Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 78[a]
God’s Goodness in the Face of Ingratitude
1 A maskil[b] of Asaph.
[c]Give ear, my people, to my teaching;
pay attention to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in parables[d]
and expound the mysteries of the past.
3 [e]These things we have heard and know,
for our ancestors have related them to us.
4 We will not conceal them from our children;
we will relate them to the next generation,
the glorious and powerful deeds of the Lord
and the wonders he has performed.
5 He instituted a decree in Jacob
and established a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to make known to their descendants,
6 so that they would be known to future generations,
to children yet to be born.
In turn they were to tell their children,
7 so that they would place their trust in God,
and never forget his works
but keep his commandments.
8 Nor were they to imitate their ancestors,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart[f] was not steadfast
and whose spirit was unfaithful to God.
9 [g]The Ephraimites, who were skilled archers,
fled in terror on the day of battle.[h]
10 They failed to keep God’s covenant
and refused to live in accord with his law.
11 They forgot the works he had done,
the wonders he had performed for them.
12 He worked marvels in the sight of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt, in the Plain of Zoan.[i]
13 He divided the sea so that they could pass,
heaping up the waters as a mound.
14 He led them with a cloud by day,
and with the light of a fire by night.
15 He split open rocks in the wilderness
and gave them water to drink from limitless depths.
16 He brought forth streams from a rocky crag
and caused water to flow down in torrents.
17 [j]But they still sinned[k] against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness.
18 They tested God’s patience
by demanding the food they craved.[l]
19 They railed against God, saying:
“Can God provide a banquet in the wilderness?
20 Certainly when he struck the rock,
water gushed forth and the streams overflowed.
But can he also give us bread
or provide meat for his people?”[m]
21 When the Lord heard this, he was filled with anger;
his fire blazed forth against Jacob,
and his wrath mounted against Israel,
22 because they had no faith in God
and put no trust in his saving might.
23 Yet he issued a command to the skies above
and opened the doors of the heavens.
24 He rained down manna for them to eat,
giving them the grain of heaven.
25 Mere mortals ate the bread of angels;[n]
he sent them an abundance of provisions.
26 He made the east wind blow in the heavens
and brought forth the south wind in force.
27 He rained down meat upon them like dust,
winged birds like the sands on the seashore.
28 He let them fall within the camp,
all around their tents.
29 They ate and were completely satisfied,
for he had given them what they desired.
30 But when they did not curb their cravings,
even while the food was in their mouths,
31 the anger of God blazed up against them;
he slew their strongest warriors
and laid low the chosen of Israel.
32 [o]Despite this, they continued to sin;
they put no faith in his wonders.
33 So he brought their days to an abrupt end
and cut off their years with sudden terror.[p]
34 When death afflicted them,
they sought him;
they searched eagerly for God.
35 They remembered that God was their Rock,[q]
that God Most High was their Redeemer.
36 However, while they flattered him with their mouths
and lied to him with their tongues,
37 their hearts[r] were not right with him,
nor were they faithful to his covenant.
38 Even so, he was compassionate toward them;
he forgave their guilt
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he held back his anger,
unwilling to stir up his rage.
39 For he remembered that they were flesh,
like a breath of wind that does not return.
40 [s]How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and pained him in the wasteland.
41 Again and again they tested God’s patience,
provoking the Holy One of Israel.[t]
42 They did not keep in mind his power
or the day when he delivered them from their oppressor,
43 when he manifested his wonders in Egypt
and his portents in the Plain of Zoan.
44 [u]He turned their rivers into blood;
they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies that devoured them
and frogs that devastated them.
46 He assigned their harvest to the caterpillars
and their produce to the locusts.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamore trees with frost.
48 He exposed their cattle to hailstones
and their flocks to bolts of lightning.
49 He sent upon them his blazing anger,
wrath, fury, and hostility,
a band of destroying angels.[v]
50 He gave his anger free rein;
he did not spare them from death
but delivered their lives to the plague.
51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their manhood in the tents of Ham.[w]
52 Then he led forth his people like sheep
and guided them through the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them in safety, and they were not afraid,
while the sea engulfed their enemies.
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain his right hand had purchased.
55 He drove out the nations before them,
apportioning a heritage for each of them
and settling the tribes of Israel in their tents.[x]
56 [y]Even so, they put God to the test
and rebelled against the Most High,
refusing to observe his decrees.
57 They turned away and were disloyal like their ancestors;
they were as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 They angered him with their high places[z]
and made him jealous with their idols.
59 When God saw this, he became enraged
and rejected Israel totally.[aa]
60 He forsook his dwelling in Shiloh,[ab]
the tent where he dwelt among mortals.
