Book of Common Prayer
This song is for the music leader.
The Lord's servant, David, wrote it.
David sang these words to the Lord when the Lord saved him from the power of his enemies. This was at the time when Saul was king.
Thank you, Lord![a]
18 I love you, Lord.
You make me strong.
2 The Lord keeps me safe.
He is my great rock and my strong place.
God is my high rock.[b]
I run to him to hide and be safe.
He keeps me safe like a soldier's shield.
He is the strong place where I can hide safely.
3 I praise the Lord because he deserves it!
When I called to him for help,
he saved me from my enemies.
4 Death was near enough to catch me!
Danger was like a river that poured over me.
5 Death was tying me up with ropes,
to pull me into the deep hole of the grave.
6 In my trouble, I prayed to the Lord.
I called to my God to help me.
He heard my voice from his home in heaven.
My prayer reached his ears.
7 Then the earth moved and it shook.
Even the strong mountains shook,
because God was angry.
8 He breathed out smoke from his nose.
Fire and hot coals came out from his mouth,
to destroy his enemies.
9 God caused the sky to bend as he came down.
Dark clouds were under his feet.
10 He sat on a cherub and he flew.
The wind carried him as he travelled.
11 God covered himself with darkness.
He hid himself in dark clouds that held rain.
12 Bright light went in front of him.
Hail and lightning fell from the clouds.
13 The Lord sent thunder from the sky.
People everywhere heard the voice of the Most High God.
14 The Lord shot his arrows of lightning.
He caused his enemies to run away.
15 When you shouted against your enemies, Lord,
even the bottom of the deep sea appeared.
People could see the foundations of the earth,
when you breathed out in anger.
16 The Lord reached down to me from above.
He took hold of me and he pulled me up out of the deep water.
17 Yes, he saved me from my powerful enemies.
The people who hated me were too strong for me,
but the Lord saved me from their power.
18 They attacked me when I was in trouble,
but the Lord helped me.
19 He led me out to a place where I would be safe.
He saved me because I made him happy.
20 The Lord was kind to me
because I do things that please him.
He blesses me
because I am not guilty of bad things.
21 I have obeyed the Lord's commands.
I have not turned against my God.
22 I understand all his rules,
and I do not refuse to obey them.
23 He knows that I have done nothing that is wrong.
I kept away from any sin.
24 The Lord has been kind to me,
because I did good things.
He sees that I am not guilty.
25 Lord, if people are faithful to you,
then you are faithful to them.
If people do nothing that is bad,
they can trust you to do nothing bad to them.
26 If people always do what is right,
they can trust you to be kind to them.
But if people are wicked,
you turn against them.
27 You save people who are humble.
But if people are proud, you bring them down very low.
28 Lord, you make my lamp burn brightly.
My God is my light in the dark.
29 You make me strong,
so that I can attack a whole army!
With the help of my God,
I can climb over any high wall.[c]
30 God's way is perfect.
Yes, the Lord's promises are always true.
He keeps safe everyone who goes to him for help,
like a shield that keeps a soldier safe.
31 We know that the Lord is God,
and no one else.
Only our God can keep us safe,
like a strong rock!
32 It is God who makes me strong.
He shows me the safe way through my life.
33 He makes my feet stand strongly on the ground.
Like a deer,
I can stand on high mountains and not fall.
34 He teaches me how to fight in war.
He makes my arms strong
to shoot arrows from a metal bow.[d]
35 Lord, your power has helped me to be strong.
You have kept me safe, like a shield.
Your kind help has made me great.
36 You have helped me to move safely,
so that my feet do not slip.
37 I ran after my enemies and I caught them.
I did not turn back until I had killed them.
38 I knocked them down to the ground.
They could not get up again.
They fell under my feet.
39 You have made me strong to fight battles,
so that I win against my enemies.
40 You cause my enemies to turn around,
and they run away from me.
I can destroy those who hate me.
41 They call out for help,
but nobody is there to help them.
They call to the Lord,
but he does not answer them.
42 I beat them into dust
that the wind blows away.
I walk over them,
like dirt that lies on the streets.
