Book of Common Prayer
The Lord rules as king![a]
97 The Lord rules as king!
Everyone on earth should be happy!
The people who live on the shore of the seas
should sing with joy!
2 Dark clouds are all round the Lord.
He rules with justice,
and he is fair to everyone.
3 Fire goes in front of him.
It burns up his enemies on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the whole world.
The earth sees it and it shakes with fear.
5 The mountains melt like butter
in front of the Lord,
when they see the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The sky itself tells us that he is righteous
People from every nation see his glory.
7 Everyone who worships idols should be ashamed.
They should not boast about useless idols!
All gods like that will fall down in front of the Lord.
8 When Zion's people hear about it,
they will be happy.
Yes, the people of Judah will be very happy!
They will be happy, Lord,
because you bring justice.
9 You, Lord, are the Most High God
who rules over all the earth.
You are much greater than any other god![b]
10 If you love the Lord,
then hate anything that is evil.
The Lord protects the lives of those who serve him.
He keeps them safe from the power of wicked people.
11 God's light shines on righteous people.
Good, honest people will be very happy.
12 All you righteous people,
be happy because of what the Lord has done.
Thank him because he is holy.
The Lord is holy![a]
99 The Lord rules as king!
People on earth should shake with fear!
The Lord sits on his throne as king
above the cherubs![b]
The earth itself should shake!
2 The Lord is a great king in Zion.
He rules with power
over all the world's nations.
3 So they should all praise your great name.
It is a name that brings fear!
The Lord is holy!
4 You are a strong king who loves justice.
You have made fair rules,
so that people in Israel do what is right.
5 Praise the Lord our God!
Worship him as king.
He is holy!
6 Moses and Aaron were two of his priests.[c]
Samuel was among those who prayed to him.
They prayed to the Lord
and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud.[d]
They obeyed his rules and his commands.
8 Yes, you answered them, Lord our God.
You forgave the sins of your people.
But when they did wrong things,
you punished them.[e]
9 Praise the Lord our God!
Go and worship him on his holy hill,
because the Lord our God is holy!
This is a psalm to say ‘thank you’.
Thank you, God![f]
100 Everyone on earth,
shout and praise the Lord!
2 Worship the Lord and be happy!
Come near to him with songs of joy.
3 Understand that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his people.
He takes care of us,
like a shepherd with his sheep.
4 Thank him as you go through the gates into his temple.
Praise him as you stand in his temple yards.[g]
Thank him and praise him
as he deserves!
5 Yes, the Lord is good.
He always loves us as his people.
He always does what he has promised
to us and to our descendants for ever.
God judges all people
94 Lord, you are the God
who punishes guilty people.
God, show your power
to punish people as they deserve![a]
2 Judge of all people on the earth, do something!
Punish proud people as they deserve!
3 How long will wicked people continue to be happy?
Yes, Lord, how long?
4 Those people who do evil things
speak many proud words.
They boast about how great they are.
5 Lord, see how they hurt your own people.
They are cruel to the people that belong to you.
6 They kill widows
and foreign people who live in our land.
They murder children that have no family.
7 They say, ‘The Lord does not see us.
Israel's God does not see what we are doing.’
8 Think again, all you fools among the people!
Stupid people, become wise!
9 God made our ears!
Can he himself not hear?
He made our eyes!
Does he not see?
10 He teaches the nations what is right.
Will he not punish you,
when you do what is wrong?
He teaches people what they should know.
11 The Lord knows what people think.
He knows that their thoughts are empty.
12 Lord, when you teach people what is right,
you have really blessed them.
You use your Law to teach them.
13 When those people have troubles,
you keep them safe.
Then the wicked people fall into a deep hole
that you have dug to catch them.
14 The Lord will not leave his people alone.
He will not forget to help the people that belong to him.
15 Once again, judges will do what is right and fair,
and good, honest people will agree.
16 Who would fight for me
against the wicked people?[b]
Who would keep me safe
from the people who do evil things?
