Book of Common Prayer
The Lord is good![a]
106 Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Thank the Lord, because he is good.
His faithful love will always be with us.
2 The great things that the Lord has done
are too many to tell!
Nobody can praise him enough.
3 God has blessed the people who obey his commands.
They always do what is right.
4 Lord, when you help your people,
please remember me!
Do not forget to help me,
when you come to rescue them.
5 I want to enjoy the good things
that you give to the people that you have chosen.
I want to be happy together with them.
I want to join with the people who belong to you,
and praise you as you deserve.
6 We have done bad things,
as our ancestors also did.
We have done things that are wicked and evil.
7 When our ancestors were in Egypt,
they did not understand your miracles.
They forgot the many ways that you showed them your faithful love.
When they arrived at the Red Sea,
they turned against you, Lord.
8 But the Lord rescued them,
to show that his name is great.
He showed that he was very powerful.
9 He shouted at the Red Sea,
and it became dry.
He led his people through the middle of the deep water,
as if they walked in a desert!
10 He rescued them from the people who hated them.
He saved them from their enemy's power.
11 The water of the sea drowned their enemies,
so that none of them remained alive.[b]
12 Then God's people believed his promises.
They sang songs to praise him.[c]
13 But they soon forgot
what the Lord had done to help them.
They did not wait for him to tell them what to do.
14 In the wilderness they wanted better food.
They tested God to see what he would do.
15 He gave them the food that they asked for,
but he also sent a bad disease on them.[d]
16 The people became jealous of Moses,
and Aaron, the Lord's special priest.
17 So God made the earth break open,
so that Dathan fell into it.
It also destroyed Abiram and his people.
18 Fire burned all their group,
and it killed those wicked people.[e]
19 At Horeb, the Israelites used gold to make a cow,
and they worshipped it.
20 They turned away from their great God.
Instead, they worshipped the statue of a cow,
an animal that eats grass![f]
21 They forgot the God who had saved them,
when he did great miracles in Egypt.
22 He had done powerful things in the land of Ham's descendants,
and at the shore of the Red Sea.
His people forgot about all that!
23 So God said that he would destroy them.
But God's servant, Moses, spoke on their behalf.
He asked God not to be angry with his people,
and God agreed.
24 Later, they did not believe God's promise
to take them safely into the beautiful land of Canaan.
25 They spoke against the Lord in their tents,
and they did not obey him.
26 So he made a strong promise
that he would cause them to die in the desert.
27 He promised that he would chase their descendants away,
so that they died in foreign countries.[g]
28 After that, they started to worship the false god, Baal of Peor.
They ate the food from sacrifices
that people gave to dead idols.
29 The Lord became angry
because of what his people did.
He sent a bad disease among them.
30 Then Phinehas punished the guilty people,
so that the disease stopped killing people.[h]
31 So we remember that Phinehas was a righteous man,
and that will be true for ever.
32 At Meribah springs, the Israelites made God angry.
What they did there caused Moses to have trouble.
33 Moses was so upset that he spoke in a careless way.[i]
34 The Lord commanded his people
to destroy the nations of Canaan,
But they did not obey the Lord's command.
35 Instead, they mixed with those nations
and they learned their way of life.
36 They worshipped their idols
which caught them in a trap.
37 They even killed their sons and their daughters
as sacrifices for those idols of demons!
38 Their sons and their daughters did not deserve to die,
but they killed them as sacrifices for the idols of Canaan.
Those murders made the land unclean.
39 The things that the Lord's people did
made them unclean.
They were not faithful to the Lord,
like a wife who is not faithful to her husband.
40 So the Lord became angry with his people.
They belonged to him
but he turned away from them.
41 He let other nations have power over them.
Their enemies ruled over them.
42 Their enemies had power to hurt them,
and they were cruel to them.
43 Many times, the Lord rescued his people,
but they had decided not to obey him.
Their sins made them weaker and weaker.
44 But the Lord still saw when they were in trouble.
He answered them when they called to him for help.
45 He remembered the covenant that he had made with them.
Because of his faithful love for his people,
he stopped punishing them.
46 He caused all their enemies to be kind to them.
47 Lord, our God, please save us!
Bring us safely home from among the other nations.[j]
Then we will thank you!
We will shout aloud to praise your holy name.
48 Praise the Lord, Israel's God,
as he deserves!
Praise him now and for ever!
Let everybody say, ‘Amen! We agree!’
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord![k]
Micah's idols
17 There was a man who lived in the hill country of Ephraim. His name was Micah. 2 He said to his mother, ‘I know about the 1,100 pieces of silver that somebody took from you. You cursed the person who had robbed you and I heard you. Look! Here are the pieces of silver. I took them myself. But now I am giving them back to you.’
His mother said, ‘Thank you, my son. I pray that the Lord will bless you.’
3 When Micah gave the 1,100 pieces of silver back to his mother, she said, ‘I will now give this silver to the Lord. We will use it to make an image and a metal idol. In that way, I will give it back to you, my son.’
4 So Micah's mother took 200 pieces of silver. She gave them to a man who used silver to make things. He made an image and an idol for her. She put them in Micah's house.
