Book of Common Prayer
5 1-2 O Lord, hear me praying; listen to my plea, O God my King, for I will never pray to anyone but you. 3 Each morning I will look to you in heaven and lay my requests before you, praying earnestly.
4 I know you get no pleasure from wickedness and cannot tolerate the slightest sin. 5 Therefore, proud sinners will not survive your searching gaze, for how you hate their evil deeds. 6 You will destroy them for their lies; how you abhor all murder and deception.
7 But as for me, I will come into your Temple protected by your mercy and your love; I will worship you with deepest awe.
8 Lord, lead me as you promised me you would; otherwise my enemies will conquer me. Tell me clearly what to do, which way to turn. 9 For they cannot speak one truthful word. Their hearts are filled to the brim with wickedness. Their suggestions are full of the stench of sin and death. Their tongues are filled with flatteries to gain their wicked ends. 10 O God, hold them responsible. Catch them in their own traps; let them fall beneath the weight of their own transgressions, for they rebel against you.
11 But make everyone rejoice who puts his trust in you. Keep them shouting for joy because you are defending them. Fill all who love you with your happiness. 12 For you bless the godly man, O Lord; you protect him with your shield of love.
6 No, Lord! Don’t punish me in the heat of your anger. 2 Pity me, O Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, for my body is sick, 3 and I am upset and disturbed. My mind is filled with apprehension and with gloom. Oh, restore me soon.
4 Come, O Lord, and make me well. In your kindness save me. 5 For if I die, I cannot give you glory by praising you before my friends.[a] 6 I am worn out with pain; every night my pillow is wet with tears. 7 My eyes are growing old and dim with grief because of all my enemies.
8 Go, leave me now, you men of evil deeds, for the Lord has heard my weeping 9 and my pleading. He will answer all my prayers. 10 All my enemies shall be suddenly dishonored, terror-stricken, and disgraced. God will turn them back in shame.
10 Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?
2 Come and deal with all these proud and wicked men who viciously persecute the poor. Pour upon these men the evil they planned for others! 3 For these men brag of all their evil lusts; they revile God and congratulate those the Lord abhors, whose only goal in life is money.
4 These wicked men, so proud and haughty, seem to think that God is dead.[a] They wouldn’t think of looking for him! 5 Yet there is success in everything they do, and their enemies fall before them. They do not see your punishment awaiting them. 6 They boast that neither God nor man can ever keep them down—somehow they’ll find a way!
7 Their mouths are full of profanity and lies and fraud. They are always boasting of their evil plans. 8 They lurk in dark alleys of the city and murder passersby. 9 Like lions they crouch silently, waiting to pounce upon the poor. Like hunters they catch their victims in their traps. 10 The unfortunate are overwhelmed by their superior strength and fall beneath their blows. 11 “God isn’t watching,” they say to themselves; “he’ll never know!”
12 O Lord, arise! O God, crush them! Don’t forget the poor or anyone else in need. 13 Why do you let the wicked get away with this contempt for God? For they think that God will never call them to account. 14 Lord, you see what they are doing. You have noted each evil act. You know what trouble and grief they have caused. Now punish them. O Lord, the poor man trusts himself to you; you are known as the helper of the helpless. 15 Break the arms of these wicked men. Go after them until the last of them is destroyed.
16 The Lord is King forever and forever. Those who follow other gods shall be swept from his land.
17 Lord, you know the hopes of humble people. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort their hearts by helping them. 18 You will be with the orphans and all who are oppressed, so that mere earthly man will terrify them no longer.
11 How dare you tell me, “Flee[b] to the mountains for safety,” when I am trusting in the Lord?
2 For the wicked have strung their bows, drawn their arrows tight against the bowstrings, and aimed from ambush at the people of God. 3 “Law and order have collapsed,”[c] we are told. “What can the righteous do but flee?”
4 But the Lord is still in his holy temple; he still rules from heaven. He closely watches everything that happens here on earth. 5 He puts the righteous and the wicked to the test; he hates those loving violence. 6 He will rain down fire and brimstone on the wicked and scorch them with his burning wind.
7 For God is good, and he loves goodness; the godly shall see his face.[d]
38 So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, and David’s bodyguard took Solomon to Gihon, riding on King David’s own mule. 39 At Gihon, Zadok took a flask of sacred oil from the Tabernacle and poured it over Solomon; and the trumpets were blown and all the people shouted, “Long live King Solomon!”