17 Unless the Lord had helped me,
I would soon have become silent in death.
18 When I think, ‘I am falling down,’
your faithful love keeps me safe, Lord.
19 When I have troubles in my mind,
so that I am afraid,
you help me to be happy again.
20 You will not become a friend of cruel rulers.
They make laws that only hurt people.
21 They join together to work against good people.
They say that people are guilty
who have done nothing wrong.
They say that they must die.
22 But the Lord is a strong place for me.
Yes, my God is a rock
where I can hide and be safe.
23 He will punish those wicked leaders.
He will destroy them,
because they do evil things.
The Lord our God will completely destroy them.
Worship God and obey him[c]
95 Come now! Let us sing together to worship the Lord!
We will shout aloud
to praise God, the strong Rock who makes us safe!
2 Let us come near to God
and thank him![d]
Let us sing songs to praise him,
because we are so happy!
3 Yes, the Lord is the great God.
He is the great king who rules over all gods.
4 The deepest places of the earth are in his hand.
The highest mountains belong to him.
5 The seas are his,
because he made them.
He also made the dry land,
with his own hands.
6 Come now! Let us bend down to worship him!
Let us bend our knees in front of the Lord.
He is the one who made us.
7 He is our God.
He takes care of us,
like a shepherd takes care of his sheep.[e]
As his sheep, he gives us what we need.
Today, you must listen to him
and obey him.
8 He says, ‘Do not refuse to obey me,
like my people did at Meribah.
They also did that one day at Massah,
in the desert.
9 Your ancestors tested me there,
to see if I would punish them.
But they had already seen the great things
that I had done for them!
10 So I was angry with those people
all the time for 40 years.
I said, “These people love to go the wrong way.
They refuse to follow my ways.”
11 I was very angry and I promised,
“They will never come into my place of rest.” ’[f]
Samson's birth
13 The Israelites again did things that the Lord saw were evil. So he put them under the power of the Philistines for 40 years.
2 There was a man who belonged to Dan's tribe. His name was Manoah and he lived in Zorah. His wife had no children and she could not give birth. 3 The Lord's angel appeared to her. He said, ‘You have not been able to give birth to any children until now. But you will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. 4 You must not drink any wine or any beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. 5 Yes, you will give birth to a son. You must never cut the boy's hair. He is to be a Nazirite.[a] He will belong to God from the time that he is born. He will begin to rescue the Israelites from the power of the Philistines.’
6 The woman went quickly to tell her husband. She said, ‘A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel that God had sent with a message. I was afraid of him. I did not ask where he came from. He did not tell me his name. 7 He said to me, “You will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You must not drink any wine or beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. The boy will belong to me as a Nazirite from his birth until the day that he dies!” ’
8 Manoah prayed to the Lord, ‘Lord, please send the man of God to come to us again. Let him teach us how we should take care of this boy who will be born.’
9 God did what Manoah had asked. The angel came again to visit Manoah's wife. She was resting in the fields and her husband was not with her. 10 She ran to tell her husband, ‘Come quickly! The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again!’
11 Manoah got up and he followed his wife. When he met the man, he asked him, ‘Are you the man who talked to my wife?’ The man said, ‘Yes, I am.’
12 Then Manoah asked him, ‘When what you promised happens, how should the boy live? What kind of work will he do?’
13 The Lord's angel answered, ‘Your wife must be careful to do everything that I told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from vines.[b] She must not drink wine or beer. She must not eat any food that is unclean. She must obey everything that I have commanded her to do.’
15 Manoah said to the Lord's angel, ‘Please stay here with us. We would like to cook a young goat for you to eat.’
27 The police brought the apostles into the meeting room. They made them stand in front of the group of Jewish leaders. The most important priest said to the apostles, 28 ‘We told you that you must not teach people any more with the authority of Jesus. But now look at what you have done! Now people everywhere in Jerusalem have heard your teaching. You also want people to think that we are guilty for the death of Jesus.’
