Book of Common Prayer

God is good, so thank him^[a]

This is a song that David wrote to praise God.

An alphabet of praise^[a]

The bronze snake

⁴ The Israelites left Hor mountain. They travelled round the edge of Edom to the Red Sea. As they travelled, the people were upset. ⁵ They complained to God and to Moses, ‘You should not have brought us from Egypt to die here in the desert. There is nothing to eat. There is no water to drink. We do not like this bad food, manna.’

⁶ Then the Lord sent snakes among the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. ⁷ So the people came to Moses and they said, ‘We did a bad thing when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Please pray to the Lord on our behalf. Ask him to remove the snakes from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a model of a snake and put it up high on a pole. When a snake bites anyone, they must look at the bronze snake. Then they will not die.’ ⁹ Moses made a bronze snake and he put it on a pole. When a snake bit anyone and they looked at the bronze snake, they did not die.

The Israelites fight against Sihon and Og

²¹ The Israelites sent men with a message to Sihon, the king of the Amorites. ²² They said, ‘Please let us travel through your country. We will not go through any fields or through any vineyards. We will not even drink water from your wells. We will go along the main road. We will not leave that road on either side until we have gone through all your land.’

²³ But Sihon would not let the Israelites travel through his land. Sihon and his army marched to Jahaz, in the desert. They attacked the Israelites there. ²⁴ The Israelites fought against the army of Sihon and they won. They got power over the land from the River Arnon to the River Jabbok. But the border of the Ammonites' land had strong towns, so they could not go beyond them. ²⁵ They got power over all the cities of the Amorites. Those cities included Heshbon and the towns round it. ²⁶ Heshbon was the city of Sihon, the king of the Amorites. He had fought against the king of Moab. He took from the king of Moab the land as far as the River Arnon. ²⁷ So the people who write songs wrote this:

³¹ So the Israelites stayed in the land of the Amorites. ³² Moses sent men to find the best way to attack Jazer. Then the Israelites attacked Jazer and the towns round it. They caused the Amorites who lived there to run away.

³³ After that, the Israelites travelled towards Bashan. Og, the king of Bashan, marched out with his army to fight against them at Edrei.

³⁴ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Do not be afraid of Og. I will put him under your power, as well as his army and his land. Attack him in the same way that you attacked Sihon, the king of the Amorites who ruled in Heshbon.’

³⁵ So they killed Og and his sons and all his army. Nobody was left alive. Their land became the Israelites' land.

¹² Many of the Jewish people in Berea believed the good news about Jesus. Many Greek men and some important Greek women also believed in Jesus.

¹³ But the Jews in Thessalonica heard news about what Paul was doing in Berea. They heard that he was telling people God's message about Jesus. So some of them went to Berea. They said bad things against Paul to the people there. As a result, a large crowd became angry with Paul. ¹⁴ Immediately, the believers in Berea sent Paul away to go to the coast. But Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea. ¹⁵ When Paul left Berea, some men went with him. They went with him as far as the city of Athens.^[a] Before these men returned to Berea, Paul gave them a message for Silas and Timothy. He said, ‘Please come quickly and meet me here in Athens.’

Paul visits Athens

¹⁶ While Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, he walked around. He saw that the people in the city had many idols. When Paul saw this, he became very upset. ¹⁷ So he went to the Jewish meeting place and he talked with the Jews. He also talked there with those Gentiles who now worshipped God. Every day he also went to the market place in the city and he talked with the people there. ¹⁸ There were some teachers there who liked to talk about the things that people should believe. Some of them were called Epicureans and some were called Stoics.^[b] After they talked to Paul, some of them said to each other, ‘Who is this silly man? He knows nothing and he talks too much!’ But some of these teachers said, ‘We think that he is talking about strange gods.’ They said this because Paul was telling people the good news about Jesus. He was also talking about the time when God will cause dead people to live again.

¹⁹ So these men asked Paul to go with them to Areopagus hill. They wanted him to speak to the city's important officers who met there.^{[c] 20} The officers said, ‘These strange ideas that you are teaching surprise us. Please explain to us what these ideas mean.’ ²¹ (The people of Athens liked to talk about new ideas. So did the foreign people who lived there. They all wanted to hear new things and to talk about them. They seemed to do this all the time.)

²² So Paul stood up in front of the important officers of the city. He said to them, ‘People of Athens. I see that you have many gods. ²³ I have walked in the streets of your city. I see that you have built many special places where you worship your gods. I saw one altar with a notice on it. The notice said, “To the god that we do not know.” This shows that you want to worship a god that you do not know. Now I will tell you clearly about who this God is.

²⁴ The true God made the earth and everything that is in it. He rules everything in the earth and in heaven. He does not live in any buildings that people have made for him. ²⁵ People make things to give to God. But God does not need anything like that. It is God himself who causes everyone to live. He gives them everything that they need. ²⁶ God first made one man. From that one man he made all the different groups of people. He caused them to live in different places all over the world. He decided where each group of people should live. He also decided how long they should live in each place. ²⁷ God did all this so that people would want to know him. They would look carefully for him and perhaps they would find him. Really, God is near to each of us. ²⁸ Someone said this: “Because God gives us life, we are alive. Because of him, we can move about. Because of him we can be who we are.” One of your writers has also said, “We too are God's children.”

²⁹ So, because we are God's children, we should not think that he is a thing like an idol. Clever people use gold or silver or stone to make images of gods. But God is not like these things that people choose to make for themselves. ³⁰ In past times people did not know the true things about God. Because of this, God did not punish them. But now God tells people everywhere, “Stop doing bad things and turn to me!” ³¹ God has already chosen one special day. On that day he will judge everyone in the world in a completely right way. He has chosen a man who will do this for him. He has shown clearly to everyone who that man is. He showed it like this: People killed that man. But God caused him to live again.’

³² Paul had said, ‘God caused that man to live again.’ When the people heard this, some of them laughed at him. But other people said to Paul, ‘We want you to tell us more about this on another day.’ ³³ So then Paul left the meeting of the important officers of the city. ³⁴ Some of the people who had heard Paul's message joined his group. They believed the good news about Jesus. One of these believers was a man called Dionysius. He belonged to the group of important officers. A woman called Damaris also became a believer. Several other people also believed Paul's message about Jesus.

Jesus makes a sick woman well again

¹⁰ One day, Jesus was teaching in a Jewish meeting place. It was the Jewish day of rest.

¹¹ There was a woman there that had a bad spirit inside her. It had lived in her for 18 years and it had made her ill. Her back was bent. She could not stand up straight. ¹² Jesus saw her and he called her to come to him. He said, ‘Woman, you are now better from your illness.’ ¹³ He put his hands on her and immediately she could stand up straight. She praised God.

¹⁴ But the leader of the meeting place was angry because Jesus had made a sick person well on their day of rest. He said to the people there, ‘There are six days each week when we should work. Come on any of those days and get well. But you should not come on our day of rest to get well.’

¹⁵ ‘You are wrong,’ the Lord Jesus said to him. ‘You teach one thing but you do something different yourselves. On the day of rest you will undo the rope on your ox or your donkey and take it outside. You then give it water to drink. Is that not true?^{[a] 16} Now look at this woman. She belongs to the family of Abraham. But a bad spirit from the Devil has made her ill for 18 years. It is like he has tied her up. So it must be right to make her free on our day of rest.’

¹⁷ These words made the leaders of the meeting place feel ashamed. But the other people there were very happy. They were happy because they had seen Jesus do many good and powerful things.