Book of Common Prayer
37 Never envy the wicked! 2 Soon they fade away like grass and disappear. 3 Trust in the Lord instead. Be kind and good to others; then you will live safely here in the land and prosper, feeding in safety.
4 Be delighted with the Lord. Then he will give you all your heart’s desires. 5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him to help you do it, and he will. 6 Your innocence will be clear to everyone. He will vindicate you with the blazing light of justice shining down as from the noonday sun.
7 Rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him to act. Don’t be envious of evil men who prosper.
8 Stop your anger! Turn off your wrath. Don’t fret and worry—it only leads to harm. 9 For the wicked shall be destroyed, but those who trust the Lord shall be given every blessing. 10 Only a little while and the wicked shall disappear. You will look for them in vain. 11 But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing and shall have wonderful peace.
12-13 The Lord is laughing at those who plot against the godly, for he knows their judgment day is coming. 14 Evil men take aim to slay the poor; they are ready to butcher those who do right. 15 But their swords will be plunged into their own hearts, and all their weapons will be broken.
16 It is better to have little and be godly than to own an evil man’s wealth; 17 for the strength of evil men shall be broken, but the Lord takes care of those he has forgiven.[a]
18 Day by day the Lord observes the good deeds done by godly men,[b] and gives them eternal rewards. 19 He cares for them when times are hard; even in famine, they will have enough. 20 But evil men shall perish. These enemies of God will wither like grass and disappear like smoke. 21 Evil men borrow and “cannot pay it back”! But the good man returns what he owes with some extra besides. 22 Those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall die.
23 The steps of good men are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. 24 If they fall, it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with his hand.
25 I have been young and now I am old. And in all my years I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves him; nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry. 26 Instead, the godly are able to be generous with their gifts and loans to others, and their children are a blessing.
27 So if you want an eternal home, leave your evil, low-down ways and live good lives. 28 For the Lord loves justice and fairness; he will never abandon his people. They will be kept safe forever; but all who love wickedness shall perish.
29 The godly shall be firmly planted in the land and live there forever. 30-31 The godly man is a good counselor because he is just and fair and knows right from wrong.
32 Evil men spy on the godly, waiting for an excuse to accuse them and then demanding their death. 33 But the Lord will not let these evil men succeed, nor let the godly be condemned when they are brought before the judge.
34 Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act! Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and in due season he will honor you with every blessing,[c] and you will see the wicked destroyed. 35-36 I myself have seen it happen: a proud and evil man, towering like a cedar of Lebanon, but when I looked again, he was gone! I searched but could not find him! 37 But the good man—what a different story! For the good man—the blameless, the upright, the man of peace—he has a wonderful future ahead of him. For him there is a happy ending. 38 But evil men shall be destroyed, and their posterity shall be cut off.
39 The Lord saves the godly! He is their salvation and their refuge when trouble comes. 40 Because they trust in him, he helps them and delivers them from the plots of evil men.
16 My eyes are red with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death.
17 “Yet I am innocent, and my prayer is pure. 18 O Earth, do not conceal my blood. Let it protest on my behalf.
19 “Yet even now the witness to my innocence is there in heaven; my advocate is there on high. 20 My friends scoff at me, but I pour out my tears to God, 21 pleading that he will listen as a man would listen to his neighbor. 22 For all too soon I must go down that road from which I shall never return.
17 “I am sick and near to death; the grave is ready to receive me.
13-14 “If I die, I go out into darkness, and call the grave my father, and the worm my mother and my sister. 15 Where then is my hope? Can anyone find any? 16 No, my hope will go down with me to the grave. We shall rest together in the dust!”
13 Among the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch were Barnabas and Symeon (also called “The Black Man”), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (the foster-brother of King Herod), and Paul. 2 One day as these men were worshiping and fasting the Holy Spirit said, “Dedicate Barnabas and Paul for a special job I have for them.” 3 So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them—and sent them on their way.
4 Directed by the Holy Spirit they went to Seleucia and then sailed for Cyprus. 5 There, in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogue and preached. (John Mark went with them as their assistant.)
6-7 Afterwards they preached from town to town across the entire island until finally they reached Paphos where they met a Jewish sorcerer, a fake prophet named Bar-Jesus. He had attached himself to the governor, Sergius Paulus, a man of considerable insight and understanding. The governor invited Barnabas and Paul to visit him, for he wanted to hear their message from God. 8 But the sorcerer, Elymas (his name in Greek), interfered and urged the governor to pay no attention to what Paul and Barnabas said, trying to keep him from trusting the Lord.
9 Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, glared angrily at the sorcerer and said, 10 “You son of the devil, full of every sort of trickery and villainy, enemy of all that is good, will you never end your opposition to the Lord? 11 And now God has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be stricken awhile with blindness.”
Instantly mist and darkness fell upon him, and he began wandering around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him. 12 When the governor saw what happened, he believed and was astonished at the power of God’s message.
9 As he was walking along, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 “Master,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?”
3 “Neither,” Jesus answered. “But to demonstrate the power of God. 4 All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, for there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end. 5 But while I am still here in the world, I give it my light.”
6 Then he spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle and smoothed the mud over the blind man’s eyes, 7 and told him, “Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam” (the word Siloam means “Sent”). So the man went where he was sent and washed and came back seeing!
8 His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Is this the same fellow—that beggar?”
9 Some said yes, and some said no. “It can’t be the same man,” they thought, “but he surely looks like him!”
And the beggar said, “I am the same man!”
10 Then they asked him how in the world he could see. What had happened?
11 And he told them, “A man they call Jesus made mud and smoothed it over my eyes and told me to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash off the mud. I did, and I can see!”
12 “Where is he now?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
13 Then they took the man to the Pharisees. 14 Now as it happened, this all occurred on a Sabbath.[a] 15 Then the Pharisees asked him all about it. So he told them how Jesus had smoothed the mud over his eyes, and when it was washed away, he could see!
16 Some of them said, “Then this fellow Jesus is not from God because he is working on the Sabbath.”
Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miracles?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
17 Then the Pharisees turned on the man who had been blind and demanded, “This man who opened your eyes—who do you say he is?”
“I think he must be a prophet sent from God,” the man replied.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.