61 He surrendered his might into captivity
and his glory[ac] into the hands of the enemy.
62 He abandoned his people to the sword
and vented his wrath on his own heritage.
63 Fire devoured their young men,
and their maidens had no wedding song.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows sang no lamentation.
65 [ad]Then the Lord awakened as from sleep,
like a warrior flushed from the effects of wine.
66 He struck his enemies and routed them,
inflicting perpetual shame on them.
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph
and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Rather, he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion,[ae] which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
and like the earth[af] that he founded forever.
70 He chose David[ag] to be his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds.
71 From tending sheep he brought him
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel, his heritage.
72 He shepherded them with an unblemished heart
and guided them with a knowing hand.[ah]
Chapter 7
Midian’s Defeat. 1 Early in the morning Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all of the people who were with him camped at the well of Harod. The Midianite army was to the north of them, in the valley by the hill of Moreh.
2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many people with you for me to deliver over the Midianites into your hands. Otherwise, Israel might vaunt themselves against me saying, ‘We have saved ourselves by our own efforts.’ 3 Announce to the people, ‘Whoever is afraid and panicking, let him go back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” Twenty-two thousand of the men left, and there were ten thousand left.
4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you. Of whomever I say to you, ‘This one will go with you,’ that is the one who will go with you. Of whomever I say to you, ‘This one will not go with you,’ that one will not go with you.” 5 He brought the men down to the water. The Lord said to Gideon, “You will set apart everyone who laps up water like a dog from anyone who kneels down to drink.” 6 There were three hundred men who lapped up water by holding their hands to their face. The rest of the men knelt down to drink their water. 7 The Lord said to Gideon, “I will save you through the three hundred men who lapped up their water. I will deliver the Midianites into your hands. Let everyone else go back home.”[a] 8 So they took the other people’s provisions, and they placed their trumpets in their hands. Gideon sent all the other Israelite men back to their homes, but he kept three hundred men with him.
The army of Midian was camped in the valley below them. 9 That same night the Lord said to him, “Rise up, go down against the army, for I have delivered them into your hands. 10 Draw near them until you can hear what they are saying, 11 and then your hands will be strengthened so that you can descend upon the camp.” So he and his servant Purah went down to the outskirts of the camp. 12 The Midianites, the Amalekites, and all of the other easterners were lying in the valley, as thick as locusts. There were so many camels that they could not be counted; there were as many of them as there is sand on the seashore.
13 Gideon arrived just as a man was telling his friend about a dream. He said, “I dreamed that a barley cake[b] came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent so hard that it overturned and collapsed.” 14 His friend said, “This can only be the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the Israelite. God has delivered Midian and its entire army into his hands.”
15 When Gideon heard the content of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. He returned to the army of Israel and said, “Rise up, for the Lord has delivered the army of Midian into your hands.”
16 He divided the three hundred men into three groups, and he placed trumpets and empty jars with torches inside them into each man’s hands. 17 He said to them, “Watch me. Do whatever I do. When we reach the edge of the camp, do whatever I do. 18 When I and all those who are with me blow our trumpets, then blow your trumpets all around the camp and shout out, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’ ”
First Encounter with the Authorities in Israel
Chapter 3
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Walk![a] 1 One day, Peter and John were on their way to the temple for the hour of prayer at three o’clock in the afternoon.[b] 2 A man who had been crippled from his birth was carried there every day and laid at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate[c] so that he could beg for alms from those who entered the temple.
3 When this man saw Peter and John about to enter into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4 Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said to him, “Look at us!” 5 He looked at them attentively, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
7 Then Peter grasped him by the right hand and helped him to get up. Immediately, his feet and ankles were strengthened. 8 He jumped up, stood straight, and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 When all the people there saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the man who used to sit and beg for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
11 Peter Speaks to the People.[d] While he continued to cling to Peter and John, all the people came running in amazement toward them in Solomon’s Portico, as it is called.
Jesus Is the Expected Messiah[a]
19 John the Baptist Is Not the Messiah.[b] This is the testimony offered by John when the Jews[c] sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”[d] 21 Then they asked him, “Who then are you? Are you Elijah?”[e] He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22 Therefore, they said to him, “Who are you, so we may have an answer to give to those who sent us? What do you have to say about yourself?” 23 He replied, in the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’ ”
24 Some Pharisees were present in this group, 25 and they asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 26 John answered them, “I baptize with water; but among you there is one whom you do not know, 27 the one who is coming after me. I am not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandal.” 28 This took place in Bethany, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
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