Book of Common Prayer
26 Dismiss all the charges against me, Lord, for I have tried to keep your laws and have trusted you without wavering. 2 Cross-examine me, O Lord, and see that this is so; test my motives and affections too. 3 For I have taken your loving-kindness and your truth as my ideals. 4 I do not have fellowship with tricky, two-faced men; they are false and hypocritical. 5 I hate the sinners’ hangouts and refuse to enter them. 6 I wash my hands to prove my innocence and come before your altar, 7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling about your miracles.
8 Lord, I love your home, this shrine where the brilliant, dazzling splendor of your presence lives.
9-10 Don’t treat me as a common sinner or murderer who plots against the innocent and demands bribes.
11 No, I am not like that, O Lord; I try to walk a straight and narrow path of doing what is right; therefore in mercy save me.
12 I publicly praise the Lord for keeping me from slipping and falling.
28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. 2 Lord, I lift my hands to heaven[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.
3 Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. 4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. 5 They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.
6 Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! 7 He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. 8 The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.
9 Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.
36 Sin lurks deep in the hearts of the wicked, forever urging them on to evil deeds. They have no fear of God to hold them back. 2 Instead, in their conceit, they think they can hide their evil deeds and not get caught. 3 Everything they say is crooked and deceitful; they are no longer wise and good. 4 They lie awake at night to hatch their evil plots instead of planning how to keep away from wrong.
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, is as great as all the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. 6 Your justice is as solid as God’s mountains. Your decisions are as full of wisdom as the oceans are with water. You are concerned[a] for men and animals alike. 7 How precious is your constant love, O God! All humanity takes refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 You feed them with blessings from your own table and let them drink from your rivers of delight.
9 For you are the Fountain of life; our light is from your light. 10 Pour out your unfailing love on those who know you! Never stop giving your blessings[b] to those who long to do your will.
11 Don’t let these proud men trample me. Don’t let their wicked hands push me around. 12 Look! They have fallen. They are thrown down and will not rise again.
39 I said to myself, I’m going to quit complaining! I’ll keep quiet, especially when the ungodly are around me. 2-3 But as I stood there silently the turmoil within me grew to the bursting point. The more I mused, the hotter the fires inside. Then at last I spoke and pled with God: 4 Lord, help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. Help me to know that I am here for but a moment more. 5-6 My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to you. Proud man! Frail as breath! A shadow! And all his busy rushing ends in nothing. He heaps up riches for someone else to spend. 7 And so, Lord, my only hope is in you.
8 Save me from being overpowered by my sins, for even fools will mock me then.
9 Lord, I am speechless before you. I will not open my mouth to speak one word of complaint, for my punishment is from you.[a]
10 Lord, don’t hit me anymore—I am exhausted beneath your hand. 11 When you punish a man for his sins, he is destroyed, for he is as fragile as a moth-infested cloth; yes, man is frail as breath.
12 Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry! Don’t sit back, unmindful of my tears. For I am your guest. I am a traveler passing through the earth, as all my fathers were.
13 Spare me, Lord! Let me recover and be filled with happiness again before my death.
19 Saul now urged his aides and his son Jonathan to assassinate David. But Jonathan, because of his close friendship with David, 2 told him what his father was planning. “Tomorrow morning,” he warned him, “you must find a hiding place out in the fields. 3 I’ll ask my father to go out there with me, and I’ll talk to him about you; then I’ll tell you everything I can find out.”
4 The next morning[a] as Jonathan and his father were talking together, he spoke well of David and begged him not to be against David.
“He’s never done anything to harm you,” Jonathan pleaded. “He has always helped you in any way he could. 5 Have you forgotten about the time he risked his life to kill Goliath, and how the Lord brought a great victory to Israel as a result? You were certainly happy about it then. Why should you now murder an innocent man? There is no reason for it at all!”
