Book of Common Prayer
Wishing to Be Near God
A song of David when he was in the desert of Judah.
63 God, you are my God.
I want to follow you.
My whole being
thirsts for you,
like a man in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the Temple.
I have seen your strength and glory.
3 Your love is better than life.
I will praise you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live.
I will lift up my hands in prayer to your name.
5 I will be content as if I had eaten the best foods.
My lips will sing. My mouth will praise you.
6 I remember you while I’m lying in bed.
I think about you through the night.
7 You are my help.
Because of your protection, I sing.
8 I stay close to you.
You support me with your right hand.
9 Some people are trying to kill me.
But they will go down to the grave.
10 They will be killed with swords.
They will be eaten by wild dogs.
11 But the king will rejoice in his God.
All who make promises in his name will praise him.
But the mouths of liars will be shut.
The God of Power and Justice
A song.
98 Sing to the Lord a new song
because he has done miracles.
By his right hand and holy arm
he has won the victory.
2 The Lord has told about his power to save.
He has shown the other nations his victory for his people.
3 He has remembered his love
and his loyalty to the people of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
God’s power to save.
4 Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Burst into songs and praise.
5 Make music to the Lord with harps,
with harps and the sound of singing.
6 Blow the trumpets and the sheep’s horns.
Shout for joy to the Lord the King.
7 Let the sea and everything in it shout.
Let the world and everyone on it sing.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands.
Let the mountains sing together for joy.
9 Let them sing before the Lord
because he is coming to judge the world.
He will judge the world fairly.
He will judge the nations with fairness.
Praise to the God of Love
Of David.
103 All that I am, praise the Lord.
Everything in me, praise his holy name.
2 My whole being, praise the Lord.
Do not forget all his kindnesses.
3 The Lord forgives me for all my sins.
He heals all my diseases.
4 He saves my life from the grave.
He loads me with love and mercy.
5 He satisfies me with good things.
He makes me young again, like the eagle.
6 The Lord does what is right and fair
for all who are wronged by others.
7 He showed his ways to Moses
and his miracles to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord shows mercy and is kind.
He does not become angry quickly, and he has great love.
9 He will not always scold us.
He will not be angry forever.
10 He has not punished us as our sins should be punished.
He has not repaid us for the evil we have done.
11 As high as the sky is above the earth,
so great is his love for those who respect him.
12 He has taken our sins away from us
as far as the east is from west.
13 The Lord has mercy on those who fear him,
as a father has mercy on his children.
14 He knows how we were made.
He remembers that we are dust.
15 Human life is like grass.
We grow like a flower in the field.
16 After the wind blows, the flower is gone.
There is no sign of where it was.
17 But the Lord’s love for those who fear him
continues forever and ever.
And his goodness continues to their grandchildren
18 and to those who keep his agreement
and who remember to obey his orders.
19 The Lord has set his throne in heaven.
And his kingdom rules over everything.
20 You who are his angels, praise the Lord.
You are the mighty warriors who do what he says.
Listen to what he says.
21 You, his armies, praise the Lord.
You are his servants who do what he wants.
22 Everything the Lord has made
should praise him in all the places he rules.
My whole being, praise the Lord.
Remember the Lord
8 Carefully obey every command I give you today. Then you will live and grow in number. And you will enter and own the land the Lord promised your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God has led you in the desert for these 40 years. He took away your pride. He tested you. He wanted to know what was in your heart. He wanted to know if you would obey his commands. 3 He took away your pride. He let you get hungry. Then he fed you with manna. Manna was something neither you nor your ancestors had ever seen. This was to teach you that a person does not live only by eating bread. But a person lives by everything the Lord says. 4 During these 40 years, your clothes did not wear out. And your feet did not swell. 5 Know in your heart that the Lord your God corrects you. He corrects you as a father does his son.
6 Obey the commands of the Lord your God. Live as he has commanded you and respect him. 7 The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. The land has rivers and pools of water. Springs flow in the valleys and hills. 8 The land has wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey. 9 It is a land where you will have plenty of food. You will have everything you need there. The rocks are iron. You can dig copper out of the hills.
10 You will have all you want to eat. Then praise the Lord your God. He has given you a good land.
17 Christ did not give me the work of baptizing people. He gave me the work of preaching the Good News, and he sent me to preach the Good News without using words of worldly wisdom. If I used worldly wisdom to tell the Good News, the cross[a] of Christ would lose its power.
Christ Is God’s Power and Wisdom
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 It is written in the Scriptures:
“I will cause the wise men to lose their wisdom.
I will make the wise men unable to understand.” Isaiah 29:14
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the educated person? Where is the philosopher[b] of our times? God has made the wisdom of the world foolish. 21 The world did not know God through its own wisdom. So God chose to use the message that sounds foolish to save those who believe it. 22 The Jews ask for miracles as proofs. The Greeks want wisdom. 23 But we preach Christ on the cross. This is a big problem to the Jews. And it seems foolish to the non-Jews. 24 But Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God to those people God has called—Jews and Greeks. 25 Even the foolishness of God is wiser than men. Even the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 Brothers, look at what you were when God called you. Not many of you were wise in the way the world judges wisdom. Not many of you had great influence. 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 he chose what the world thinks is not important. He chose 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 man can brag before him. 30 It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. Christ has become wisdom for us from God. Christ is the reason we are right with God and have freedom from sin; Christ is the reason we are holy. 31 So, as the Scripture says, “If a person brags, he should brag only about the Lord.”[c]
Jesus’ Followers Are Criticized
18 One day the followers of John[a] and the Pharisees were giving up eating.[b] Some people came to Jesus and said, “John’s followers and the followers of the Pharisees give up eating. But your followers don’t. Why?”
19 Jesus answered, “When there is a wedding, the friends of the bridegroom are not sad while he is with them. They do not give up eating while the bridegroom is still there. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will leave them. Then the friends will be sad and will give up eating.
21 “When a person sews a patch over a hole on an old coat, he never uses a piece of cloth that is not yet shrunk. If he does, 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 leather bags for holding wine. If he does, the new wine will break the bags, and the wine will be ruined along with the bags for the wine. People always put new wine into new leather bags.”
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.