Book of Common Prayer

This psalm is a song that the sons of Korah wrote for the music leader. Use special music. It is a special song by Heman the Ezrahite.

A sad cry^[a]

God is a safe place^[a]

This psalm is a song to sing on Sabbath days.

A song to praise God

Nathan warns David

12 The Lord sent Nathan to go and speak to David.^[a] Nathan told this story to David, ‘There were two men who lived in the same town. One man was rich and the other man was poor. ² The rich man had very many sheep, goats and cows. ³ But the poor man had only one little female lamb. He had bought it and he had taken care of it. It had grown up with his own children. It ate his bits of food and it drank water from his cup. It even slept while he held it. It was like a daughter for him.

⁴ One day, the rich man had a visitor to his home. The rich man needed to make a meal for his visitor. But he did not want to kill one of his own animals. Instead, he took the poor man's lamb away from him. He cooked the lamb to feed his visitor.’

⁵ When David heard what the rich man had done, he became very angry. He said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, that man deserves to die. ⁶ He did that cruel thing and he was not sorry for the poor man. So he must pay the poor man enough money to buy four lambs.’

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are that man! This is what the Lord, Israel's God, says: “I chose you as king to rule over Israel. I saved you from Saul's power. ⁸ I gave your master's palace to you, and his wives as well. I gave the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to you. And if that was not enough for you, I would have given you even more than that. ⁹ But now you have not respected the Lord's command. You have done an evil thing. You caused Uriah the Hittite to die in a battle. You used the Ammonite soldiers to kill Uriah. ¹⁰ So now your family will always have people who die in battle. When you took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own wife, you showed that you did not respect me.”

¹¹ This is what the Lord says, “I will cause someone from your own family to bring trouble to you. You yourself will see it happen! I will take your wives from you and I will give them to someone else. He will have sex with them in the daytime, for everyone to see. ¹² What you did, you did secretly. But I will cause this to happen in the light of day, so that all Israel can see it.” ’

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

Nathan replied, ‘The Lord has forgiven your sin. He will not punish you with death. ¹⁴ But you did not respect the Lord when you did this bad thing. Because of that, your baby son will certainly die.’

Bad troubles happen in Ephesus

²¹ After these things happened, Paul decided that he should go to Jerusalem. But first he wanted to visit the believers in Macedonia and Greece. He said, ‘After I have been to Jerusalem, I must also go to Rome.’ ²² At that time, Timothy and Erastus were helping Paul with his work. Paul sent them to Macedonia while he stayed longer in Asia region.

²³ Soon after that, there was bad trouble in Ephesus. Some people began to speak strongly against the Way of the Lord Jesus. ²⁴ In Ephesus there was a man called Demetrius. He used silver to make beautiful things. He made models that looked like the temple of Artemis.^[a] He paid a lot of money to people who did this work for him. ²⁵ So he told all his workers to meet with him. He also asked other workers to come, who did the same kind of work. He said to all these men, ‘Men, you know that our work has caused us to become rich. ²⁶ Also, you can see what this man Paul is doing. You have heard his message. Many people here in Ephesus, and in nearly all the places in Asia region, believe what he says. Paul teaches people this: “Anything that men have made is not really a god.” ²⁷ If people continue to believe Paul's message, it will be very bad for us. People will say bad things against our work. The house of our god Artemis will not be important any more. People will even think that Artemis herself is not a great god. As it is now, people in all of Asia region and everywhere else worship her. We do not want that to change.’

²⁸ When the workers heard Demetrius, they became very angry. They all shouted, ‘Our god Artemis of Ephesus is very great!’ ²⁹ More and more people in the whole city began to shout. There was trouble everywhere. Gaius and Aristarchus had been travelling with Paul. They had come with him from Macedonia. Some people from the crowd took hold of Gaius and Aristarchus. They pulled them quickly to the big public meeting place in the middle of the city.^[b]

³⁰ Paul himself wanted to go there. He wanted to speak to the crowd. But the other believers would not let him do that. ³¹ Some Roman officers in that region were Paul's friends. They also sent a message to him. They said to him, ‘Please, do not go to the meeting place.’