6 Finally Saul agreed and vowed, “As the Lord lives, he shall not be killed.”
7 Afterwards Jonathan called David and told him what had happened. Then he took David to Saul and everything was as it had been before. 8 War broke out shortly after that, and David led his troops against the Philistines and slaughtered many of them, and put to flight their entire army.
9-10 But one day as Saul was sitting at home, listening to David playing the harp, suddenly the tormenting spirit from the Lord attacked him. He had his spear in his hand and hurled it at David in an attempt to kill him. But David dodged out of the way and fled into the night, leaving the spear imbedded in the timber of the wall. 11 Saul sent troops to watch David’s house and kill him when he came out in the morning.
“If you don’t get away tonight,” Michal warned him, “you’ll be dead by morning.”
12 So she helped him get down to the ground through a window. 13 Then she took an idol[b] and put it in his bed, and covered it with blankets, with its head on a pillow of goat’s hair. 14 When the soldiers came to arrest David and take him to Saul,[c] she told them he was sick and couldn’t get out of bed. 15 Saul said to bring him in his bed, then, so that he could kill him. 16 But when they came to carry him out, they discovered that it was only an idol!
17 “Why have you deceived me and let my enemy escape?” Saul demanded of Michal.
“I had to,” Michal replied. “He threatened to kill me if I didn’t help him.”
18 In that way David got away and went to Ramah to see Samuel, and told him all that Saul had done to him. So Samuel took David with him to live at Naioth.
12 About that time King Herod moved against some of the believers 2 and killed the apostle[a] James (John’s brother). 3 When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish leaders, he arrested Peter during the Passover celebration 4 and imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of sixteen soldiers. Herod’s intention was to deliver Peter to the Jews for execution after the Passover. 5 But earnest prayer was going up to God from the church for his safety all the time he was in prison.
6 The night before he was to be executed, he was asleep, double-chained between two soldiers with others standing guard before the prison gate, 7 when suddenly there was a light in the cell and an angel of the Lord stood beside Peter! The angel slapped him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists! 8 Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your shoes.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me!” the angel ordered.
9 So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a dream or vision and didn’t believe it was really happening. 10 They passed the first and second cell blocks and came to the iron gate to the street, and this opened to them of its own accord! So they passed through and walked along together for a block, and then the angel left him.
11 Peter finally realized what had happened! “It’s really true!” he said to himself. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jews were hoping to do to me!”
12 After a little thought he went to the home of Mary, mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for a prayer meeting.
13 He knocked at the door in the gate, and a girl named Rhoda came to open it. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she ran back inside to tell everyone that Peter was standing outside in the street. 15 They didn’t believe her. “You’re out of your mind,” they said. When she insisted they decided, “It must be his angel. They must have killed him.”[b]
16 Meanwhile Peter continued knocking. When they finally went out and opened the door, their surprise knew no bounds. 17 He motioned for them to quiet down and told them what had happened and how the Lord had brought him out of jail. “Tell James and the others what happened,” he said—and left for safer quarters.
2 Several days later he returned to Capernaum, and the news of his arrival spread quickly through the city. 2 Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there wasn’t room for a single person more, not even outside the door. And he preached the Word to them. 3 Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. 4 They couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head and lowered the sick man on his stretcher, right down in front of Jesus.[a]
5 When Jesus saw how strongly they believed that he would help, Jesus said to the sick man, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”
6 But some of the Jewish religious leaders[b] said to themselves as they sat there, 7 “What? This is blasphemy! Does he think he is God? For only God can forgive sins.”
8 Jesus could read their minds and said to them at once, “Why does this bother you? 9-11 I, the Messiah,[c] have the authority on earth to forgive sins. But talk is cheap—anybody could say that. So I’ll prove it to you by healing this man.” Then, turning to the paralyzed man, he commanded, “Pick up your stretcher and go on home, for you are healed!”
12 The man jumped up, took the stretcher, and pushed his way through the stunned onlookers! Then how they praised God. “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” they all exclaimed.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.