5 Micah had a special room to worship his gods. He made an ephod and some more idols for it. He chose one of his sons to be a priest to serve his gods.
6 At that time, Israel had no king to rule over them. Everyone did what they thought was right.
Micah and the Levite
7 There was a young man who lived in Bethlehem, a town in Judah. He was a Levite. 8 He left Bethlehem to look for another place to live. As he travelled in the hill country of Ephraim, he arrived at Micah's house.
9 Micah asked him, ‘Where have you come from?’ The man replied, ‘I am a Levite who was living in Bethlehem in Judah. Now I am looking for a new place to live.’ 10 Micah said, ‘Stay here with me. You will be my advisor and my priest. I will pay you ten pieces of silver each year, as well as your clothes and food.’
11 So the Levite agreed to stay with Micah. He became like a son for Micah. 12 Micah gave the young man what he needed. The Levite became Micah's priest and he lived in Micah's home. 13 Then Micah said, ‘Now I know that the Lord will bless me, because I have this Levite as my own priest.’
44 When our ancestors were in the wilderness, they carried a special tent with them.[a] It showed that God was there with them and that is where they worshipped him. God showed Moses how he should make that tent. The people made it in the way that God had said.
45 Later, our ancestors received that special tent for themselves. They brought it with them when they came with Joshua to live in this land. They took the land from the people who were living here. God chased out those people so that our ancestors could live there. The tent remained in this place until David became the king of Israel.[b]
46 God was happy with King David and he helped him very much. So David said to God, “May I build a special house where you can live among your people, the descendants of Jacob?” 47 But it was David's son, Solomon, who built a house for God.[c]
48 But we know that God does not live in a house that people have made. He is the powerful God who is over all. God's prophet Isaiah spoke these words:[d]
49 The Lord God says,
“Heaven is the seat where I sit to rule.
The earth is the place where I put my feet.
You could not build a house for me where I could live.
You could not make a place for me to rest there.
50 I am the one who has made all these things myself.” ’
51 Then Stephen said, ‘You people do not want to obey God! You do not want to listen to God's true message. You are the same as your ancestors. Like them, you always fight against what the Holy Spirit says. 52 Your ancestors did bad things to every prophet that God sent to them. They even killed the prophets who told them about the Righteous Man that God would send. Now you have given that Man to his enemies. You have made them kill him. 53 You are the people who received God's Law. God caused his angels to give that Law to your ancestors. But you have not obeyed it.’
The Jewish leaders kill Stephen
54 The group of Jewish leaders listened to Stephen. What he said made them very angry. They bit their teeth together because they were so angry. 55 But the Holy Spirit filled Stephen. He looked up to heaven and he saw the bright light of God's glory. He also saw Jesus, who was standing at the right side of God. 56 Stephen said, ‘Look! I can see into heaven itself. It is open! I can see the Son of Man and he is standing at the right side of God!’[e]
57 When the Jewish leaders heard this, they put their hands over their ears. Then they shouted very loudly at Stephen and they all ran towards him. 58 They took hold of Stephen and they pulled him out of the city. They removed their coats. They gave them to a young man to keep them safe. This young man was called Saul. Then they began to throw stones at Stephen to kill him.
59 While the men were throwing stones at him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, please receive my spirit as I die.’ 60 Then he fell down on his knees. He shouted, ‘Lord, please forgive these men. Do not punish them because they are doing this to me.’ After Stephen had said this, he died.
8 Saul was standing there while the Jewish leaders killed Stephen. He agreed with what they did.
Saul puts many believers in prison
On the same day that Stephen died, the group of believers who lived in Jerusalem began to have great trouble. People did bad things to them. All the believers left Jerusalem and went to other places in Judea and Samaria. Only Jesus' 12 apostles stayed in Jerusalem.
19 Jesus answered them, ‘I tell you this: The Son can do nothing by himself. He sees what the Father does, and he can do only those same things. What the Father does, the Son also does. 20 The Father loves the Son. He shows the Son all the things that he himself does. And the Father will show the Son even greater things to do than these. Those greater things will surprise you even more than what you have already seen. 21 The Father raises dead people to make them alive again. In the same way, the Son gives life to whoever he chooses. 22 More than that, the Father does not judge anyone. He has given authority to the Son, so that the Son will judge all people. 23 Then all people will respect the Son as a great person. They will respect him in the way that they respect the Father. The Father sent the Son. So if people refuse to respect the Son, it shows that they do not respect the Father either.
24 I tell you this: Everyone who hears my message should believe in the Father who sent me. If they believe in me, they will have life for ever with God. God will not say that they are guilty. They are no longer under the power of death. Instead, they have life with God.
25 I tell you this: A time will soon come when those who are dead in their spirits will hear the voice of the Son of God. Yes, it is that time already. Those people who hear that message will receive true life. 26 The Father himself can give people life. In the same way, he has given authority to the Son to give people life. 27 The Father has also given authority to the Son to judge people. That is because I am the Son of Man. 28 Do not be surprised by this. There will be a time when all the dead people will hear the Son's voice. 29 They will come out from under the ground. Those people who have done good things will rise from death and they will live with God. Those people who have done evil things will also rise from death. But they will rise so that God can punish them as guilty people.’
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