Book of Common Prayer
The Lord is King
97 The Lord reigns!
Let the earth rejoice!
May many islands be glad!
2 Thick clouds are all around him;
righteousness and justice are his throne’s foundation.
3 Fire goes out from his presence
to consume his enemies on every side.
4 His lightning bolts light the world;
the earth sees and shakes.
5 Mountains melt like wax in the Lord’s presence—
In the presence of the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens declare his righteousness
so that all the nations see his glory.
7 All who serve carved images—
and those who praise idols—will be humiliated.
Worship him, all you “gods”!
The Lord is Holy
99 The Lord reigns—
let people tremble;
he is seated above the cherubim—
let the earth quake.
2 The Lord is great in Zion
and is exalted above all peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name.
He is holy!
4 A mighty king who loves justice,
you have established fairness.
You have exercised justice
and righteousness over Jacob.
5 Exalt the Lord our God;
worship and bow down at his footstool;
He is holy!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests;
Samuel also was among those who invoked his name.
When they called on the Lord,
he answered them.
7 In a pillar of cloud he spoke to them;
they obeyed his decrees
and the Law that he gave them.
8 Lord our God, you answered them;
you were their God who forgave[a] them,
but also avenged their evil deeds.
9 Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain,
for the Lord our God is holy!
A psalm of thanksgiving
Give Thanks to the Lord
100 Shout to the Lord all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with joy.
Come before him with a joyful shout!
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us and we belong to him;
we are his people
and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Thank him and bless his name,
5 for the Lord is good
and his gracious love stands forever.
His faithfulness remains from generation to generation.
God Avenges His Own
94 God of vengeance,
Lord God of vengeance,
display your splendor![a]
2 Stand up, judge of the earth,
and repay the proud.
3 How long will the wicked, Lord,
how long will the wicked continue to triumph?
4 When they speak, they spew arrogance.
Everyone who practices iniquity brags about it.[b]
5 Lord, they have crushed your people,
afflicting your heritage.
6 The wicked[c] kill widows and foreigners;
they murder orphans.
7 They say, “The Lord cannot see,
and the God of Jacob will not notice.”
8 Pay attention, you dull ones among the crowds!
You fools! Will you ever become wise?
9 The one who formed[d] the ear can hear, can he not?
The one who made the eyes can see, can he not?
10 The one who disciplines nations can rebuke them, can he not?
The one who teaches mankind can discern, can he not?
11 The Lord knows the thoughts of human beings—
that they are futile.
12 How blessed is the man whom you instruct, Lord,
whom you teach from your Law,
13 keeping him calm when times are troubled
until a pit has been dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not forsake his people;
he will not abandon his heritage.
15 Righteousness will be restored with justice,
and all the pure of heart will follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will stand for me against those who practice iniquity?
17 If the Lord had not been my helper,
I would have quickly become silent.
18 When I say that my foot is shaking,
your gracious love, Lord, will sustain me.
19 When my anxious inner thoughts become overwhelming,
your comfort encourages me.
20 Will destructive national leaders,[e]
who plan wicked things through misuse of the Law,
be allied with you?
21 They gather together against the righteous,
condemning the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord is my stronghold,
and my God, the rock, is my refuge.
23 He will repay them for their sin;
he will annihilate them because of their evil.
The Lord our God will annihilate them.
Worship and Obedience
95 Come! Let us sing joyfully to the Lord!
Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us shout with songs of praise to him.
3 For the Lord is an awesome God;
a great king above all divine beings.[f]
4 He holds in his hand the lowest parts of the earth
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea that he made belongs to him,
along with the dry land that his hands formed.
6 Come! Let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel in the presence of the Lord, who made us.
7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock in his care.[g]
If only you would listen to his voice today,
8 do not be stubborn like your ancestors were[h] at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah, in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me.
They tested me,
even though they had seen my awesome deeds.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation, so I said,
“They are a people whose hearts continuously err,
and they have not understood my ways.”
11 So in my anger I declared an oath:
“They are not to enter my place of rest.”
