Book of Common Prayer
69 1-2 Save me, O my God. The floods have risen. Deeper and deeper I sink in the mire; the waters rise around me. 3 I have wept until I am exhausted; my throat is dry and hoarse; my eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to act. 4 I cannot even count all those who hate me without cause. They are influential men, these who plot to kill me though I am innocent. They demand that I be punished for what I didn’t do.
5 O God, you know so well how stupid I am, and you know all my sins. 6 O Lord God of the armies of heaven, don’t let me be a stumbling block to those who trust in you. O God of Israel, don’t let me cause them to be confused, 7 though I am mocked and cursed and shamed for your sake. 8 Even my own brothers pretend they don’t know me! 9 My zeal for God and his work[a] burns hot within me. And because I advocate your cause, your enemies insult me even as they insult you. 10 How they scoff and mock me when I mourn and fast before the Lord! 11 How they talk about me when I wear sackcloth to show my humiliation and sorrow for my sins! 12 I am the talk of the town and the song of the drunkards. 13 But I keep right on praying to you, Lord. For now is the time—you are bending down to hear! You are ready with a plentiful supply of love and kindness. Now answer my prayer and rescue me as you promised.[b] 14 Pull me out of this mire. Don’t let me sink in. Rescue me from those who hate me, and from these deep waters I am in.
15 Don’t let the floods overwhelm me or the ocean swallow me; save me from the pit that threatens me. 16 O Jehovah, answer my prayers, for your loving-kindness is wonderful; your mercy is so plentiful, so tender and so kind. 17 Don’t hide from me,[c] for I am in deep trouble. Quick! Come and save me. 18 Come, Lord, and rescue me. Ransom me from all my enemies. 19 You know how they talk about me, and how they so shamefully dishonor me. You see them all and know what each has said.
20 Their contempt has broken my heart; my spirit is heavy within me. If even one would show some pity, if even one would comfort me! 21 For food they gave me gall; for my awful thirst they offered vinegar. 22 Let their joys[d] turn to ashes and their peace disappear; 23 let darkness, blindness, and great feebleness be theirs. 24 Pour out your fury upon them; consume them with the fierceness of your anger. 25 Let their homes be desolate and abandoned. 26 For they persecute the one you have smitten and scoff at the pain of the one you have pierced. 27 Pile their sins high and do not overlook them. 28 Let these men be blotted from the list of the living;[e] do not give them the joys of life with the righteous.
29 But rescue me, O God, from my poverty and pain. 30 Then I will praise God with my singing! My thanks will be his praise— 31 that will please him more than sacrificing a bullock or an ox. 32 The humble shall see their God at work for them. No wonder they will be so glad! All who seek for God shall live in joy. 33 For Jehovah hears the cries of his needy ones and does not look the other way.
34 Praise him, all heaven and earth! Praise him, all the seas and everything in them! 35 For God will save Jerusalem;[f] he rebuilds the cities of Judah. His people shall live in them and not be dispossessed. 36 Their children shall inherit the land; all who love his name shall live there safely.
73 How good God is to Israel—to those whose hearts are pure. 2 But as for me, I came so close to the edge of the cliff! My feet were slipping and I was almost gone. 3 For I was envious of the prosperity of the proud and wicked. 4 Yes, all through life their road is smooth![a] They grow sleek and fat. 5 They aren’t always in trouble and plagued with problems like everyone else, 6 so their pride sparkles like a jeweled necklace, and their clothing is woven of cruelty! 7 These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! 8 They scoff at God and threaten his people. How proudly they speak! 9 They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut through the earth.
10 And so God’s people are dismayed and confused and drink it all in. 11 “Does God realize what is going on?” they ask. 12 “Look at these men of arrogance; they never have to lift a finger—theirs is a life of ease; and all the time their riches multiply.”
13 Have I been wasting my time? Why take the trouble to be pure? 14 All I get out of it is trouble and woe—every day and all day long! 15 If I had really said that, I would have been a traitor to your people. 16 Yet it is so hard to explain it—this prosperity of those who hate the Lord. 17 Then one day I went into God’s sanctuary to meditate and thought about the future of these evil men. 18 What a slippery path they are on—suddenly God will send them sliding over the edge of the cliff and down to their destruction: 19 an instant end to all their happiness, an eternity of terror. 20 Their present life is only a dream! They will awaken to the truth as one awakens from a dream of things that never really were!