40 Then they all returned with him to Jerusalem, making a joyous and noisy celebration all along the way.
41 Adonijah and his guests heard the commotion and shouting just as they were finishing their banquet.
“What’s going on?” Joab demanded. “Why is the city in such an uproar?”
42 And while he was still speaking, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, rushed in.
“Come in,” Adonijah said to him, “for you are a good man; you must have good news.”
43 “Our lord King David has declared Solomon as king!” Jonathan shouted. 44-45 “The king sent him to Gihon with Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and Benaiah, protected by the king’s own bodyguard; and he rode on the king’s own mule. And Zadok and Nathan have anointed him as the new king! They have just returned, and the whole city is celebrating and rejoicing. That’s what all the noise is. 46-47 Solomon is sitting on the throne, and all the people are congratulating King David, saying, ‘May God bless you even more through Solomon than he has blessed you personally! May God make Solomon’s reign even greater than yours!’ And the king is lying in bed, acknowledging their blessings. 48 He is saying, ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who has selected one of my sons to sit upon my throne while I am still alive to see it.’”
49-50 Then Adonijah and his guests jumped up from the banquet table and fled in panic; for they were fearful for their lives. Adonijah rushed into the Tabernacle and caught hold of the horns of the sacred altar. 51 When word reached Solomon that Adonijah was claiming sanctuary in the Tabernacle, and pleading for clemency, 52 Solomon replied, “If he behaves himself, he will not be harmed; but if he does not, he shall die.” 53 So King Solomon summoned him, and they brought him down from the altar. He came to bow low before the king; and then Solomon curtly dismissed him.
“Go on home,” he said.
2 As the time of King David’s death approached, he gave this charge to his son Solomon:
2 “I am going where every man on earth must some day go. I am counting on you to be a strong and worthy successor. 3 Obey the laws of God and follow all his ways; keep each of his commands written in the law of Moses so that you will prosper in everything you do, wherever you turn. 4 If you do this, then the Lord will fulfill the promise he gave me, that if my children and their descendants watch their step and are faithful to God, one of them shall always be the king of Israel—my dynasty will never end.
24 Suddenly Festus shouted, “Paul, you are insane. Your long studying has broken your mind!”
25 But Paul replied, “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus. I speak words of sober truth. 26 And King Agrippa knows about these things. I speak frankly for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner! 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the Prophets? But I know you do—”
28 Agrippa interrupted him. “With trivial proofs like these,[a] you expect me to become a Christian?”
29 And Paul replied, “Would to God that whether my arguments are trivial or strong, both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains.”
30 Then the king, the governor, Bernice, and all the others stood and left. 31 As they talked it over afterwards they agreed, “This man hasn’t done anything worthy of death or imprisonment.”
32 And Agrippa said to Festus, “He could be set free if he hadn’t appealed to Caesar!”
27 Arrangements were finally made to start us on our way to Rome by ship; so Paul and several other prisoners were placed in the custody of an officer named Julius, a member of the imperial guard. 2 We left on a boat[b] that was scheduled to make several stops along the Turkish coast. I should add that Aristarchus, a Greek from Thessalonica, was with us.
3 The next day when we docked at Sidon, Julius was very kind to Paul and let him go ashore to visit with friends and receive their hospitality. 4 Putting to sea from there, we encountered headwinds that made it difficult to keep the ship on course, so we sailed north of Cyprus between the island and the mainland[c] 5 and passed along the coast of the provinces of Cilicia and Pamphylia, landing at Myra, in the province of Lycia. 6 There our officer found an Egyptian ship from Alexandria, bound for Italy, and put us aboard.
7-8 We had several days of rough sailing, and finally neared Cnidus;[d] but the winds had become too strong, so we ran across to Crete, passing the port of Salome. Beating into the wind with great difficulty and moving slowly along the southern coast, we arrived at Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.
28 “Now, here is a lesson from a fig tree. When its buds become tender and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that spring has come. 29 And when you see these things happening that I’ve described, you can be sure that my return is very near, that I am right at the door.
30 “Yes, these are the events that will signal the end of the age.[a] 31 Heaven and earth shall disappear, but my words stand sure forever.
32 “However, no one, not even the angels in heaven, nor I myself,[b] knows the day or hour when these things will happen; only the Father knows. 33 And since you don’t know when it will happen, stay alert. Be on the watch for my return.[c]
34 “My coming[d] can be compared with that of a man who went on a trip to another country. He laid out his employees’ work for them to do while he was gone and told the gatekeeper to watch for his return.
35-37 “Keep a sharp lookout! For you do not know when I[e]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.