The Birth of Samson, Israel’s Twelfth Judge
13 Some time later, the Israelis again practiced what the Lord considered to be evil, so the Lord handed them over into the domination of the Philistines for 40 years. 2 There was one man from Zorah, from the family of the descendants of Dan, whose name was Manoah. Since his wife was infertile, she hadn’t borne children.[a] 3 One day the angel of the Lord presented himself to the woman. “Hello!” he greeted[b] her. “Though you are infertile at this time and haven’t borne a child, you’re about to conceive and give birth to a son. 4 So be sure that you don’t drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don’t eat anything unclean 5 because—surprise!—you’re going to conceive and give birth to a son! Don’t put a razor to his head, because the young man will be a Nazirite, dedicated[c] to God from inside the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from domination by the Philistines.”
6 Then the woman went to tell her husband. She said, “A man of God appeared[d] to me. He looked like what an angel of God would look like—very frightening.[e] I didn’t ask him where he had come from and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 He told me, ‘Surprise!—you’re going to conceive and give birth to a son!’ and as for you, ‘Be sure that you don’t drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don’t eat anything unclean,’ ‘because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from inside the womb’ until the day he dies.”
8 So Manoah prayed to the Lord, “Please, Lord, have the man of God whom you sent before[f] come again so he can instruct us what to do on behalf of the child who is to be born.”
9 God listened to Manoah’s request,[g] and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting out in the pasture. But her husband Manoah wasn’t with her, 10 so the woman ran quickly to tell her husband, “Look! The man who came the other[h] day appeared to me!”
11 So Manoah got up quickly and followed his wife, and when he came to the man he told him, “Are you the man who spoke to my[i] wife?”
He replied, “I am.”
12 Manoah asked, “Now, when what you’ve said occurs, what is to be the young man’s way of life and work?”
13 The angel of the Lord replied to Manoah, “Just have your wife[j] be careful to carry out everything that I told her. 14 She must not consume anything extracted from grape vines, including wine or anything intoxicating, and she must not eat anything unclean, doing everything that I commissioned her to do.”
15 Manoah responded to the angel of the Lord, “Please, let us detain you while we prepare a young goat for you.”
27 When they brought them back, they made them stand before the Council,[a] and the high priest began to question them. 28 He said, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in his name, didn’t we? Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to bring this man’s blood on us!”
29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you killed him by hanging him on a tree. 31 God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to extend repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who keep on obeying him.”
33 When the Council[b] heard this, they became furious and wanted to kill them. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law who was respected by all the people, stood up in the Council[c] and ordered the men to be taken outside for a little while. 35 Then he told them, “Fellow Israelis, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. 36 For in the recent past Theudas appeared, claiming that he was important, and about 400 men joined him. He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed and disappeared. 37 After that man, at the time of the census, Judas the Galilean appeared and got people to follow him. He, too, died, and all his followers were scattered.
38 “I’m telling you to keep away from these men for now. Leave them alone, because if this plan or movement is of human origin, it will fail. 39 However, if it’s from God, you won’t be able to stop them, and you may even discover that you are fighting against God!”
So they were convinced by him. 40 After calling in the apostles and beating them, they again[d] ordered them to stop speaking in the name of Jesus and let them go. 41 They left the Council,[e] rejoicing to have been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name. 42 Every day in the Temple and from house to house they kept teaching and proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah.[f]
John the Baptist Talks about Jesus
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside. He spent some time there with them and began baptizing. 23 John was also baptizing in Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People[a] kept coming and were being baptized, 24 since John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25 Then a controversy about ritual purification sprang up between a certain Jew[b] and John’s disciples, 26 so they went to John and told him, “Rabbi,[c] the man who was with you on the other side[d] of the Jordan, the one about whom you testified—look, he’s baptizing, and everyone is going to him!”
27 John replied, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to them from heaven. 28 You yourselves are my[e] witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,[f] but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29 It is the bridegroom who gets the bride, yet the bridegroom’s friend, who merely[g] stands by and listens for him, is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That’s why this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must become more important, but I must become less important.”
The One who Comes from Above
31 The one who comes from above is superior to everything. The one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things.[h] The one who comes from heaven is superior to everything. 32 He testifies about what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 The person who has accepted his testimony has acknowledged that God is truthful.[i] 34 The one whom God sent speaks the words of God, because God[j] does not give the Spirit in limited measure to him.[k] 35 The Father loves the Son and has put everything in his hands. 36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who disobeys the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
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