Book of Common Prayer
56 1-2 Lord, have mercy on me; all day long the enemy troops press in. So many are proud to fight against me; how they long to conquer me.
3-4 But when I am afraid, I will put my confidence in you. Yes, I will trust the promises of God. And since I am trusting him, what can mere man do to me? 5 They are always twisting what I say. All their thoughts are how to harm me. 6 They meet together to perfect their plans; they hide beside the trail, listening for my steps, waiting to kill me. 7 They expect to get away with it. Don’t let them, Lord. In anger cast them to the ground.
8 You have seen me tossing and turning through the night. You have collected all my tears and preserved them in your bottle! You have recorded every one in your book.
9 The very day I call for help, the tide of battle turns. My enemies flee! This one thing I know: God is for me! 10-11 I am trusting God—oh, praise his promises! I am not afraid of anything mere man can do to me! Yes, praise his promises. 12 I will surely do what I have promised, Lord, and thank you for your help. 13 For you have saved me from death and my feet from slipping, so that I can walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
57 O God, have pity, for I am trusting you! I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings until this storm is past. 2 I will cry to the God of heaven who does such wonders for me. 3 He will send down help from heaven to save me because of his love and his faithfulness. He will rescue me from these liars who are so intent upon destroying me. 4 I am surrounded by fierce lions—hotheads whose teeth are sharp as spears and arrows. Their tongues are like swords. 5 Lord, be exalted above the highest heavens! Show your glory high above the earth. 6 My enemies have set a trap for me. Frantic fear grips me. They have dug a pitfall in my path. But look! They themselves have fallen into it!
7 O God, my heart is quiet and confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! 8 Rouse yourself, my soul! Arise, O harp and lyre! Let us greet the dawn with song! 9 I will thank you publicly throughout the land. I will sing your praises among the nations. 10 Your kindness and love are as vast as the heavens. Your faithfulness is higher than the skies.
11 Yes, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. May your glory shine throughout the earth.
58 1-2 Justice? You high and mighty politicians don’t even know the meaning of the word! Fairness? Which of you has any left? Not one! All your dealings are crooked: you give “justice” in exchange for bribes.[a] 3 These men are born sinners, lying from their earliest words! 4-5 They are poisonous as deadly snakes, cobras that close their ears to the most expert of charmers.
6 O God, break off their fangs. Tear out the teeth of these young lions, Lord. 7 Let them disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands.[b] 8 Let them be as snails that dissolve into slime and as those who die at birth, who never see the sun. 9 God will sweep away both old and young. He will destroy them more quickly than a cooking pot can feel the blazing fire of thorns beneath it.
10 The godly shall rejoice in the triumph of right;[c] they shall walk the bloodstained fields of slaughtered, wicked men. 11 Then at last everyone will know that good is rewarded, and that there is a God who judges justly here on earth.
64 1-2 Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals. 3 They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart. 4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid. 5 They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say. 6 They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.[a]
7 But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them. 8 They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them. 9 Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does. 10 And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.
65 1-2 O God in Zion, we wait before you in silent praise, and thus fulfill our vow. And because you answer prayer, all mankind will come to you with their requests. 3 Though sins fill our hearts, you forgive them all. 4 How greatly to be envied are those you have chosen to come and live with you within the holy tabernacle courts! What joys await us among all the good things there. 5 With dread deeds and awesome power you will defend us from our enemies,[b] O God who saves us. You are the only hope of all mankind throughout the world and far away upon the sea.
6 He formed the mountains by his mighty strength. 7 He quiets the raging oceans and all the world’s clamor. 8 In the farthest corners of the earth the glorious acts of God shall startle everyone. The dawn and sunset shout for joy! 9 He waters the earth to make it fertile. The rivers of God will not run dry! He prepares the earth for his people and sends them rich harvests of grain. 10 He waters the furrows with abundant rain. Showers soften the earth, melting the clods and causing seeds to sprout across the land. 11-12 Then he crowns it all with green, lush pastures in the wilderness; hillsides blossom with joy. 13 The pastures are filled with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. All the world shouts with joy and sings.
21 Naboth, a man from Jezreel, had a vineyard on the outskirts of the city near King Ahab’s palace. 2 One day the king talked to him about selling him this land.