43 You have saved me from people who attacked me.
You made me a ruler of other nations.
People that I did not know before
now serve me as their ruler.
44 When foreign people hear about me,
they choose to obey me.
They cannot stand against me
because they are afraid.
45 They are not brave enough to fight me.
They shake with fear,
as they come out of their strong cities.
46 The Lord is alive! He is my strong Rock!
Everyone should praise him!
He rules as king!
He is the God who saves me.
47 He is the true God who punishes my enemies.
He makes the nations obey me.
48 He is the one who saves me from my enemies.
Yes, God, you give me power
to win against those who attack me.
You keep me safe from angry and cruel men.
49 Lord, I will thank you,
so that all the nations know about you.
I will sing to praise your name.
50 Yes, the Lord gives power to me, David, his king.
He gives me great strength to win against my enemies.
I am the special king that he has chosen.[e]
He will continue to be kind to me
and to my descendants for ever.
Jonah goes to Nineveh
3 The Lord spoke to Jonah a second time. 2 He said, ‘Now go to that great city, Nineveh. Tell the people there the message that I will give to you.’
3 Jonah obeyed the Lord and he went to Nineveh.
Nineveh was a very large city. Somebody would need three days to walk all through it.
4 When Jonah arrived in Nineveh, he walked for one day into the city. Then he shouted out to the people, ‘After 40 more days, God will destroy Nineveh.’[a]
5 The people who lived in Nineveh believed God's message. They told everyone that they must not eat any food for several days. Everyone had to wear sackcloth to show that they were sorry. The most important people and the ordinary people all did that.
6 The king of Nineveh heard about God's message. He got up from his throne and he removed his royal clothes. He dressed himself in sackcloth and he sat in ashes on the ground.
7 Then the king sent this message to all the people in Nineveh. He said, ‘This command comes from the king and his officers. No person or any of your animals may eat any food or drink any water. 8 Everyone must wear sackcloth. You must cover all your animals with sackcloth too. Everyone must pray to God with all their strength. You must all stop doing bad and cruel things. 9 Then perhaps God may agree to forgive us. He may decide that he will not be angry with us. Then perhaps we will not all die.’
10 God saw what the people in Nineveh did. He saw that they stopped doing evil things. He had said that he would punish them for their sins. But now he decided that he would not destroy them.
Jonah is angry
4 But Jonah was not happy when God decided not to destroy Nineveh. He became very angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord. He said, ‘Lord, this is what I thought would happen when I was still at home. So I decided to run away to Tarshish, so that you could not be kind to the people of Nineveh. I know that you are a God who is very kind and you forgive people. You do not become angry quickly. You always show your faithful love for people. Even when you have said that you will punish people, you decide that you will not do it. 3 Lord, please kill me now! I would rather die than continue to live.’
4 The Lord replied to Jonah, ‘You are not right to be so angry.’
5 Jonah went out of Nineveh. He built a little hut on the east side of the city. He sat in the shade of the hut. He waited to see what would happen to the city.[b]
6 The Lord God made a little plant grow there. He caused it to grow up over Jonah's head to give him shade from the hot sun. This comforted Jonah in his trouble. Jonah was very happy about the plant.
7 But at dawn the next day, God sent a worm to attack the plant. So then the plant died. 8 When the sun rose, God caused a hot wind to blow from the east. The hot sun shone on Jonah's head so that he became very weak. He wanted to die. He said, ‘I would rather die than continue to live.’
9 But God said to Jonah, ‘You are not right to be so angry about the plant.’
Jonah said, ‘I am right to be angry! I am so angry that I want to die.’
10 But the Lord said to Jonah, ‘You are upset about what happened to this little plant. But you did not plant it. You did not help it to grow. It grew up quickly during one night and by the next night it had died. You are sorry about such a little thing! 11 So it is right for me to be sorry about Nineveh. It is a great city. More than 120,000 people live in it. They cannot understand the difference between what is right and what is wrong. They also have many farm animals.’