³² The crowd of people in the meeting place continued to shout loudly. Some people were shouting one thing and other people were shouting something different. Not many of the people even knew why they had all met together. ³³ There was a Jewish man called Alexander in the crowd. The Jews pushed him to the front of the crowd. He raised his hands towards the people, so that they would be quiet. He wanted to explain to them that he and his Jewish friends had not caused the trouble. ³⁴ But the crowd knew that Alexander was a Jew. So they continued to shout the same words for about two hours. All together they shouted, ‘Our god Artemis of Ephesus is very great!’

³⁵ After two hours, an important officer of the city caused the crowd to be quiet. He said, ‘People of Ephesus! Everybody knows about our god Artemis who has her temple here in Ephesus. People come here to worship her. Her special stone that fell from the sky is also here in Ephesus. We take care of all her things. Everybody knows that! ³⁶ Nobody can say that this is not true. So be careful! Do not quickly do anything that is silly. ³⁷ You have brought Gaius and Aristarchus here to the city officers' meeting place. But what bad thing have they done? They have not robbed the house of Artemis. They have not said bad things against her. ³⁸ Perhaps Demetrius and his workers think that someone has done a bad thing to them. If they think that, they should let a judge decide. There are officers for the government who will do this. If someone has done a wrong thing, people should tell a judge.

³⁹ So, if you want to argue about these problems any more, do it properly. Go to the place where the judges meet. ⁴⁰ Today, there is a crowd of people who are shouting and fighting. The Roman rulers may hear about what has happened. They will say that we have done bad things. We could not explain to them the reason why there is all this trouble.’ ⁴¹ When the officer had said all this, he said to the crowd, ‘All of you should go home now.’

Jesus helps a boy who has a bad spirit

¹⁴ They reached the place where the other disciples were. They saw that there was a large crowd there with them. Some teachers of God's Law were arguing with the disciples. ¹⁵ The people in the crowd saw Jesus and immediately they were very surprised. They ran to say ‘hello’ to Jesus.

¹⁶ Jesus asked his disciples, ‘What are you arguing about with the teachers of God's Law?’

¹⁷ A man in the crowd answered. He said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I brought my son to you. He is not able to speak because he has a bad spirit. ¹⁸ When the bad spirit takes hold of him, it throws him to the ground. Water comes out of his mouth and he bites his teeth together. Then his body stops moving. I asked your disciples to send the spirit out of him. But they were not able to do it.’

¹⁹ Jesus replied, ‘You people today still do not believe in God. I have been with you for a long time and still you do not believe. It is difficult for me to be patient with you. Bring the boy to me.’

²⁰ So the people brought the boy to Jesus. When the bad spirit saw Jesus, it immediately caused the boy's body to shake strongly. The boy fell onto the ground and he rolled about. Water was coming from his mouth.

²¹ Jesus asked the boy's father, ‘How long has he been like this?’

‘He has been like this since he was a small boy,’ the father replied. ²² ‘Often the spirit has caused him to fall into the fire or into water. It is trying to kill him. Please be kind to us. If you can do anything, help us!’

²³ Jesus said to the father, ‘You should not say, “If you can do anything.” Everything is possible for those people who believe.’

²⁴ Immediately, the boy's father shouted, ‘Oh! I believe! Help me to believe more!’

²⁵ Jesus saw that the crowd of people was quickly becoming bigger. So he told the bad spirit to stop. Jesus said to it, ‘Spirit, I am telling you that you must leave this boy. He cannot hear or speak because of you. I tell you to come out of him! You must never go into him again.’

²⁶ The spirit screamed. It caused the boy's body to shake many times. Then it came out of him. The boy seemed to be dead, so many people said, ‘He is dead.’ ²⁷ But Jesus held the boy's hand and he helped the boy to stand up.

²⁸ Jesus went into a house and the disciples were alone with him. Then they asked him, ‘Why could we not cause the bad spirit to leave the boy?’

²⁹ Jesus said to them, ‘You must pray. This kind of spirit will not leave a person unless you pray.’