21 When I saw this, what turmoil filled my heart! 22 I saw myself so stupid and so ignorant; I must seem like an animal to you, O God. 23 But even so, you love me! You are holding my right hand! 24 You will keep on guiding me all my life with your wisdom and counsel, and afterwards receive me into the glories of heaven![b] 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire no one on earth as much as you! 26 My health fails; my spirits droop, yet God remains! He is the strength of my heart; he is mine forever!
27 But those refusing to worship God will perish, for he destroys those serving other gods.
28 But as for me, I get as close to him as I can! I have chosen him, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful ways he rescues me.
24 Abraham was now a very old man, and God blessed him in every way. 2 One day Abraham said to his household administrator, who was his oldest servant,
3 “Swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not let my son marry one of these local girls, these Canaanites. 4 Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife for him there.”
5 “But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come so far from home?” the servant asked. “Then shall I take Isaac there, to live among your relatives?”
6 “No!” Abraham warned. “Be careful that you don’t do that under any circumstance. 7 For the Lord God of heaven told me to leave that land and my people, and promised to give me and my children this land. He will send his angel on ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a girl from there to be my son’s wife. 8 But if you don’t succeed, then you are free from this oath; but under no circumstances are you to take my son there.”
9 So the servant vowed[a] to follow Abraham’s instructions.
10 He took with him ten of Abraham’s camels loaded with samples of the best of everything his master owned and journeyed to Iraq, to Nahor’s village. 11 There he made the camels kneel down outside the town, beside a spring. It was evening, and the women of the village were coming to draw water.
12 “O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey. 13 See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the girls of the village are coming out to draw water. 14 This is my request: When I ask one of them for a drink and she says, ‘Yes, certainly, and I will water your camels too!’—let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife. That is how I will know.”
15-16 As he was still speaking to the Lord about this, a beautiful young girl[b] named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder and filled it at the spring. (Her father was Bethuel the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.) 17 Running over to her, the servant asked her for a drink.
18 “Certainly, sir,” she said, and quickly lowered the jug for him to drink. 19 Then she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have enough!”
20 So she emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the spring again and kept carrying water to the camels until they had enough. 21 The servant said no more, but watched her carefully to see if she would finish the job,[c] so that he would know whether she was the one. 22 Then at last, when the camels had finished drinking, he produced a quarter-ounce gold earring[d] and two five-ounce gold bracelets for her wrists.
23 “Whose daughter are you, miss?” he asked. “Would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”
24 “My father is Bethuel,” she replied. “My grandparents are Milcah and Nahor. 25 Yes, we have plenty of straw and food for the camels, and a guest room.”
26 The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah. 27 “Thank you, Lord God of my master Abraham,” he prayed; “thank you for being so kind and true to him, and for leading me straight to the family of my master’s relatives.”
3 If you want to keep from becoming fainthearted and weary, think about his patience as sinful men did such terrible things to him. 4 After all, you have never yet struggled against sin and temptation until you sweat great drops of blood.
5 And have you quite forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you, his child? He said, “My son, don’t be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don’t be discouraged when he has to show you where you are wrong. 6 For when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you. When he whips you, it proves you are really his child.”
7 Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Whoever heard of a son who was never corrected? 8 If God doesn’t punish you when you need it, as other fathers punish their sons, then it means that you aren’t really God’s son at all—that you don’t really belong in his family. 9 Since we respect our fathers here on earth, though they punish us, should we not all the more cheerfully submit to God’s training so that we can begin really to live?
10 Our earthly fathers trained us for a few brief years, doing the best for us that they knew how, but God’s correction is always right and for our best good, that we may share his holiness. 11 Being punished isn’t enjoyable while it is happening—it hurts! But afterwards we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character.
7 After this, Jesus went to Galilee, going from village to village, for he wanted to stay out of Judea where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. 2 But soon it was time for the Tabernacle Ceremonies, one of the annual Jewish holidays, 3 and Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration.
“Go where more people can see your miracles!” they scoffed. 4 “You can’t be famous when you hide like this! If you’re so great, prove it to the world!” 5 For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.
6 Jesus replied, “It is not the right time for me to go now. But you can go anytime and it will make no difference, 7 for the world can’t hate you; but it does hate me, because I accuse it of sin and evil. 8 You go on, and I’ll come later[a] when it is the right time.” 9 So he remained in Galilee.
10 But after his brothers had left for the celebration, then he went too, though secretly, staying out of the public eye. 11 The Jewish leaders tried to find him at the celebration and kept asking if anyone had seen him. 12 There was a lot of discussion about him among the crowds. Some said, “He’s a wonderful man,” while others said, “No, he’s duping the public.” 13 But no one had the courage to speak out for him in public for fear of reprisals from the Jewish leaders.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.