Book of Common Prayer
66 Sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing of his glorious name! Tell the world how wonderful he is.
3 How awe-inspiring are your deeds, O God! How great your power! No wonder your enemies surrender! 4 All the earth shall worship you and sing of your glories. 5 Come, see the glorious things God has done. What marvelous miracles happen to his people! 6 He made a dry road through the sea for them. They went across on foot. What excitement and joy there was that day!
7 Because of his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. O rebel lands, he will deflate your pride.
8 Let everyone bless God and sing his praises; 9 for he holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path. 10 You have purified us with fire,[a] O Lord, like silver in a crucible. 11 You captured us in your net and laid great burdens on our backs. 12 You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies.[b] We went through fire and flood. But in the end, you brought us into wealth and great abundance.
13 Now I have come to your Temple with burnt offerings to pay my vows. 14 For when I was in trouble, I promised you many offerings. 15 That is why I am bringing you these fat male goats, rams, and calves. The smoke of their sacrifice shall rise before you.
16 Come and hear, all of you who reverence the Lord, and I will tell you what he did for me: 17 For I cried to him for help with praises ready on my tongue. 18 He would not have listened if I had not confessed my sins. 19 But he listened! He heard my prayer! He paid attention to it!
20 Blessed be God, who didn’t turn away when I was praying and didn’t refuse me his kindness and love.
67 O God, in mercy bless us; let your face beam with joy as you look down at us.
2 Send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all mankind. 3 How everyone throughout the earth will praise the Lord! 4 How glad the nations will be, singing for joy because you are their King[c] and will give true justice to their people! 5 Praise God, O world! May all the peoples of the earth give thanks to you. 6-7 For the earth has yielded abundant harvests. God, even our own God, will bless us. And peoples from remotest lands will worship him.
19 The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of his craftsmanship. 2 Day and night they keep on telling about God. 3-4 Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, their message reaches out to all the world. The sun lives in the heavens where God placed it 5 and moves out across the skies as radiant as a bridegroom[a] going to his wedding, or as joyous as an athlete looking forward to a race! 6 The sun crosses the heavens from end to end, and nothing can hide from its heat.
7-8 God’s laws are perfect. They protect us, make us wise, and give us joy and light. 9 God’s laws are pure, eternal, just.[b] 10 They are more desirable than gold. They are sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. 11 For they warn us away from harm and give success to those who obey them.
12 But how can I ever know what sins are lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. 13 And keep me from deliberate wrongs; help me to stop doing them. Only then can I be free of guilt and innocent of some great crime.
14 May my spoken words and unspoken thoughts be pleasing even to you, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer.
46 God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble. 2 And so we need not fear even if the world blows up and the mountains crumble into the sea. 3 Let the oceans roar and foam; let the mountains tremble!
4 There is a river of joy flowing through the city of our God—the sacred home of the God above all gods. 5 God himself is living in that city; therefore it stands unmoved despite the turmoil everywhere. He will not delay his help. 6 The nations rant and rave in anger—but when God speaks, the earth melts in submission and kingdoms totter into ruin.
7 The Commander of the armies of heaven is here among us. He, the God of Jacob, has come to rescue us.
8 Come, see the glorious things that our God does, how he brings ruin upon the world 9 and causes wars to end throughout the earth, breaking and burning every weapon. 10 “Stand silent! Know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation in the world!”
11 The Commander of the heavenly armies is here among us! He, the God of Jacob, has come to rescue us!
12 A man from the tribe of Benjamin ran from the battle and arrived at Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.[a] 13 Eli was waiting beside the road to hear the news of the battle, for his heart trembled for the safety of the Ark of God. As the messenger from the battlefront arrived and told what had happened, a great cry arose throughout the city.
14 “What is all the noise about?” Eli asked. And the messenger rushed over to Eli and told him what had happened. 15 (Eli was ninety-eight years old and was blind.)
16 “I have just come from the battle—I was there today,” he told Eli, 17 “and Israel has been defeated and thousands of the Israeli troops are dead on the battlefield. Hophni and Phinehas were killed too, and the Ark has been captured.”
18 When the messenger mentioned what had happened to the Ark, Eli fell backward from his seat beside the gate and his neck was broken by the fall, and he died (for he was old and fat). He had judged Israel for forty years.
19 When Eli’s daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, who was pregnant, heard that the Ark had been captured and that her husband and father-in-law were dead, her labor pains suddenly began. 20 Just before she died, the women who were attending her told her that everything was all right and that the baby was a boy. But she did not reply or respond in any way. 21-22 Then she murmured, “Name the child ‘Ichabod,’ for Israel’s glory is gone.” (Ichabod means “there is no glory.” She named him this because the Ark of God had been captured and because her husband and her father-in-law were dead.)
1 From: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To: Jewish Christians scattered everywhere. Greetings!
2 Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, 3 for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.
5 If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you, for he is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him; he will not resent it. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind; 7-8 and every decision you then make will be uncertain, as you turn first this way and then that. If you don’t ask with faith, don’t expect the Lord to give you any solid answer.
9 A Christian who doesn’t amount to much in this world should be glad, for he is great in the Lord’s sight. 10-11 But a rich man should be glad that his riches mean nothing to the Lord, for he will soon be gone, like a flower that has lost its beauty and fades away, withered—killed by the scorching summer sun. So it is with rich men. They will soon die and leave behind all their busy activities.
12 Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him. 13 And remember, when someone wants to do wrong it is never God who is tempting him, for God never wants to do wrong and never tempts anyone else to do it. 14 Temptation is the pull of man’s own evil thoughts and wishes. 15 These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to the death penalty from God. 16 So don’t be misled, dear brothers.
17 But whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God, the Creator of all light, and he shines forever without change or shadow. 18 And it was a happy day for him when[a] he gave us our new lives through the truth of his Word, and we became, as it were, the first children in his new family.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 24 I say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!”
25 This remark confounded the disciples. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.
26 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, no one. But with God, everything is possible.”
27 Then Peter said to him, “We left everything to follow you. What will we get out of it?”
28 And Jesus replied, “When I, the Messiah,[a] shall sit upon my glorious throne in the Kingdom, you my disciples shall certainly sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And anyone who gives up his home, brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife,[b] children, or property, to follow me, shall receive a hundred times as much in return, and shall have eternal life. 30 But many who are first now will be last then; and some who are last now will be first then.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.