sin destroy you. 31 Give up all the evil you have been doing, and get yourselves new minds and hearts. Why do you Israelites want to die? 32 (B)I do not want anyone to die,” says the Sovereign Lord. “Turn away from your sins and live.”
18 The old rule, then, is set aside, because it was weak and useless. 19 For the Law of Moses could not make anything perfect. And now a better hope has been provided through which we come near to God.
20 In addition, there is also God's vow. There was no such vow when the others were made priests. 21 (A)But Jesus became a priest by means of a vow when God said to him,
“The Lord has made a solemn promise
and will not take it back:
‘You will be a priest forever.’”
22 This difference, then, also makes Jesus the guarantee of a better covenant.
23 There is another difference: there were many of those other priests, because they died and could not continue their work. 24 But Jesus lives on forever, and his work as priest does not pass on to someone else. 25 And so he is able, now and always, to save those who come to God through him, because he lives forever to plead with God for them.
26 Jesus, then, is the High Priest that meets our needs. He is holy; he has no fault or sin in him; he has been set apart from sinners and raised above the heavens. 27 (B)He is not like other high priests; he does not need to offer sacrifices every day for his own sins first and then for the sins of the people. He offered one sacrifice, once and for all, when he offered himself. 28 The Law of Moses appoints men who are imperfect to be high priests; but God's promise made with the vow, which came later than the Law, appoints the Son, who has been made perfect forever.
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 (A)A teacher of the Law came up and tried to trap Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to receive eternal life?”
26 Jesus answered him, “What do the Scriptures say? How do you interpret them?”
27 (B)The man answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”
28 (C)“You are right,” Jesus replied; “do this and you will live.”
29 But the teacher of the Law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
30 Jesus answered, “There was once a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him, stripped him, and beat him up, leaving him half dead. 31 It so happened that a priest was going down that road; but when he saw the man, he walked on by on the other side. 32 In the same way a Levite also came there, went over and looked at the man, and then walked on by on the other side. 33 (D)But a Samaritan who was traveling that way came upon the man, and when he saw him, his heart was filled with pity. 34 He went over to him, poured oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them; then he put the man on his own animal and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he told the innkeeper, ‘and when I come back this way, I will pay you whatever else you spend on him.’”
36 And Jesus concluded, “In your opinion, which one of these three acted like a neighbor toward the man attacked by the robbers?”
37 The teacher of the Law answered, “The one who was kind to him.”
Jesus replied, “You go, then, and do the same.”
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.