Book of Common Prayer
87 1-2 High on his holy mountain stands Jerusalem,[a] the city of God, the city he loves more than any other!
3 O city of God, what wondrous tales are told of you! 4 Nowadays when I mention among my friends the names of Egypt and Babylonia, Philistia and Tyre, or even distant Ethiopia, someone boasts that he was born in one or another of those countries. 5 But someday the highest honor will be to be a native of Jerusalem! For the God above all gods will personally bless this city. 6 When he registers her citizens, he will place a check mark beside the names of those who were born here. 7 And in the festivals they’ll sing, “All my heart is in Jerusalem.”
90 A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! 2 Before the mountains were created, before the earth was formed, you are God without beginning or end.
3 You speak, and man turns back to dust. 4 A thousand years are but as yesterday to you! They are like a single hour![a] 5-6 We glide along the tides of time as swiftly as a racing river and vanish as quickly as a dream. We are like grass that is green in the morning but mowed down and withered before the evening shadows fall. 7 We die beneath your anger; we are overwhelmed by your wrath. 8 You spread out our sins before you—our secret sins—and see them all. 9 No wonder the years are long and heavy here beneath your wrath. All our days are filled with sighing.
10 Seventy years are given us! And some may even live to eighty. But even the best of these years are often empty and filled with pain; soon they disappear, and we are gone. 11 Who can realize the terrors of your anger? Which of us can fear you as he should?
12 Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.
13 O Jehovah, come and bless us! How long will you delay? Turn away your anger from us. 14 Satisfy us in our earliest[b] youth with your loving-kindness, giving us constant joy to the end of our lives. 15 Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. 16 Let us see your miracles again; let our children see glorious things, the kind you used to do, 17 and let the Lord our God favor us and give us success. May he give permanence to all we do.
136 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his loving-kindness continues forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 4 Praise him who alone does mighty miracles, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 5 Praise him who made the heavens, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 6 Praise him who planted the water within the earth,[a] for his loving-kindness continues forever. 7 Praise him who made the heavenly lights, for his loving-kindness continues forever: 8 the sun to rule the day, for his loving-kindness continues forever; 9 and the moon and stars at night, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 10 Praise the God who smote the firstborn of Egypt, for his loving-kindness to Israel[b] continues forever.
11-12 He brought them out with mighty power and upraised fist to strike their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever. 13 Praise the Lord who opened the Red Sea to make a path before them, for his loving-kindness continues forever, 14 and led them safely through, for his loving-kindness continues forever— 15 but drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever.
16 Praise him who led his people through the wilderness, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 17 Praise him who saved his people from the power of mighty kings, for his loving-kindness continues forever, 18 and killed famous kings who were their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever: 19 Sihon, king of Amorites—for God’s loving-kindness to Israel continues forever— 20 and Og, king of Bashan—for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever. 21 God gave the land of these kings to Israel as a gift forever, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever; 22 yes, a permanent gift to his servant Israel, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
23 He remembered our utter weakness, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 24 And saved us from our foes, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
25 He gives food to every living thing, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 26 Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
15 Then Nathan returned to his home. And the Lord made Bathsheba’s baby deathly sick. 16 David begged him to spare the child and went without food, and lay all night before the Lord on the bare earth. 17 The leaders of the nation pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused. 18 Then, on the seventh day, the baby died. David’s aides were afraid to tell him.
“He was so broken up about the baby being sick,” they said, “what will he do to himself when we tell him the child is dead?”
19 But when David saw them whispering, he realized what had happened.
“Is the baby dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is.” 20 Then David got up off the ground, washed himself, brushed his hair, changed his clothes, and went into the Tabernacle and worshiped the Lord. Then he returned to the palace and ate. 21 His aides were amazed.
“We don’t understand you,” they told him. “While the baby was still living, you wept and refused to eat; but now that the baby is dead, you have stopped your mourning and are eating again.”
22 David replied, “I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said, ‘Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”
24 Then David comforted Bathsheba; and when he slept with her, she conceived and gave birth to a son and named him Solomon. And the Lord loved the baby, 25 and sent congratulations[a] and blessings through Nathan the prophet. David nicknamed the baby Jedidiah (meaning, “Beloved of Jehovah”) because of the Lord’s interest. 26-27 Meanwhile Joab and the Israeli army were successfully ending their siege of Rabbah the capital of Ammon. Joab sent messengers to tell David, “Rabbah and its beautiful harbor are ours![b] 28 Now bring the rest of the army and finish the job, so that you will get the credit for the victory instead of me.”
29-30 So David led his army to Rabbah and captured it. Tremendous amounts of loot were carried back to Jerusalem, and David took the king of Rabbah’s crown—a $50,000 treasure made from solid gold set with gems—and placed it on his own head. 31 He made slaves of the people of the city and made them labor with saws, picks, and axes and work in the brick kilns;[c] that is the way he treated all of the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and the army returned to Jerusalem.
20 When it was all over, Paul sent for the disciples, preached a farewell message to them, said good-bye and left for Greece, 2 preaching to the believers along the way in all the cities he passed through. 3 He was in Greece three months and was preparing to sail for Syria when he discovered a plot by the Jews against his life, so he decided to go north to Macedonia first.
4 Several men were traveling with him, going as far as Turkey;[a] they were Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus; Aristarchus and Secundus, from Thessalonica; Gaius, from Derbe; and Timothy; and Tychicus and Trophimus, who were returning to their homes in Turkey, 5 and had gone on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. 6 As soon as the Passover ceremonies ended, we boarded ship at Philippi in northern Greece and five days later arrived in Troas, Turkey, where we stayed a week.
7 On Sunday[b] we gathered for a Communion service, with Paul preaching. And since he was leaving the next day, he talked until midnight! 8 The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps; 9 and as Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, went fast asleep and fell three stories to his death below. 10-12 Paul went down and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s all right!” And he was! What a wave of awesome joy swept through the crowd! They all went back upstairs and ate the Lord’s Supper together; then Paul preached another long sermon—so it was dawn when he finally left them!
13 Paul was going by land to Assos, and we went on ahead by ship. 14 He joined us there and we sailed together to Mitylene; 15 the next day we passed Chios; the next, we touched at Samos; and a day later we arrived at Miletus.
16 Paul had decided against stopping at Ephesus this time, as he was hurrying to get to Jerusalem, if possible, for the celebration of Pentecost.
30-31 Leaving that region they traveled through Galilee where he tried to avoid all publicity in order to spend more time with his disciples, teaching them. He would say to them, “I, the Messiah, am going to be betrayed and killed and three days later I will return to life again.”
32 But they didn’t understand and were afraid to ask him what he meant.
33 And so they arrived at Capernaum. When they were settled in the house where they were to stay, he asked them, “What were you discussing out on the road?”
34 But they were ashamed to answer, for they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest!
35 He sat down and called them around him and said, “Anyone wanting to be the greatest must be the least—the servant of all!”
36 Then he placed a little child among them; and taking the child in his arms he said to them, 37 “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming my Father who sent me!”
38 One of his disciples, John, told him one day, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to cast out demons; but we told him not to, for he isn’t one of our group.”
39 “Don’t forbid him!” Jesus said. “For no one doing miracles in my name will quickly turn against me.[a] 40 Anyone who isn’t against us is for us. 41 If anyone so much as gives you a cup of water because you are Christ’s—I say this solemnly—he won’t lose his reward.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.