Book of Common Prayer
87 1-2 High on his holy mountain stands Jerusalem,[a] the city of God, the city he loves more than any other!
3 O city of God, what wondrous tales are told of you! 4 Nowadays when I mention among my friends the names of Egypt and Babylonia, Philistia and Tyre, or even distant Ethiopia, someone boasts that he was born in one or another of those countries. 5 But someday the highest honor will be to be a native of Jerusalem! For the God above all gods will personally bless this city. 6 When he registers her citizens, he will place a check mark beside the names of those who were born here. 7 And in the festivals they’ll sing, “All my heart is in Jerusalem.”
90 A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! 2 Before the mountains were created, before the earth was formed, you are God without beginning or end.
3 You speak, and man turns back to dust. 4 A thousand years are but as yesterday to you! They are like a single hour![a] 5-6 We glide along the tides of time as swiftly as a racing river and vanish as quickly as a dream. We are like grass that is green in the morning but mowed down and withered before the evening shadows fall. 7 We die beneath your anger; we are overwhelmed by your wrath. 8 You spread out our sins before you—our secret sins—and see them all. 9 No wonder the years are long and heavy here beneath your wrath. All our days are filled with sighing.
10 Seventy years are given us! And some may even live to eighty. But even the best of these years are often empty and filled with pain; soon they disappear, and we are gone. 11 Who can realize the terrors of your anger? Which of us can fear you as he should?
12 Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.
13 O Jehovah, come and bless us! How long will you delay? Turn away your anger from us. 14 Satisfy us in our earliest[b] youth with your loving-kindness, giving us constant joy to the end of our lives. 15 Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. 16 Let us see your miracles again; let our children see glorious things, the kind you used to do, 17 and let the Lord our God favor us and give us success. May he give permanence to all we do.
136 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his loving-kindness continues forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 4 Praise him who alone does mighty miracles, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 5 Praise him who made the heavens, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 6 Praise him who planted the water within the earth,[a] for his loving-kindness continues forever. 7 Praise him who made the heavenly lights, for his loving-kindness continues forever: 8 the sun to rule the day, for his loving-kindness continues forever; 9 and the moon and stars at night, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 10 Praise the God who smote the firstborn of Egypt, for his loving-kindness to Israel[b] continues forever.
11-12 He brought them out with mighty power and upraised fist to strike their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever. 13 Praise the Lord who opened the Red Sea to make a path before them, for his loving-kindness continues forever, 14 and led them safely through, for his loving-kindness continues forever— 15 but drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever.
16 Praise him who led his people through the wilderness, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 17 Praise him who saved his people from the power of mighty kings, for his loving-kindness continues forever, 18 and killed famous kings who were their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever: 19 Sihon, king of Amorites—for God’s loving-kindness to Israel continues forever— 20 and Og, king of Bashan—for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever. 21 God gave the land of these kings to Israel as a gift forever, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever; 22 yes, a permanent gift to his servant Israel, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
23 He remembered our utter weakness, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 24 And saved us from our foes, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
25 He gives food to every living thing, for his loving-kindness continues forever. 26 Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
13 The Lord said to me, Go and buy a linen loincloth and wear it, but don’t wash it—don’t put it in water at all. 2 So I bought the loincloth and put it on. 3 Then the Lord’s message came to me again. This time he said, 4 Take the loincloth out to the Euphrates River and hide it in a hole in the rocks.
5 So I did; I hid it as the Lord had told me to. 6 Then, a long time afterwards, the Lord said: Go out to the river again and get the loincloth. 7 And I did; I dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it. But now it was mildewed and falling apart. It was utterly useless!
8-9 Then the Lord said: This illustrates the way that I will rot the pride of Judah and Jerusalem. 10 This evil nation refuses to listen to me and follows its own evil desires, and worships idols; therefore, it shall become as this loincloth—good for nothing. 11 Even as a loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so I made Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord. They were my people, an honor to my name. But then they turned away.
12 Do not let sin control your puny body any longer; do not give in to its sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your bodies become tools of wickedness, to be used for sinning; but give yourselves completely to God—every part of you—for you are back from death and you want to be tools in the hands of God, to be used for his good purposes. 14 Sin need never again be your master,[a] for now you are no longer tied to the law where sin enslaves you, but you are free under God’s favor and mercy.
15 Does this mean that now we can go ahead and sin and not worry about it? (For our salvation does not depend on keeping the law but on receiving God’s grace!) Of course not!
16 Don’t you realize that you can choose your own master? You can choose sin (with death) or else obedience (with acquittal). The one to whom you offer yourself—he will take you and be your master, and you will be his slave. 17 Thank God that though you once chose to be slaves of sin, now you have obeyed with all your heart the teaching to which God has committed you. 18 And now you are free from your old master, sin; and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness.
19 I speak this way, using the illustration of slaves and masters, because it is easy to understand: just as you used to be slaves to all kinds of sin, so now you must let yourselves be slaves to all that is right and holy.
20 In those days when you were slaves of sin you didn’t bother much with goodness. 21 And what was the result? Evidently not good, since you are ashamed now even to think about those things you used to do, for all of them end in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free from the power of sin and are slaves of God, and his benefits to you include holiness and everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
47 Anyone whose Father is God listens gladly to the words of God. Since you don’t, it proves you aren’t his children.”
48 “You Samaritan! Foreigner! Devil!” the Jewish leaders snarled. “Didn’t we say all along you were possessed by a demon?”
49 “No,” Jesus said, “I have no demon in me. For I honor my Father—and you dishonor me. 50 And though I have no wish to make myself great, God wants this for me and judges those who reject me.[a] 51 With all the earnestness I have I tell you this—no one who obeys me shall ever die!”
52 The leaders of the Jews said, “Now we know you are possessed by a demon. Even Abraham and the mightiest prophets died, and yet you say that obeying you will keep a man from dying! 53 So you are greater than our father Abraham, who died? And greater than the prophets, who died? Who do you think you are?” 54 Then Jesus told them this: “If I am merely boasting about myself, it doesn’t count. But it is my Father—and you claim him as your God—who is saying these glorious things about me. 55 But you do not even know him. I do. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But it is true—I know him and fully obey him. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He knew I was coming and was glad.”
57 The Jewish leaders: “You aren’t even fifty years old—sure, you’ve seen Abraham!”
58 Jesus: “The absolute truth is that I was in existence before Abraham was ever born!”
59 At that point the Jewish leaders picked up stones to kill him. But Jesus was hidden from them, and walked past them and left the Temple.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.