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]
The Lord accuses Israel
4 Israelites, listen to the Lord's message! The Lord accuses the people who live in Israel of these bad things:[a]
‘Nobody in the land of Israel is faithful. They have no true love. They do not want to know God. 2 They curse people, they tell lies, they murder people, they rob people. They are guilty of adultery.[b] They continue to kill more and more people. 3 Because of this, the land will become like a desert. Everyone who lives there will become weak. Everything will die: the wild animals, the birds, and even the fish in the sea.
4 Do not argue among yourselves or accuse one another. It is you priests who are guilty. 5 You are always falling over. In the day and in the night, you trip and you fall.[c] The false prophets are the same as you. So I will destroy Israel, your mother. 6 The people do not know me. Because of that, they will come to an end. You refuse to respect my authority, so I will remove you as my priests. You refuse to obey the law of your God, so I will refuse to accept your children as my priests.
7 The more priests that there are among you, the more sins they do against me. They should have received honour as priests, but I will make them ashamed. 8 They get food to eat when the people bring their sin offerings to them. So the priests are happy when the people do bad things, because they get more food to eat. 9 The people do whatever the priests do. I will punish them all for the bad things that they do. I will give them what their sins deserve. 10 They will eat, but they will still be hungry. They will have sex with prostitutes, but they will still have no children. This will happen because they have turned away from the Lord.
Paul goes to Jerusalem
21 We said ‘goodbye’ to the leaders of the believers from Ephesus. Then we went on a ship straight across the sea, and we arrived at Cos. The next day, we continued on our journey to Rhodes. From there we went to the town of Patara.[a]
2 At Patara, we found a ship that was going to Phoenicia. So we got onto the ship and we sailed across the sea.
3 After travelling for some time, we could see the island called Cyprus. We went south of Cyprus, and we continued as far as Syria. We arrived on the coast at the city of Tyre and we got off the ship. The ship would remain in Tyre for some days, because people had to remove the things off the ship. 4 We found some believers in the city. So we stayed with them for a week. The Holy Spirit showed these believers that trouble would come to Paul in Jerusalem. So they said to him, ‘Paul, you should not to go to Jerusalem.’
5 After a week with the believers in Tyre, it was time for us to leave them. All the believers, together with their wives and their children, went with us out of the city. At the beach, we all went down on our knees and we prayed together. 6 Then we said ‘goodbye’ to each other and the believers returned to their homes in the city. We went and we got on the ship again, together with Paul.
7 We continued our journey across the sea. We sailed from Tyre to Ptolemais. There, we met some believers and we stayed with them for one day. 8 The next day, we left Ptolemais and we sailed to Caesarea. We stayed there with Philip. He was someone who taught people the good news about Jesus. He was one of the seven men that the believers had chosen in Jerusalem.[b] 9 He had four daughters who were not married. They spoke messages from God.
10 We stayed with Philip in Caesarea for a few days. Then a man called Agabus arrived in the city from Judea. He was a prophet and he spoke messages from God. 11 Agabus came to where we were. He took Paul's belt and he tied it around his own feet and hands. He said, ‘Listen to this message from the Holy Spirit. “The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will take hold of the man who has this belt. They will tie his hands and his feet. Then they will give him to the Gentiles to be their prisoner.” ’
12 When we heard Agabus's message, we all said many times to Paul, ‘Please do not go to Jerusalem.’ 13 But Paul answered, ‘Stop crying like this! You are making me very sad! I am ready for men in Jerusalem to take hold of me. They may tie me up, and I may even die there. I am ready for all this because I believe in the Lord Jesus.’
14 We could not cause Paul to think in a different way. So we stopped saying to him, ‘You should not go to Jerusalem.’ Instead we said to him, ‘We want the Lord God to do what he wants.’
A man with a bad disease of his skin
12 One day, Jesus was in a certain town. A man with a bad disease of the skin was there.[a]
When the man saw Jesus, he threw himself down on the ground in front of him. He said, ‘Sir, you can make me well again if you want to do that. Please do it.’
13 Jesus put out his hand towards the man and he touched him. He said, ‘I do want to help you. Be clean again!’ Immediately, the disease left the man. 14 ‘Do not tell anyone about this,’ Jesus said to him. ‘Instead, go and show yourself to the priest. Take a gift to him for God. Moses taught the people what gift to take to God when they are clean again after this kind of disease. This will show everyone that you are now well again.’
15 After this, more and more people started to hear the news about Jesus. Crowds were coming to hear him teach. Sick people also wanted him to make them well. 16 But Jesus would often go away from the crowd to pray in quiet places.
Jesus helps a man who cannot walk
17 One day, while Jesus was teaching in someone's house, many people were sitting there. Some of them were Pharisees.[b] Other people were teachers of God's Law. They had come from many villages in Galilee, and from Judea and Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was there with Jesus to make sick people well.
18 Then some men arrived. They were carrying a man on a mat. The man could not walk or move his legs. They tried to get into the house because they wanted to bring the man to Jesus. 19 But the house was full of people and they could not get in. So they carried the man onto the flat roof of the house. Then they made a hole in the roof. After that, they put the mat down through the hole. The man was still lying on it. He came down in the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. 20 Jesus saw them. He knew that they believed in him. So he said to the sick man, ‘My friend, I forgive you for the wrong things that you have done.’
21 The Pharisees and the teachers of God's Law were there. They heard what Jesus said. So they began to think among themselves, ‘Who is this man? He is speaking as if he is God. Only God can forgive people for the wrong things that they have done.’ 22 Jesus knew what these men were thinking. He told them, ‘You should not be thinking these things. 23 I said to this man, “I forgive you for the wrong things that you have done.” Instead, I could have said to him, “Stand up and walk.” Which one is easier for me to say? 24 But I want you to know this. I, the Son of Man, have authority here on earth.[c] I can forgive people for the wrong things that they have done.’
Then he said to the man who could not walk, ‘I am saying to you, “Stand up. Pick up your mat and go home!” ’
25 Immediately, the man stood up in front of them all. He picked up the mat that he had been lying on. He went home. He was praising God as he went. 26 What had happened surprised everyone. They said, ‘God is great and powerful! We have seen very strange and special things happen today.’
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