Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 89
A maskil[a] of Ethan the Ezrahite.
89 I will sing of the Lord’s loyal love forever.
I will proclaim your faithfulness
with my own mouth
from one generation to the next.
2 That’s why I say,
“Your[b] loyal love is rightly built—forever!
You establish your faithfulness in heaven.”
3 You said,[c] “I made a covenant with my chosen one;
I promised my servant David:
4 ‘I will establish your offspring forever;
I will build up your throne from one generation to the next.’” Selah
5 Heaven thanks you for your wondrous acts, Lord—
for your faithfulness too—
in the assembly of the holy ones.
6 Is there any in the sky who could compare to the Lord?
Who among the gods is equal to the Lord?
7 God is respected in the council of the holy ones;
God is awesome and revered more than all those around him.
8 Who is like you, Lord God of heavenly forces?
Mighty Lord, your faithfulness surrounds you!
9 You rule over the surging sea:
When its waves rise up,
it’s you who makes them still.
10 It’s you who crushed Rahab like a dead body;
you scattered your enemies with your strong arm.
11 Heaven is yours! The earth too!
The world and all that fills it—
you made all of it! North and south—you created them!
12 The mountains Tabor and Hermon
shout praises to your name.
13 You have a powerful arm;
your hand is strong;
your strong hand is raised high!
14 Your throne is built on righteousness and justice;
loyal love and faithfulness stand in front of you.
15 The people who know the celebratory shout are truly happy!
They walk in the light of your presence, Lord!
16 They rejoice in your name all day long
and are uplifted by your righteousness
17 because you are the splendor of their strength.
By your favor you make us strong
18 because our shield is the Lord’s own;
our king belongs to the holy one of Israel!
19 Once you spoke in a vision
to your faithful servants:
I placed a crown on a strong man.
I raised up someone specially chosen from the people.
20 I discovered my servant David.
I anointed him with my holy oil.
21 My hand will sustain him—
yes, my arm will strengthen him!
22 No enemy will oppress him;
no wicked person will make him suffer.
23 I will crush all his foes in front of him.
I will strike down all those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and my loyal love will be with him.
He will be strengthened by my name.
25 I will set his hand on the sea.
I will set his strong hand on the rivers.
26 He will cry out to me:
“You are my father,
my God, the rock of my salvation.”
27 Yes, I’ll make him the one born first—
I’ll make him the high king of all earth’s kings.
28 I will always guard my loyal love toward him.
My covenant with him will last forever.
29 I will establish his dynasty for all time.
His throne will last as long as heaven does.
30 But if his children ever abandon my Instruction,
stop following my rules—
31 if they treat my statutes like dirt,
stop keeping my commandments—
32 then I will punish their sin with a stick,
and I will punish their wrongdoing with a severe beating.
33 But even then I won’t withdraw my loyal love from him.
I won’t betray my faithfulness.
34 I won’t break my covenant.
I won’t renege on what crossed my lips.
35 By my own holiness I’ve sworn one thing:
I will not lie to David.
36 His dynasty will last forever.
His throne will be like the sun, always before me.
37 It will be securely established forever;
like the moon, a faithful witness in the sky. Selah
38 But you, God, have rejected and despised him.
You’ve become infuriated with your anointed one.
39 You’ve canceled the covenant with your servant.
You’ve thrown his crown in the dirt.
40 You’ve broken through all his walls.
You’ve made his strongholds a pile of ruins.
41 All those who pass by plunder him.
He’s nothing but a joke to his neighbors.
42 You lifted high his foes’ strong hand.
You gave all his enemies reason to celebrate.
43 Yes, you dulled the edge of his sword
and didn’t support him in battle.
44 You’ve put an end to his splendor.
You’ve thrown his throne to the ground.
45 You’ve shortened the prime of his life.
You’ve wrapped him up in shame. Selah
46 How long will it last, Lord?
Will you hide yourself forever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember how short my life is!
Have you created humans for no good reason?
48 Who lives their life without seeing death?
Who is ever rescued from the grip of the grave?[d] Selah
49 Where now are your loving acts
from long ago, my Lord—
the same ones you promised to David
by your own faithfulness?
50 Remember your servant’s abuse, my Lord!
Remember how I bear in my heart
all the insults of the nations,[e]
51 the ones your enemies, Lord, use—
the ones they use to abuse
every step your anointed one takes.
52 Bless the Lord forever!
Amen and Amen!
10 When you proclaim all these things to the people, and they ask you, “Why has the Lord pronounced such massive devastation against us? What have we done wrong? How have we sinned against the Lord our God?” 11 then you should tell them: It’s because your ancestors have deserted me and followed other gods, declares the Lord. They have served and worshipped them, while abandoning me and refusing to keep my Instruction. 12 And you, you have acted worse than your ancestors, each of you following your own willful, evil hearts and paying no attention to me. 13 So I will banish you from this land to a place that neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.
14 But the time is coming, declares the Lord, when no one will say, “As the Lord lives who brought up the Israelites from the land of Egypt”; 15 instead, they will say, “As the Lord lives who brought up the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the lands where he has banished them.” I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their ancestors.
16 I’m going to send hordes of fishermen to catch them, declares the Lord. Afterward I will send a party of hunters to hunt them down on every mountain, hill, and cave. 17 I am watching their every move; not one is hidden from me. Nor is their sin concealed from my sight. 18 I will initially pay them back double for their evil and sin, because they have corrupted my land with their disgusting, lifeless idols and have filled my inheritance with their detestable practices.
19 Lord, you are my strength and my stronghold;
you are my refuge in time of trouble.
The nations will flock to you
from the ends of the earth,
and they will say:
“Our ancestors have inherited utter lies,
things that are hollow and useless.”
20 Can humans make their own gods?
If so, they are not gods at all!
21 Therefore, I will teach them;
this time I will teach them
my power and my might.
They will understand that I am the Lord.
Freedom from the Law
7 Brothers and sisters, I’m talking to you as people who know the Law. Don’t you know that the Law has power over someone only as long as he or she lives? 2 A married woman is united with her husband under the Law while he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the Law concerning her husband. 3 So then, if she lives with another man while her husband is alive, she’s committing adultery. But if her husband dies, she’s free from the Law, so she won’t be committing adultery if she marries someone else. 4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also died with respect to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you could be united with someone else. You are united with the one who was raised from the dead so that we can bear fruit for God. 5 When we were self-centered, the sinful passions aroused through the Law were at work in all the parts of our body, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the Law. We have died with respect to the thing that controlled us, so that we can be slaves in the new life under the Spirit, not in the old life under the written Law.
The function of the Law
7 So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn’t have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn’t have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don’t desire to take what others have.[a] 8 But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law. 9 I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, 10 and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death. 11 Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me. 12 So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
Feeding of the five thousand
6 After this Jesus went across the Galilee Sea (that is, the Tiberias Sea). 2 A large crowd followed him, because they had seen the miraculous signs he had done among the sick. 3 Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples. 4 It was nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.
5 Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him. He asked Philip, “Where will we buy food to feed these people?” 6 Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.
7 Philip replied, “More than a half year’s salary[a] worth of food wouldn’t be enough for each person to have even a little bit.”
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, 9 “A youth here has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that for a crowd like this?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass there. They sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted. 12 When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten.
14 When the people saw that he had done a miraculous sign, they said, “This is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.” 15 Jesus understood that they were about to come and force him to be their king, so he took refuge again, alone on a mountain.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible