Book of Common Prayer
God takes care of his people[a]
105 Thank the Lord!
Make his name famous!
Tell people in all the nations
what he has done.
2 Sing songs and make music
to praise him!
Tell people about the miracles that he has done.
3 Boast about his holy name.[b]
Everybody who wants to worship the Lord
should be very happy!
4 Ask the Lord to help you.
Ask him to give you strength.
Always try to be near him
and worship him.
5 Remember the great things that he has done.
Remember his miracles,
and the commands that he has spoken.[c]
6 Remember that you are descendants of God's servant, Abraham.
You are Jacob's descendants,
and God has chosen you to be his people.
7 He is the Lord, our God.
He rules the whole earth with justice.
8 He will always remember the covenant
that he made with us.
He made that promise to continue for ever.
9 That is the promise that he made to Abraham,
and that he also made to Isaac.
10 He repeated it to Jacob as a law.
It was a covenant with Israel's people
that would continue for ever.[d]
11 He promised Jacob,
‘I will give to you the land of Canaan.
It will belong to you,
and to your descendants.’
12 At one time, God's people were only a few.
They lived in Canaan as strangers.
13 They travelled among different nations
and different kingdoms.
14 But the Lord did not let anyone hurt them.
He punished kings to keep his people safe.
15 He said, ‘Do not even touch the people that I have chosen to be mine.
Do not hurt my prophets.’
16 The Lord sent a famine to the land of Canaan,
so that his people had no food left to eat.
17 But he sent Joseph to Egypt
before they went there to get food.[e]
Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave.
18 In Egypt the chains on his feet hurt him.
He had a heavy piece of iron round his neck.
19 He remained a slave
until what he said would happen really happened.
Then the Lord showed that Joseph was right.
20 The powerful king of Egypt sent someone
to let Joseph go free out of prison.
21 The king made Joseph master of his palace.
Joseph took care of everything that belonged to the king.
22 The king gave him authority over his officers.
He could teach the king's leaders,
so that they would know what to do.
23 Then Jacob's family came into Egypt.
They lived as strangers in the land of Ham's descendants.[f]
24 The Lord gave to his people many children.
They became more powerful than their enemies.
25 So the Egyptians began to hate God's people.
They did cruel things to the Lord's people.
26 The Lord sent his servant Moses
to help his people in Egypt.
He also chose Aaron to help them.
27 Moses and Aaron did many miracles in Egypt,
where Ham's descendants lived.
They showed the Lord's great power to the Egyptians.
28 God made all the land become dark.
But the Egyptians did not obey God's command.
29 God caused their rivers to become blood,
and he killed their fish.
30 Frogs covered all their land.
They even went into the bedrooms of the palace!
31 The Lord commanded flies and gnats
to cover the whole country.
32 He sent hail with the rain,
and there was lightning everywhere.
33 He destroyed their vines and fig trees.
He knocked down the trees everywhere in their country.
34 He commanded many locusts to come.
There were too many locusts to count!
35 They ate all the plants in their land,
and all the crops in their fields.
36 Then the Lord killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt.
He killed the oldest son in each family.
37 So the Lord led his people out from Egypt.
They took with them valuable silver and gold things.
Nobody among the Israelite people was too weak to go.
38 The Egyptians were happy when they went,
because they were afraid of the Israelites.[g]
39 The Lord made a cloud to cover them
and a fire to give them light at night.
40 When they asked him for food,
he gave them quails to eat.
He fed them with bread from the sky.
41 He broke a rock,
so that water poured out from it.
It ran as a river through the dry places.
42 Yes, the Lord remembered the holy promise
that he had made to his servant, Abraham.
43 So he led his people out from Egypt,
and they were very happy!
They were the people that he had chosen for himself,
and they shouted with joy!
44 The Lord gave to them
the land of other nations.
They enjoyed the good things
that other people had worked to get.