29 Peter and the other apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than obey people. 30 You fixed Jesus to a cross so that he died. But then the God of our ancestors caused him to become alive again. 31 God raised Jesus and he put him in the most important place at his right side. Jesus is now the one who leads us and the one who saves us. He has made a way for the people of Israel to turn back to God. He wants us to stop doing wrong things. Then God will forgive us for our sins. 32 We tell people about what happened to Jesus. We ourselves saw these things. Now God has given his Holy Spirit to people who obey him. The Holy Spirit also shows that these things are true.’
33 The group of Jewish leaders heard what the apostles said to them. They were so angry that they wanted to kill the apostles. 34 But one man did not agree. He was called Gamaliel and he was a Pharisee, a teacher of the Law. All the people agreed that he was a good man. Gamaliel stood up in front of the group of Jewish leaders. He told the police to take the apostles out of the room. 35 When they had gone, Gamaliel spoke to the group of leaders: ‘Men of Israel! Think carefully about what you want to do to these men. 36 Remember what happened to Theudas a few years ago. That man told everyone, “I am a very important leader.” As a result, about 400 men joined his group. But then somebody killed him, and all his men went away. Nobody heard any more about them. 37 Later, Judas from Galilee appeared at the time when the Romans were making a list of everyone's names.[a] Many people also came to help him fight against the Romans. But somebody killed him. His men also ran away and nothing more happened.[b]
38 Now think about what is happening with these men. I tell you it would be better to leave them alone. Let them go free. If their message only comes from human ideas, all their work will fail. 39 But perhaps what they are doing really does come from God himself. If that is true, then you cannot stop them. You might even find that you are fighting against God!’
40 The Jewish leaders agreed with Gamaliel. They told the apostles to come back into the room. They told the police to hit them with whips. Then they said to the apostles, ‘You must not use the authority of Jesus to teach the people.’ After that, they let the apostles go free.[c]
41 The apostles went away from the meeting of the Jewish leaders. They were very happy because they thought to themselves, ‘These leaders have done bad things to us because we obey Jesus. That shows that God accepts us as his people.’
42 Every day the apostles continued to teach people about Jesus. They spoke in people's homes and in the yard of the temple. All the time, they told people the good news that Jesus is God's Messiah.
Jesus and John the Baptist
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the country places in Judea. Jesus stayed there with his disciples for some time, and they baptized people there. 23 John was also baptizing people. He was at a place called Aenon, near Salim, because there was a lot of water there. People were coming to him and John was baptizing them. 24 (This happened before the rulers put John in prison.) 25 John's disciples began to argue with a certain Jew about some Jewish rules. Those rules told people how they should wash properly. 26 The disciples then came to John. They said to him, ‘Teacher, remember the man, Jesus, that you spoke to us about. He was with you on the other side of the Jordan River. Now he is baptizing people and everyone is going to him.’
27 John replied, ‘A man can receive only what God gives to him, nothing else. 28 You yourselves will remember that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but God sent me to prepare things for the Messiah.”[a] 29 When a man marries a wife, she belongs to him. The man's special friend listens carefully. He wants to know when the man will arrive. That friend is very happy when he hears the man's voice. I am like that friend, so I am completely happy now. 30 Jesus must become greater, but I must become less important.
31 The one who comes from above is greater than all things. A person who comes from the earth belongs to the earth. A person like that speaks only about things that belong to the earth. But the one who comes from heaven is greater than all things. 32 He tells people about the things that he has seen. He tells about what he has heard. But people do not believe his message. 33 Anyone who does believe his message agrees that God is true. 34 The one that God has sent speaks God's words. God has given his Spirit to fill that person completely. 35 The Father loves the Son. He has given his Son authority over all things. 36 Anyone who believes in the Son has life with God for ever. But anyone who refuses to obey the Son will never have life with God. God will continue to be angry with people like that.’
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