Book of Common Prayer
120 In my troubles I pled with God to help me and he did!
2 Deliver me, O Lord, from liars. 3 O lying tongue, what shall be your fate? 4 You shall be pierced with sharp arrows and burned with glowing coals.[a]
5-6 My troubles pile high among these haters of the Lord, these men of Meshech and Kedar. I am tired of being here among these men who hate peace. 7 I am for peace, but they are for war, and my voice goes unheeded in their councils.
121 Shall I look to the mountain gods for help? 2 No! My help is from Jehovah who made the mountains! And the heavens too! 3-4 He will never let me stumble, slip, or fall. For he is always watching, never sleeping.
5 Jehovah himself is caring for you! He is your defender.[b] 6 He protects you day and night. 7 He keeps you from all evil and preserves your life. 8 He keeps his eye upon you as you come and go and always guards you.
122 I was glad for the suggestion of going to Jerusalem, to the Temple of the Lord. 2-3 Now we are standing here inside the crowded city. 4 All Israel—Jehovah’s people—have come to worship as the law requires, to thank and praise the Lord. 5 Look! There are the judges holding court beside the city gates, deciding all the people’s arguments.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper. 7 O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces. 8 This I ask for the sake of all my brothers and my friends who live here; 9 and may there be peace as a protection to the Temple of the Lord.
123 O God enthroned in heaven, I lift my eyes to you.
2 We look to Jehovah our God for his mercy and kindness just as a servant keeps his eyes upon his master or a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.
3-4 Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy. For we have had our fill of contempt and of the scoffing of the rich and proud.
124 If the Lord had not been on our side (let all Israel admit it), if the Lord had not been on our side, 2-3 we would have been swallowed alive by our enemies, destroyed by their anger. 4-5 We would have drowned beneath the flood of these men’s fury and pride.
6 Blessed be Jehovah who has not let them devour us. 7 We have escaped with our lives as a bird from a hunter’s snare. The snare is broken and we are free!
8 Our help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
125 Those who trust in the Lord are steady as Mount Zion, unmoved by any circumstance.
2 Just as the mountains surround and protect Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds and protects his people. 3 For the wicked shall not rule the godly, lest the godly be forced to do wrong. 4 O Lord, do good to those who are good, whose hearts are right with the Lord; 5 but lead evil men to execution. And let Israel have quietness and peace.
126 When Jehovah brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! 2 How we laughed and sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.”
3 Yes, glorious things! What wonder! What joy! 4 May we be refreshed[c] as by streams in the desert.
5 Those who sow tears shall reap joy. 6 Yes, they go out weeping, carrying seed for sowing, and return singing, carrying their sheaves.
127 Unless the Lord builds a house, the builders’ work is useless. Unless the Lord protects a city, sentries do no good. 2 It is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, fearing you will starve to death; for God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest.
3 Children are a gift from God; they are his reward. 4 Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows to defend him.
5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. That man shall have the help he needs when arguing with his enemies.[d]
4 Then said the Lord my God to me, “Go and take a job as shepherd of a flock being fattened for the butcher. 5 This will illustrate the way my people have been bought and slain by wicked leaders, who go unpunished. ‘Thank God, now I am rich!’ say those who have betrayed them—their own shepherds have sold them without mercy. 6 And I won’t spare them either,” says the Lord, “for I will let them fall into the clutches of their own wicked leaders, and they will slay them. They shall turn the land into a wilderness, and I will not protect it from them.”
7 So I took two shepherd’s staffs, naming one Grace and the other Union, and I fed the flock as I had been told to do. 8 And I got rid of their three evil shepherds in a single month. But I became impatient with these sheep—this nation—and they hated me too.
9 So I told them, “I won’t be your shepherd any longer. If you die, you die; if you are killed, I don’t care. Go ahead and destroy yourselves!”
10 And I took my staff called Grace and snapped it in two, showing that I had broken my contract to lead and protect them. 11 That was the end of the agreement. Then those who bought and sold sheep, who were watching, realized that God was telling them something through what I did.
12 And I said to their leaders, “If you like, give me my pay, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.”
So they counted out thirty little silver coins[a] as my wages.
13 And the Lord told me, “Use it to buy a field from the pottery makers[b]—this magnificent sum they value you at!”
So I took the thirty coins and threw them into the Temple for the pottery makers. 14 Then I broke my other staff, “Union,” to show that the bond of unity between Judah and Israel was broken.
15 Then the Lord told me to go again and get a job as a shepherd; this time I was to act the part of a worthless, wicked shepherd.
16 And he said to me, “This illustrates how I will give this nation a shepherd who will not care for the dying ones, nor look after the young, nor heal the broken bones, nor feed the healthy ones, nor carry the lame that cannot walk; instead, he will eat the fat ones, even tearing off their feet. 17 Woe to this worthless shepherd who doesn’t care for the flock. God’s sword will cut his arm and pierce through his right eye; his arm will become useless and his right eye blinded.”
10 God, in his kindness, has taught me how to be an expert builder. I have laid the foundation and Apollos has built on it. But he who builds on the foundation must be very careful. 11 And no one can ever lay any other real foundation than that one we already have—Jesus Christ. 12 But there are various kinds of materials that can be used to build on that foundation. Some use gold and silver and jewels; and some build with sticks and hay or even straw! 13 There is going to come a time of testing at Christ’s Judgment Day to see what kind of material each builder has used. Everyone’s work will be put through the fire so that all can see whether or not it keeps its value, and what was really accomplished. 14 Then every workman who has built on the foundation with the right materials, and whose work still stands, will get his pay. 15 But if the house he has built burns up, he will have a great loss. He himself will be saved, but like a man escaping through a wall of flames.
16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the house of God, and that the Spirit of God lives among you in his house? 17 If anyone defiles and spoils God’s home, God will destroy him. For God’s home is holy and clean, and you are that home.
18 Stop fooling yourselves. If you count yourself above average in intelligence, as judged by this world’s standards, you had better put this all aside and be a fool rather than let it hold you back from the true wisdom from above. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As it says in the book of Job, God uses man’s own brilliance to trap him; he stumbles over his own “wisdom” and falls. 20 And again, in the book of Psalms, we are told that the Lord knows full well how the human mind reasons and how foolish and futile it is.
21 So don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world.[a] For God has already given you everything you need. 22 He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers. He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s.
31 Gathering the Twelve around him he told them, “As you know, we are going to Jerusalem. And when we get there, all the predictions of the ancient prophets concerning me will come true. 32 I will be handed over to the Gentiles to be mocked and treated shamefully and spat upon, 33 and lashed and killed. And the third day I will rise again.”
34 But they didn’t understand a thing he said. He seemed to be talking in riddles.
35 As they approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting beside the road, begging from travelers. 36 When he heard the noise of a crowd going past, he asked what was happening. 37 He was told that Jesus from Nazareth was going by, 38 so he began shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
39 The crowds ahead of Jesus tried to hush the man, but he only yelled the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
40 When Jesus arrived at the spot, he stopped. “Bring the blind man over here,” he said. 41 Then Jesus asked the man, “What do you want?”
“Lord,” he pleaded, “I want to see!”
42 And Jesus said, “All right, begin seeing! Your faith has healed you.”
43 And instantly the man could see and followed Jesus, praising God. And all who saw it happen praised God too.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.