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.
27 So Israel lived in the land of Goshen in Egypt, and soon the people of Israel began to prosper, and there was a veritable population explosion among them. 28 Jacob lived seventeen years after his arrival, so that he was 147 years old at the time of his death. 29 As the time drew near for him to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “Swear to me most solemnly that you will honor this, my last request: do not bury me in Egypt. 30 But when I am dead, take me out of Egypt and bury me beside my ancestors.” And Joseph promised. 31 “Swear that you will do it,” Jacob insisted. And Joseph did. Soon afterwards Jacob took to his bed.
48 One day not long after this, word came to Joseph that his father was failing rapidly. So, taking with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he went to visit him. 2 When Jacob heard that Joseph had arrived, he gathered his strength and sat up in the bed to greet him, 3 and said to him,
“God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 and said to me, ‘I will make you a great nation and I will give this land of Canaan to you and to your children’s children, for an everlasting possession.’ 5 And now, as to these two sons of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived, I am adopting them as my own, and they will inherit from me just as Reuben and Simeon will. 6 But any other children born to you shall be your own, and shall inherit Ephraim’s and Manasseh’s portion from you. 7 For your mother, Rachel, died after only two children[a] when I came from Paddan-aram, as we were just a short distance from Ephrath, and I buried her beside the road to Bethlehem.”
10 For we must never forget, dear brothers, what happened to our people in the wilderness long ago. God guided them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them; and he brought them all safely through the waters of the Red Sea. 2 This might be called their “baptism”—baptized both in sea and cloud!—as followers of Moses—their commitment to him as their leader. 3-4 And by a miracle God sent them food to eat and water to drink[a] there in the desert; they drank the water that Christ gave them. He was there with them as a mighty Rock of spiritual refreshment. 5 Yet after all this most of them did not obey God, and he destroyed them in the wilderness.
6 From this lesson we are warned that we must not desire evil things as they did, 7 nor worship idols as they did. (The Scriptures tell us, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to dance” in worship of the golden calf.)
8 Another lesson for us is what happened when some of them sinned with other men’s wives, and 23,000 fell dead in one day. 9 And don’t try the Lord’s patience—they did and died from snake bites. 10 And don’t murmur against God and his dealings with you as some of them did, for that is why God sent his Angel to destroy them.
11 All these things happened to them as examples—as object lessons to us—to warn us against doing the same things; they were written down so that we could read about them and learn from them in these last days as the world nears its end.
12 So be careful. If you are thinking, “Oh, I would never behave like that”—let this be a warning to you. For you too may fall into sin. 13 But remember this—the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.
7 One day some Jewish religious leaders arrived from Jerusalem to investigate him, 2 and noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the usual Jewish rituals before eating. 3 (For the Jews, especially the Pharisees, will never eat until they have sprinkled their arms to the elbows,[a] as required by their ancient traditions. 4 So when they come home from the market, they must always sprinkle themselves in this way before touching any food. This is but one of many examples of laws and regulations they have clung to for centuries, and still follow, such as their ceremony of cleansing for pots, pans, and dishes.)
5 So the religious leaders asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old customs? For they eat without first performing the washing ceremony.”
6-7 Jesus replied, “You bunch of hypocrites! Isaiah the prophet described you very well when he said, ‘These people speak very prettily about the Lord but they have no love for him at all. Their worship is a farce, for they claim that God commands the people to obey their petty rules.’ How right Isaiah was! 8 For you ignore God’s specific orders and substitute your own traditions. 9 You are simply rejecting God’s laws and trampling them under your feet for the sake of tradition.
10 “For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother.’ And he said that anyone who speaks against his father or mother must die. 11 But you say it is perfectly all right for a man to disregard his needy parents, telling them, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you! For I have given to God what I could have given to you.’ 12-13 And so you break the law of God in order to protect your man-made tradition. And this is only one example. There are many, many others.”
14 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. 15-16 [b]Your souls aren’t harmed by what you eat, but by what you think and say!”
17 Then he went into a house to get away from the crowds, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the statement he had just made.
18 “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that what you eat won’t harm your soul? 19 For food doesn’t come in contact with your heart, but only passes through the digestive system.” (By saying this he showed that every kind of food is kosher.)
20 And then he added, “It is the thought-life that pollutes. 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts of lust, theft, murder, adultery, 22 wanting what belongs to others, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, pride, and all other folly. 23 All these vile things come from within; they are what pollute you and make you unfit for God.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.