45 Then God's people could obey his commands
and his laws.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Samson marries a Philistine woman
14 One day Samson went to Timnah. Samson saw a young Philistine woman. 2 When he returned home, he said to his father and mother, ‘I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah and I want to marry her. Please get her for me as my wife.’
3 His parents replied, ‘You do not need to go to the Philistines to get a wife. They are not the Lord's people. There is surely someone among our own relatives or other Israelites that you would like to marry.’ But Samson said to his father, ‘You must get her for me. She is the right girl for me to marry.’
4 Samson's parents did not realize that the Lord was causing this to happen. The Lord wanted to prepare a way for the Israelites to attack the Philistines, because the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time.
5 Samson went to Timnah, and his parents went too. When he reached some vineyards near Timnah, an angry young lion ran out to attack him. 6 The Lord's Spirit gave Samson great strength. He tore the lion into pieces with his hands. He made it seem very easy, as if he was killing a goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
7 Then Samson continued on his journey to Timnah. He spoke with the young woman, and she pleased him very much.
8 Some time later, Samson returned to Timnah to marry the young woman. He turned off the path to look at the lion's body. Inside it, there was a crowd of bees and some honey. 9 He took the honey out with his hands. He ate it as he walked along. Then he went to his parents. He gave some of the honey to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken it from the body of the dead lion.
10 Then Samson's father went to Timnah for Samson's marriage. Samson prepared a party for the people there. All the young men did this when they married. 11 When the Philistines saw what Samson was doing, they sent 30 young men to be his friends. 12 Samson said to them, ‘Listen to this clever question. Try to give me an answer before my party finishes in seven days. If you answer the question, I will give you 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes. 13 But if you cannot tell me the answer, you will give me 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes.’ The young men said, ‘Tell us your question.’[a]
14 Samson said to them:
‘Out of the one who eats came something to eat.
Out of the strong one came something sweet.’
After three days, the Philistine men could not find the answer.
15 On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, ‘Find a way to make your husband tell you the answer. If you do not, we will use fire to destroy your father's house, with you inside it! Did you ask us to come to your marriage party to make us poor?’
16 Then Samson's wife went to him and she wept. She said to him, ‘It seems that you hate me. You do not really love me. You have asked my friends a clever question, but you have not told me the answer.’
Samson said to her, ‘I have not told the answer even to my father or mother. So why should I tell you?’
17 Samson's wife continued to weep like that all the days of the party. Finally, she gave him so much trouble that he told her the answer on the seventh day. Then she told the young men the answer to Samson's question.
18 Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the town gave their answer to Samson:
‘There is nothing sweeter than honey!
There is nothing stronger than a lion!’
Samson said to them, ‘You have used my young cow to do your work! Without her you would not have found the answer to my question.’
19 The Lord's Spirit took hold of Samson. He went to Ashkelon and he killed 30 Philistine men there. He took all their clothes and he gave them to the 30 men who had answered his question. He was still very angry as he went back to his family's home.
15 All the Jewish leaders who sat there in the meeting looked carefully at Stephen. They saw that his face was very bright, like the face of an angel.
Stephen speaks to the Jewish leaders
7 The most important priest said to Stephen, ‘These men are saying things against you. Are these things true?’
2 Stephen said, ‘Men of Israel, my friends and leaders. Listen to what I say. Our great God appeared to our ancestor, Abraham, when he was still living in Mesopotamia. This happened before he went to Haran. 3 God said to Abraham, “Leave your own country and your own family and go to a different country. I will show you where that will be.”[a]
4 So Abraham left his country where the Chaldean people lived. He went to Haran and he stayed there. While he was there, his father died. Then God said to him, “Leave this place.” God then sent him to live in Canaan. This is where we are living now.[b]
5 At that time, God did not give Abraham any part of Canaan for his own family. He did not give Abraham even a very small piece of ground. But God made a promise to Abraham. He said, “This land will become your own country. It will also be your descendants' country.” When God said this to him, Abraham did not yet have any children. 6 This is what God said to him: “Your descendants will live in a foreign country for 400 years. The people in that country will cause your descendants to be their slaves. They will be very cruel to them. 7 But I will punish those people who cause your descendants to work as slaves for them. After I have done that, your descendants will leave that country. They will come to this place and worship me here.” That is what God said to Abraham.[c]
8 Then God made an covenant with Abraham that his descendants would be his special people. God said, “You must circumcise all your baby boys.”
Later, Abraham became the father of Isaac. Abraham circumcised Isaac when he was eight days old. Then Isaac became the father of Jacob. Jacob himself had 12 sons. These sons became the 12 ancestors of the families of Israel.[d]
9 One of Jacob's sons was called Joseph. Jacob was more kind to Joseph than to his other sons. For this reason, Joseph's brothers did not like him. So one day they took Joseph and they sold him as a slave. The men that bought Joseph took him to Egypt. There he became the slave of an important man. All this time, God took care of Joseph. 10 God saved him from all his troubles and he helped him to live in a wise way. Because of that, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, liked Joseph. He saw that Joseph was very wise. So Pharaoh gave Joseph authority to rule Egypt and everyone in the king's own house.
11 Then there was a famine everywhere in Egypt and in Canaan. Everyone was very hungry and they suffered a lot. Our ancestors also had no food to eat. 12 Jacob heard news that Pharaoh had stored a lot of wheat in Egypt. So he sent his sons there to buy food from Pharaoh. This was the first time that they went to Egypt.
13 Later, Jacob sent his sons back to Egypt for a second time. This time, Joseph told his brothers who he really was. As a result, Pharaoh came to know about Joseph's family. 14 After this, Joseph sent a message to his father, that he should also come to Egypt with his whole family. At that time, there were 75 people in Jacob's family.
15 So Jacob went to Egypt with all his family. Jacob and his 12 sons, our ancestors, lived there until they died.[e]
16 When the people of Israel left Egypt, they carried with them the dead bodies of Joseph and his family. They took them back to Shechem and they buried them in a hole for dead people there. Abraham had bought that ground in Shechem from the family of a man called Hamor. He had paid Hamor the right money for it.’[f]
The disciples return
27 At this moment, Jesus' disciples returned. They were surprised to see that Jesus was talking to a woman. But none of them asked him, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you talking to her?’ 28 Then the woman left her water pot and she returned to the town. She said to the people there, 29 ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything about myself. He told me all the things that I have ever done! He must be the Messiah!’ 30 So they left the town and they went to find Jesus.
31 While that was happening, the disciples said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, eat something.’ 32 But he said to them, ‘I have food that I can eat. But you do not know about it.’ 33 So the disciples asked each other, ‘Could someone have brought food to him?’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘My Father has sent me. I must do the things he wants me to do. I must finish the work that he has given to me to do. That is my food. 35 You often say, “It is still four more months until the plants in the farmers' fields will be ready for the harvest.” But I say that you should open your eyes. Look at the fields. The plants are ready for the harvest now. 36 The workers are already bringing in the fruit and their master is paying them. As a result, people are receiving life for ever with God. So the person who plants the seeds will be very happy. And the person who brings in the fruit will also be very happy. Both of them will be happy together. 37 You also say, “One person plants the seeds and another person brings in the fruit.” Now you can see that this is true. 38 I have sent you to bring people to me like a harvest of fruit. You did not do the work to prepare that fruit. Other people did that hard work. Now you have brought in the fruit that they worked for. That makes you happy.’
39 Many of the people who lived in that town in Samaria heard the woman's story. She had said to them, ‘He told me all the things that I have ever done!’ Because of this, they believed in Jesus. 40 So when these people came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them. So he stayed there for two days. 41 Many more people believed in Jesus when they listened to his own words. 42 The people said to the woman, ‘Now we believe in him because we ourselves have heard him. We do not believe only because of what you told us. He really is the man that God has sent to save the world. We know that now.’
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