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!
War between Judah and Israel
8 ‘Make a noise with your horns in Gibeah!
Make a noise with your trumpets in Ramah!
Warn the people in Beth Aven of danger!
Men of Benjamin's tribe, prepare to fight![a]
9 The day for Ephraim's punishment will soon come.
That will be the end of them!
I make this promise to all the tribes of Israel.
It will certainly happen!
10 The leaders of Judah are not honest.
They are like people who move the stones that show the edge of their land.
So I will punish them with my strong anger.[b]
11 Terrible trouble will come to Ephraim's people.
They will receive great punishment.
They deserve that because they chose to worship idols.
12 I will destroy the people of Ephraim,
as a moth eats cloth.
I will also destroy the people of Judah,
as ants destroy wood.
13 Ephraim's people knew that they were not well.
Judah's people knew that they had wounds.
Ephraim's leaders expected Assyria to help them.
They asked Assyria's great king for help.
But he is not able to make you well.[c]
He cannot make your wounds better.
14 I will attack Ephraim's people like a lion.
I will also attack Judah's people like a young lion.
I myself will tear them into pieces.
I will carry them away.
Nobody will be able to rescue them.
15 Then I will return to my place.
I will leave them to receive their full punishment.
When they have suffered enough, they will turn back to me.
They will want to serve me again.’
The people say that they are sorry
6 ‘Listen! We should return to serve the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces, but now he will make us well again.
He has hurt us, but now he will make our wounds better.[d]
2 He will soon make us strong again.
After three days, we will have new lives.
Then we can live together with him.
3 We should respect the Lord's authority.
We must try to know him better.
Then he will certainly come to rescue us.
He will come to us as surely as the sun appears each morning.
He will help us as surely as the rain comes in spring
and it makes the ground wet for plants to grow.’
The Lord replies
4 ‘People of Ephraim and Judah, can I forgive you so easily?
Your love for me soon disappears.
It goes away as quickly as mist or dew in the morning.[e]
5 I sent my prophets to warn you.
They gave you my messages that I would punish you.
Now that punishment will certainly happen to you!
I will suddenly come to judge you,
like the sun that rises at dawn.
6 It is faithful love that makes me happy.
That would be better than your sacrifices to me.
You should know me as your God.
That would be better than your burnt offerings.
27 At the end of those seven days, some Jews from Asia region saw Paul in the temple. They said some bad things against Paul to the crowd. So the people became angry and they took hold of Paul. 28 The Jews from Asia shouted, ‘People of Israel, come and help us! This is the man who goes everywhere and he teaches everyone bad things. He speaks against us, the people of Israel. He also speaks against the Law of Moses and against this temple. Now he has even brought some Gentiles into this temple. So now this special place is not clean in front of God any longer.’
29 (These men had earlier seen Paul in the city with a man called Trophimus. Trophimus was a Gentile who came from Ephesus. They thought that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple. That is why they shouted bad things against Paul.)[a]
30 Many other people in the city heard about the trouble and they also became angry. They all ran from their homes to the temple and they took hold of Paul. Then they pulled him out of the temple and they closed the doors immediately.[b]
31 The angry crowd was trying to kill Paul. But someone sent a message to the leader of the Roman soldiers. The message was, ‘People are fighting everywhere in the city.’
32 So the soldiers' leader quickly took some other officers and a large group of soldiers and they ran down to the crowd. The angry crowd of people saw the leader with his soldiers. So then they stopped hitting Paul.
33 The Roman soldiers' leader went to Paul and he took hold of him. He said to his men, ‘Tie two chains round the arms of this man.’ Then he asked the people in the crowd, ‘Who is this man and what has he done?’
34 Some people in the crowd shouted one thing and other people shouted something different. There was so much noise that the leader of the soldiers was not sure about the true facts. He did not know what had really happened. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Take this man up into our strong building!’ 35 The soldiers then led Paul as far as the steps of their building. Then they had to carry him because the crowd was so angry. 36 The crowd followed behind Paul and the soldiers. They were shouting, ‘Kill him!’
Jesus teaches about the Jewish day of rest
6 On a Jewish day of rest, Jesus and his disciples were walking through some fields where wheat was growing. His disciples began to pick some of the wheat. They were rubbing it between their hands and eating the seeds.
2 Some of the Pharisees were walking with them. They said, ‘You should not be doing that on our day of rest. It is against God's Law.’
3 Jesus replied, ‘You have certainly read about what David did one day. He and the men who were with him were hungry. 4 He went into the temple. He took the special bread that was there. It is against God's Law for anyone except the priests to eat that bread. But David ate some of it. He gave some of the bread to his men to eat as well.’
5 Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man has authority over the Law about the day of rest.’[a]
Jesus makes a man well on the day of rest
6 On another Jewish day of rest, Jesus went into the Jewish meeting place and he taught the people. A man was there. His right hand had become small and weak and he could not use it. 7 Some teachers of God's Law and some Pharisees were watching Jesus carefully. They wanted to find a reason to say that he was doing something wrong. So they watched Jesus to see if he would make the man well on the day of rest. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he said to the man, ‘Get up and stand in front of everyone.’ The man got up and he stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to the people, ‘Let me ask you something. Is it right for us to do good things on our day of rest? Or should we do bad things? Should we save a person's life? Or should we destroy their life?’ 10 Jesus looked round at everyone. Then he said to the man, ‘Lift up your hand.’ When the man lifted his hand, it became well. He could use it again.
11 Then the Pharisees and the teachers of God's Law were very angry. They began to talk to each other about what they could do to Jesus.
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