“I want it for a garden,” the king explained, “because it’s so convenient to the palace.” He offered cash or, if Naboth preferred, a piece of better land in trade.
3 But Naboth replied, “Not on your life! That land has been in my family for generations.”
4 So Ahab went back to the palace angry and sullen. He refused to eat and went to bed with his face to the wall!
5 “What in the world is the matter?” his wife, Jezebel, asked him. “Why aren’t you eating? What has made you so upset and angry?”
6 “I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or to trade it, and he refused!” Ahab told her.
7 “Are you the king of Israel or not?” Jezebel demanded. “Get up and eat and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard!”
8 So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and addressed them to the civic leaders of Jezreel, where Naboth lived. 9 In her letter she commanded: “Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer.[a] Then summon Naboth, 10 and find two scoundrels who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and execute him.”
11 The city fathers followed the queen’s instructions. 12 They called the meeting and put Naboth on trial. 13 Then two men who had no conscience accused him of cursing God and the king; and he was dragged outside the city and stoned to death. 14 The city officials then sent word to Jezebel that Naboth was dead.
15 When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, “You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn’t sell you? Well, you can have it now! He’s dead!”
16 So Ahab went down to the vineyard to claim it.
1 From: Paul, chosen by God to be Jesus Christ’s missionary, and from brother Sosthenes.
2 To: The Christians in Corinth, invited by God to be his people and made acceptable to him by Christ Jesus.[a] And to: All Christians everywhere—whoever calls upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and theirs.
3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you all of his blessings, and great peace of heart and mind.
4 I can never stop thanking God for all the wonderful gifts he has given you, now that you are Christ’s: 5 he has enriched your whole life. He has helped you speak out for him and has given you a full understanding of the truth; 6 what I told you Christ could do for you has happened! 7 Now you have every grace and blessing; every spiritual gift and power for doing his will are yours during this time of waiting for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 And he guarantees right up to the end that you will be counted free from all sin and guilt on that day when he returns. 9 God will surely do this for you, for he always does just what he says, and he is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, even Christ our Lord.
10 But, dear brothers, I beg you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so that there won’t be splits in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. 11 For some of those who live at Chloe’s house have told me of your arguments and quarrels, dear brothers. 12 Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul”; and others say that they are for Apollos or for Peter; and some that they alone are the true followers of Christ. 13 And so, in effect, you have broken Christ into many pieces.
But did I, Paul, die for your sins? Were any of you baptized in my name? 14 I am so thankful now that I didn’t baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. 15 For now no one can think that I have been trying to start something new, beginning a “Church of Paul.” 16 Oh, yes, and I baptized the family of Stephanas. I don’t remember ever baptizing anyone else. 17 For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel; and even my preaching sounds poor, for I do not fill my sermons with profound words and high-sounding ideas, for fear of diluting the mighty power there is in the simple message of the cross of Christ.
18 I know very well how foolish it sounds to those who are lost,[b] when they hear that Jesus died to save them. But we who are saved recognize this message as the very power of God. 19 For God says, “I will destroy all human plans of salvation no matter how wise they seem to be, and ignore the best ideas of men, even the most brilliant of them.”
4 Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, to be tempted there by Satan. 2 For forty days and forty nights he ate nothing and became very hungry. 3 Then Satan tempted him to get food by changing stones into loaves of bread.
“It will prove you are the Son of God,” he said.
4 But Jesus told him, “No! For the Scriptures tell us that bread won’t feed men’s souls: obedience to every word of God is what we need.”
5 Then Satan took him to Jerusalem to the roof of the Temple. 6 “Jump off,” he said, “and prove you are the Son of God; for the Scriptures declare, ‘God will send his angels to keep you from harm,’ . . . they will prevent you from smashing on the rocks below.”
7 Jesus retorted, “It also says not to put the Lord your God to a foolish test!”
8 Next Satan took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him the nations of the world and all their glory. 9 “I’ll give it all to you,” he said, “if you will only kneel and worship me.”
10 “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “The Scriptures say, ‘Worship only the Lord God. Obey only him.’”
11 Then Satan went away, and angels came and cared for Jesus.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.