Book of Common Prayer
A song of David written when he was in the desert of Judah.
63 God, you are my God.
I am searching so hard to find you.
Body and soul, I thirst for you
in this dry and weary land without water.
2 Yes, I have seen you in your Temple.[a]
I have seen your strength and glory.
3 Your faithful love is better than life,
so my lips praise you.
4 By my life, I will praise you.
In your name, I lift my hands in prayer.
5 When I sit down to satisfy my hunger,
my joyful lips hunger to praise you!
6 I remember you while lying on my bed.
I think about you in the middle of the night.
7 That is because you are the one who helps me.
It makes me happy to be under your protection!
8 I stay close to you,
and you hold me with your powerful arm.
9 Those who are trying to kill me will be destroyed.
They will go down to their graves.
10 They will be killed with swords.
Wild dogs will eat their dead bodies.
11 But the king will be happy with his God,
and those who promised to obey him will praise him when he defeats those liars.
A song of praise.
98 Sing a new song[a] to the Lord,
because he has done amazing things!
His powerful and holy right arm[b]
has brought him another victory.
2 The Lord showed the nations his power to save.
He showed them his goodness.
3 He has kept his promise of love and loyalty to the people of Israel.
People everywhere have seen our God’s power to save.
4 Everyone on earth, shout with joy to the Lord.
Start singing happy songs of praise!
5 Praise the Lord with harps.
Yes, praise him with music from the harps.
6 Blow the pipes and horns,
and shout for joy to the Lord our King!
7 Let the sea and everything in it,
the earth and all who live in it shout his praise!
8 Rivers, clap your hands!
All together now, mountains sing out!
9 Sing before the Lord
because he is coming to judge the world.
He will rule the world fairly.
He will rule the people with goodness.
A song of David.
103 My soul, praise the Lord!
Every part of me, praise his holy name!
2 My soul, praise the Lord
and never forget how kind he is!
3 He forgives all our sins
and heals all our sicknesses.
4 He saves us from the grave,
and he gives us love and compassion.
5 He gives us plenty of good things.
He makes us young again,
like an eagle that grows new feathers.
6 The Lord does what is fair.
He brings justice to all who have been hurt by others.
7 He taught his laws to Moses.
He let Israel see the powerful things he can do.
8 The Lord is kind and merciful.
He is patient and full of love.
9 He does not always criticize.
He does not stay angry with us forever.
10 We sinned against him,
but he didn’t give us the punishment we deserved.
11 His love for his followers is
as high above us as heaven is above the earth.
12 And he has taken our sins
as far away from us as the east is from the west.
13 The Lord is as kind to his followers
as a father is to his children.
14 He knows all about us.
He knows we are made from dust.
15 He knows our lives are short, that they are like grass.
He knows we are like a little wildflower that grows so quickly,
16 but when the hot wind blows, it dies.
Soon, you cannot even see where the flower was.
17 But the Lord has always loved his followers,
and he will continue to love them forever and ever!
He will be good to all their descendants,
18 to those who are faithful to his agreement
and who remember to obey his commands.
19 The Lord set his throne up in heaven,
and he rules over everything.
20 Angels, praise the Lord!
You angels are the powerful soldiers who obey his commands.
You listen to him and obey his commands.
21 Praise the Lord, all his armies.[a]
You are his servants,
and you do what he wants.
22 Everything the Lord has made should praise him
throughout the world that he rules!
My soul, praise the Lord!
Remember the Lord
8 “You must obey all the commands that I give you today, because then you will live and grow to become a great nation. You will get the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 2 And you must remember the entire trip that the Lord your God has led you through these 40 years in the desert. He was testing you. He wanted to make you humble. He wanted to know what is in your heart. He wanted to know if you would obey his commands. 3 He humbled you and let you be hungry. Then he fed you with manna—something you did not know about before. It was something your ancestors had never seen. Why did the Lord do this? Because he wanted you to know that it is not just bread that keeps people alive. People’s lives depend on what the Lord says. 4 These past 40 years, your clothes did not wear out, and your feet did not swell. 5 You must remember that the Lord your God teaches and corrects you as a father teaches and corrects his son.
6 “You must obey the commands of the Lord your God. Follow him and respect him. 7 The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with rivers and pools of water. Water flows out of the ground in the valleys and hills. 8 It is a land with wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates. It is a land with olive oil and honey. 9 There you will have plenty of food and everything you need. It is a land where the rocks are iron. You can dig copper out of the hills. 10 You will have all you want to eat. Then you will praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
17 Christ did not give me the work of baptizing people. He gave me the work of telling the Good News. But he sent me to tell the Good News without using clever speech, which would take away the power that is in the cross[a] of Christ.
God’s Power and Wisdom in Christ Jesus
18 The teaching about the cross seems foolish to those who are lost. But to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 As the Scriptures say,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.
I will confuse the understanding of the intelligent.” (A)
20 So what does this say about the philosopher, the law expert, or anyone in this world who is skilled in making clever arguments? God has made the wisdom of the world look foolish. 21 This is what God in his wisdom decided: Since the world did not find him through its own wisdom, he used the message that sounds foolish to save those who believe it.
22 The Jews ask for miraculous signs, and the Greeks want wisdom. 23 But this is the message we tell everyone: Christ was killed on a cross. This message is a problem for Jews, and to other people it is nonsense. 24 But Christ is God’s power and wisdom to the people God has chosen, both Jews and Greeks. 25 Even the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. Even the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, God chose you to be his. Think about that! Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence, and not many of you came from important families. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 And God chose what the world thinks is not important—what the world hates and thinks is nothing. He chose these to destroy what the world thinks is important. 29 God did this so that no one can stand before him and boast about anything. 30 It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin. 31 So, as the Scriptures say, “Whoever boasts should boast only about the Lord.”[b]
Jesus Is Not Like Other Religious Leaders(A)
18 The followers of John and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and said, “John’s followers fast, and the followers of the Pharisees fast. But your followers don’t fast. Why?”
19 Jesus answered, “At a wedding the friends of the bridegroom are not sad while he is with them. They cannot fast while the bridegroom is still there. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them. Then they will fast.
21 “When someone sews a patch over a hole in an old coat, they never use a piece of cloth that is not yet shrunk. If they do, the patch will shrink and pull away from the coat. Then the hole will be worse. 22 Also, no one ever pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would break them, and the wine would be ruined along with the wineskins. You always put new wine into new wineskins.”
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International