Book of Common Prayer
The Lord is good![a]
106 Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Thank the Lord, because he is good.
His faithful love will always be with us.
2 The great things that the Lord has done
are too many to tell!
Nobody can praise him enough.
3 God has blessed the people who obey his commands.
They always do what is right.
4 Lord, when you help your people,
please remember me!
Do not forget to help me,
when you come to rescue them.
5 I want to enjoy the good things
that you give to the people that you have chosen.
I want to be happy together with them.
I want to join with the people who belong to you,
and praise you as you deserve.
6 We have done bad things,
as our ancestors also did.
We have done things that are wicked and evil.
7 When our ancestors were in Egypt,
they did not understand your miracles.
They forgot the many ways that you showed them your faithful love.
When they arrived at the Red Sea,
they turned against you, Lord.
8 But the Lord rescued them,
to show that his name is great.
He showed that he was very powerful.
9 He shouted at the Red Sea,
and it became dry.
He led his people through the middle of the deep water,
as if they walked in a desert!
10 He rescued them from the people who hated them.
He saved them from their enemy's power.
11 The water of the sea drowned their enemies,
so that none of them remained alive.[b]
12 Then God's people believed his promises.
They sang songs to praise him.[c]
13 But they soon forgot
what the Lord had done to help them.
They did not wait for him to tell them what to do.
14 In the wilderness they wanted better food.
They tested God to see what he would do.
15 He gave them the food that they asked for,
but he also sent a bad disease on them.[d]
16 The people became jealous of Moses,
and Aaron, the Lord's special priest.
17 So God made the earth break open,
so that Dathan fell into it.
It also destroyed Abiram and his people.
18 Fire burned all their group,
and it killed those wicked people.[e]
19 At Horeb, the Israelites used gold to make a cow,
and they worshipped it.
20 They turned away from their great God.
Instead, they worshipped the statue of a cow,
an animal that eats grass![f]
21 They forgot the God who had saved them,
when he did great miracles in Egypt.
22 He had done powerful things in the land of Ham's descendants,
and at the shore of the Red Sea.
His people forgot about all that!
23 So God said that he would destroy them.
But God's servant, Moses, spoke on their behalf.
He asked God not to be angry with his people,
and God agreed.
24 Later, they did not believe God's promise
to take them safely into the beautiful land of Canaan.
25 They spoke against the Lord in their tents,
and they did not obey him.
26 So he made a strong promise
that he would cause them to die in the desert.
27 He promised that he would chase their descendants away,
so that they died in foreign countries.[g]
28 After that, they started to worship the false god, Baal of Peor.
They ate the food from sacrifices
that people gave to dead idols.
29 The Lord became angry
because of what his people did.
He sent a bad disease among them.
30 Then Phinehas punished the guilty people,
so that the disease stopped killing people.[h]
31 So we remember that Phinehas was a righteous man,
and that will be true for ever.
32 At Meribah springs, the Israelites made God angry.
What they did there caused Moses to have trouble.
33 Moses was so upset that he spoke in a careless way.[i]
34 The Lord commanded his people
to destroy the nations of Canaan,
But they did not obey the Lord's command.
35 Instead, they mixed with those nations
and they learned their way of life.
36 They worshipped their idols
which caught them in a trap.
37 They even killed their sons and their daughters
as sacrifices for those idols of demons!
38 Their sons and their daughters did not deserve to die,
but they killed them as sacrifices for the idols of Canaan.
Those murders made the land unclean.
39 The things that the Lord's people did
made them unclean.
They were not faithful to the Lord,
like a wife who is not faithful to her husband.
40 So the Lord became angry with his people.
They belonged to him
but he turned away from them.
41 He let other nations have power over them.
Their enemies ruled over them.
42 Their enemies had power to hurt them,
and they were cruel to them.
43 Many times, the Lord rescued his people,
but they had decided not to obey him.
Their sins made them weaker and weaker.
44 But the Lord still saw when they were in trouble.
He answered them when they called to him for help.
45 He remembered the covenant that he had made with them.
Because of his faithful love for his people,
he stopped punishing them.
46 He caused all their enemies to be kind to them.
47 Lord, our God, please save us!
Bring us safely home from among the other nations.[j]
Then we will thank you!
We will shout aloud to praise your holy name.
48 Praise the Lord, Israel's God,
as he deserves!
Praise him now and for ever!
Let everybody say, ‘Amen! We agree!’
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord![k]
Three friends help David
24 David arrived at Mahanaim with his men. Absalom and Israel's army went across the Jordan River. 25 Joab had been the leader of Israel's army. But now Absalom had chosen Amasa as leader instead of Joab. Amasa's father, Jether, was a descendant of Ishmael. He had married Abigail. She was Nahash's daughter and a sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother. 26 Absalom and Israel's army made their camp in Gilead region.
27 When David arrived in Mahanaim, three men came to help him. One man was Nahash's son Shobi. He was from the Ammonites' town, Rabbah. The other men were Ammiel's son Makir, from Lo-Debar, and Barzillai from Rogelim in Gilead. 28 They brought beds and pots and cups for David's people. They also brought food for David and his people to eat. There was wheat, barley, flour and cooked grain. They also brought beans, lentils, 29 honey, cream, sheep and cheese made from cows' milk. They said, ‘The people have travelled through the desert. So they must be tired, thirsty and hungry.’
