Book of Common Prayer
Curses and Blessings
33 He turned rivers into a wilderness
and flowing springs into thirsty ground.
34 He turned fruitful land into a salt waste,
because of the wickedness of those who lived in it.
35 He turned the wilderness into pools of water
and the desert into flowing springs.
36 Then he let the hungry live there,
and they founded a city where they could live.
37 Then they sowed fields, and they planted vineyards,
which produced abundant fruit.
38 Then he blessed them, so they increased greatly in number.
He did not let their herds of cattle decrease.
39 But then their numbers decreased,
and they were humbled by oppression, disaster, and sorrow.
40 He who pours contempt on nobles made them wander in confusion
where there was no road.
41 But he lifted up the needy out of affliction
and made their families like a flock.
42 The upright see and rejoice,
but all wickedness shuts its mouth.
Application: Be Wise
43 Whoever is wise, let him keep these things.
Let them take to heart the mercies of the Lord.
Psalm 108
My Heart Is Steadfast
(Psalm 108:1-5 parallels Psalm 57:7-11)
(Psalm 108:6-13 parallels Psalm 60:5-12)
Heading
A song. A psalm by David.
David’s Confident Praise
1 My heart is steadfast, O God.
I will sing and I will make music.
Indeed, I will sing with all my being.[a]
2 Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
3 I will give you thanks among the peoples, Lord,
and I will make music to you among the nations,[b]
4 because your great mercy reaches above the heavens,
and your faithfulness to the skies.
David’s Prayer
5 Be exalted above the heavens, O God.
Let your glory be over all the earth.
6 So that the ones you love may be rescued,
bring salvation by your right hand and answer me.
David’s Confidence in God’s Help
7 God has spoken in his holiness.[c]
I will triumph. I will distribute Shechem,
and I will measure off the Valley of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine.
Ephraim is my helmet. Judah is my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin. On Edom I toss my sandal.
I shout aloud over Philistia.[d]
10 Who will bring me into the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Is it not you, O God, who have rejected us?
Is it not you, O God, who no longer go out with our armies?
12 Give us help against the foe,
for human help is worthless.
13 In God we will do mighty deeds.
He is the one who will trample our foes.
Psalm 33
Blessed Is the Nation Whose God Is the Lord
Introductory Praise
1 Shout joyfully to the Lord, you righteous.
The praise of the upright is beautiful.
2 Thank the Lord with a lyre.
Make music for him with the ten-stringed harp.
3 Sing to him a new song.
Play skillfully and shout praises.
4 Yes, the word of the Lord is right,
and everything he does is trustworthy.
5 He loves righteousness and justice.
The mercy of the Lord fills the earth.
God’s Love in Creation
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.
By the breath of his mouth he made the whole army of stars.[a]
7 He gathers the water of the sea into a heap.
He puts the depths into storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord.
Let all the inhabitants of the world revere him.
9 For he said, “Let it be,” and it was!
He gave a command, and there it stood.
God’s Rule of History
10 The Lord wrecks the plan of the nations.
He hinders the intentions of the peoples.
11 The plan of the Lord stands forever.
The intentions of his heart stand through all generations.
12 How blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he chose to be his possession.
13 From heaven the Lord observes.
He sees all the children of Adam.
14 From his throne room he looks at all the inhabitants of earth.
15 He alone is the one who shapes all their hearts.
He understands all their deeds.
16 No king is saved by the great size of his army.
No hero is rescued by his great strength.
17 You cannot rely on a horse to save you.
Its great strength will not deliver you.
18 Look, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who wait for his mercy.
19 He will deliver their souls from death.
He keeps them alive in famine.
Concluding Prayer
20 Our souls wait for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
21 Yes, in him our heart rejoices,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 May your mercy, O Lord, be on us,
even as we wait confidently for you.
16 One time Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and went to her. 2 The people of Gaza were told, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded the town and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate, but they relaxed during the night, saying, “Let’s wait for the light of morning. Then we will kill him.”
3 But Samson slept only until midnight. He got up in the middle of the night, grabbed the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts, pulled them up crossbar and all, set them on his shoulders, and took them up to the top of the hill opposite Hebron.
Samson and Delilah
4 Sometime after that, Samson fell in love with a woman from the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 The serens[a] of the Philistines approached her and said, “Persuade him to reveal where his great strength comes from and how we may overpower him, tie him up, and humiliate him. Each of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”[b]
6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what the source of your great strength is, and how you can be tied up in order to humiliate you.”
7 Samson answered her, “If anyone ties me up with seven new bowstrings that have not yet been dried,[c] I will become weak and be like any other man.”
8 So the serens of the Philistines brought her seven new bowstrings that had not yet been dried, and she tied him up with them. 9 She had men hiding in the room waiting to ambush Samson, and she said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a flax thread that was scorched when brought near fire. So the source of his strength was not revealed.
10 Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look! You made a fool of me and told me lies. Now please tell me how you can be tied up.”
11 Samson answered her, “Actually, if anyone ties me up with new ropes that have never been used for work, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them. Then she said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” There were men hiding in the room waiting to ambush Samson, but he tore the ropes off his arms as if they were thread.
13 Delilah said to Samson, “So far you have made a fool of me and told me lies. Tell me how you may be tied up!”
So he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my hair into the fabric of a loom ⎣and fasten them with a pin, I will be as weak as any other man.”
After she had waited for him to fall asleep, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them in the fabric of a loom.⎦[d] 14 She fastened them with the pin and said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But Samson woke up from his sleep and pulled out the pin from the loom along with the fabric.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel of the Lord[a] appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flames of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went closer to look, the voice of the Lord said, 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of[b] Jacob.’[c] Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’[d]
35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected by saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ This is the one whom God sent to be a ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This is the one who led the people out, as he performed wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the people of Israel, ‘God[e] will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’[f] 38 This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living messages to give to us, 39 but our fathers refused to obey him. Instead they pushed him away and turned back, in their hearts, to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.’[g] 41 That was the time when they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were taking delight in the works of their hands.
42 “But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
Did you bring me slaughtered animals and sacrifices
forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
43 No, you even took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of your god Rephan,
the statues you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.[h]
Healing at the Pool
5 After this, there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda[a] in Aramaic,[b] which has five colonnades. 3 Within these lay a large number of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—who were waiting for the movement of the water. 4 For an angel would go down at certain times into the pool and stir up the water. Whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.[c] 5 One man was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been sick a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the sick man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I’m going, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 Instantly the man was healed. He picked up his mat and walked.
That day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews told the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! You are not permitted to carry your mat.”
11 He answered them, “The one who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 Then they asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Pick it up and walk’?” 13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Look, you are well now. Do not sin anymore so that nothing worse happens to you.”
15 The man went back and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.
God’s Son
16 So the Jews began to persecute Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working right up to the present time, and I am working too.”
18 This is why the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he was not merely breaking the Sabbath, but was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.