27 The storm had continued for 14 days and nights. The strong wind was blowing the ship across the Mediterranean Sea. About midnight, the sailors thought that we were near to the land. 28 So they used a rope to measure how deep the water was. They saw that the water was nearly 40 metres deep. A short time later they did this again. This time the water was only 30 metres deep. 29 The sailors were afraid that the ship would hit some rocks. So they dropped four anchors on ropes from the back of the ship into the sea.
After that, they prayed that dawn would come soon. 30 Some of the sailors tried to leave the ship. They put the small boat into the sea. They tried to go away secretly. They said, ‘We are going to the front of the ship to put some more anchors down into the sea.’ But that was not true. 31 Paul said to the army officer and to the soldiers, ‘These sailors must stay on the ship. If they do not stay, you will not be safe. You will die.’ 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the small boat to the ship. The small boat fell into the water and the wind blew it away.
33 Now it was almost dawn. Paul said to everyone, ‘Please eat some food. You have now waited for 14 days for the storm to stop. You did not know what would happen. You have not eaten anything during all that time. 34 You must eat some food now. Then you will be strong enough to stay alive. None of you will die. You will not even lose one hair from your head.’
35 After Paul said this, he took some bread in his hands. He stood in front of them all and he thanked God for the bread. Then he broke the bread into pieces and he began to eat it. 36 Everyone became less afraid and we all ate some food. 37 There were 276 people on the ship. 38 After everyone had eaten enough, the sailors threw bags of wheat off the ship into the sea. Then the ship was not so heavy.[a]
The sea completely destroys the ship
39 In the morning, the ship was near to some land, but the sailors did not recognize the place. They saw a place on the shore where there was a lot of sand. They wanted to drive the ship onto the sand. 40 So the sailors cut the ropes which had the anchors on them. They left the anchors there in the sea. They also removed the ropes which had tied the rudders. Then they raised the sail at the front of the ship. Now the wind could blow the ship straight towards the shore. 41 But there was a place in the sea where the water was not deep. The ship sailed onto the sand in this place and it stayed there. The front of the ship pushed into the sand and it could not move. The sea was very strong and it hit against the back of the ship. As a result, the back of the ship broke into pieces.
42 The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners that they were guarding. They did not want these men to swim to the land and escape. 43 But the army officer wanted to save Paul. So he commanded the soldiers not to kill the men. Instead he said, ‘Everyone who can swim, jump into the water first. Then swim to the shore. 44 You other people must follow them. Hold on to pieces of wood, or pieces of the ship.’
In this way all of us got safely out of the sea and we arrived on the land.
Peter says who Jesus is
18 One day, Jesus was alone and he was praying. The disciples came to him. Jesus asked them, ‘When the crowds talk about me, who do they say that I am?’
19 They replied, ‘Some people say that you are John the Baptist. Other people say that you are Elijah. And some other people say that you are one of God's prophets from long ago. They think that this prophet has become alive again.’[a]
20 ‘But what do you think?’ Jesus then asked them. ‘Who do you say that I am?’
Peter replied, ‘You are the Messiah. God has sent you.’[b]
21 Jesus spoke very strongly to them. He told them that they must not tell anyone about this.[c]
22 Then he said, ‘The Son of Man will have to suffer in many ways. The important Jews, the leaders of the priests and the teachers of God's Law will turn against him. People will kill him, but three days later God will cause him to become alive again.’[d]
23 Then Jesus said to all the people that were there, ‘A person who wants to be my disciple must not think about himself. He must decide that his own life is not important. Every day he must be like someone who carries his own cross to go and die. Then he may come with me as my disciple.
24 Whoever wants to keep his own life safe will lose it. But whoever gives his life to serve me will have true life. 25 A person may get everything in the whole world for himself. But if he loses his life, it would not be any good for him. He will have destroyed himself in the end. 26 You must not be ashamed of me and of my words. If you are, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you. One day he will return and everyone will see his power. He will come with God's holy angels and he will have the bright glory of his Father God. He will be ashamed of you on that day, if you are ashamed of him now.’
Three disciples see how great Jesus is
27 Then Jesus said, ‘What I tell you is true. Some people who are standing here will see clearly God begin to rule in his kingdom. They will see that before they die.’
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