Absalom dies
18 David brought together all the men who were with him. He chose some officers to lead groups of 1,000 soldiers, and some to lead groups of 100 soldiers. 2 David sent his army out in three groups. Joab led one group. Joab's brother Abishai, Zeruiah's son, led another group. Ittai from Gath led the third group. The king said to them all, ‘I myself will go with you into battle.’
3 But the men replied, ‘No, you must not go with us. If we have to run away quickly, it will not matter to Absalom's men. Even if they kill half of our soldiers, it will not seem important to them. What they really want is to kill you. You are worth 10,000 of us. You must stay here in the city. Then you can send help to us if we need it.’
4 The king said to them, ‘I will do whatever you think is good.’ So he stood beside the gate of the city while his army marched out. They marched out in their groups of hundreds and of thousands. 5 The king commanded Joab, Abishai and Ittai, ‘Because the young man Absalom is my son, do not hurt him.’ All the soldiers heard David give this command to the three officers.
6 David's army marched out to fight Israel's army. They fought the battle in the forest of Ephraim. 7 David's soldiers won the fight against Israel's soldiers. Many soldiers died in the battle that day. There were 20,000 dead men. 8 They fought the battle everywhere in the forest and around it. The forest itself caused the death of more men than the battle did.
30 The soldiers' leader wanted to find the reason why the Jews had said bad things against Paul. He wanted to know what was really true. So the next day, he told his soldiers to remove the chains from Paul. He sent a message to the most important priest and to all the group of Jewish leaders. He told them to meet together with him. Then he took Paul to their meeting. He made Paul stand in front of them.
Paul speaks to the meeting of Jewish leaders
23 Paul looked at the group of Jewish leaders and he said to them, ‘My Jewish friends, God knows that I have nothing to be ashamed about today. I have always respected God's Laws.’ 2 The most important priest, who was called Ananias, heard Paul's words. He said to the men who were near Paul, ‘Hit that man on his mouth!’ 3 Paul said to him, ‘God will certainly hit you! You are a hypocrite![a] You are sitting there and you are judging me. You are asking if I obey the Law of God. But you yourself do not obey the Law! You should not have said, “Hit that man!” ’
4 The men who were standing near Paul said to him, ‘You must not say bad things against our most important priest!’
5 Paul replied, ‘My brothers, I did not know that this man is the most important priest.[b] Our Jewish law says, “Do not say bad things against the man who rules your people.” So I should not have said anything bad against him.’
6 Then Paul saw that there were some Sadducees and also some Pharisees in the meeting. So he shouted out to the whole group of Jewish leaders, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee! My father was also a Pharisee. I believe that dead people will certainly rise and they will live again. That is the reason why you are judging me today.’
7 As soon as Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to argue with each other. People in the group thought different things about Paul. 8 (The Sadducees do not believe that dead people will live again. They do not believe that there are angels or spirits. But the Pharisees believe in all these things.)
9 The Sadducees and the Pharisees began to shout louder and louder against each other. There were some teachers of God's Law who were in the group of Pharisees. They stood up in the meeting and they said, ‘We do not believe that this man has done anything wrong. What he says may be true. A spirit or an angel may have spoken to him.’
10 The two groups argued more and more strongly. The leader of the soldiers thought that the people there might hurt Paul badly. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Go down into the group and take Paul away from them. Take him back with you into our strong building.’
11 The next night, the Lord Jesus came and he stood near Paul. He said to Paul, ‘Do not be afraid! You have told people here in Jerusalem about me. You must also do the same thing in Rome.’
A tree without fruit
12 On the next day, they left Bethany. Jesus was hungry. 13 He saw a fig tree which was a long way away. There were leaves on it. So he went to see if it had fruit on it. When he reached it, he found nothing except leaves. That was because it was not the right season for it to have fruit. 14 So Jesus said to the tree, ‘Nobody will ever eat your fruit again.’ And his disciples heard what he said.
Jesus goes to the temple
15 When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus went into the yard of the temple.[a] People were buying and selling things there. Jesus began to make them all leave that place. Some men were changing coins there for people.[b] He pushed over their tables. And he pushed over the seats of the men who sold birds.[c]
16 Jesus would not let anyone carry things through that place. 17 While he was teaching the people, Jesus said, ‘The Bible says, “God's house will be a place where people from all countries pray.” But you have changed it into a place where robbers meet.’
18 The leaders of the priests and the teachers of God's Law heard this. And they thought about how they could kill Jesus. They were afraid of him. That was because all the crowd were listening to him. And the things that he taught caused the crowd to be very surprised.
19 When it was evening, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city again.
The fig tree is dead
20 The next morning, Jesus and his disciples passed the fig tree. They saw that it was completely dead. 21 Peter remembered what Jesus had said. So he said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, look at that fig tree. You said that it should die, and it has died.’
22 So Jesus said to them, ‘You must believe in God. 23 I tell you this: A person could say to this mountain, “Move and throw yourself into the sea.” Then it will happen like he says. But he must not let other ideas come into his mind. He must really believe that those things will happen. If he does believe it, God will do those things for him. 24 So I tell you this. When you pray to ask God for anything, believe in him. Believe that you have received that thing. Then you will have whatever you have asked for. 25 But when you stand up to pray, first you must forgive other people. If anyone has done something bad against you, forgive that person. If you do forgive them, your Father in heaven will forgive you. God will forgive you for the bad things that you have done.’ 26 [d]
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