Book of Common Prayer

A Prayer to Be Saved from Death

88 O Lord, the God Who saves me, I have cried out before You day and night. ² Let my prayer come to You. Listen to my cry. ³ For my soul is filled with troubles. And my life comes near the grave. ⁴ I am added among those who go down into the deep hole. I am like a man without strength. ⁵ I am left among the dead, like those who have been killed and lie in the grave, whom You remember no more. They are cut off from Your help. ⁶ You have put me in the deepest hole, in a dark and deep place. ⁷ Your anger has rested upon me. And You have troubled me with all Your waves. ⁸ You have taken my good friends far from me. You have made me hated by them. I am shut in and cannot go out. ⁹ My eyes have become weak because of trouble. I have called to You every day, O Lord. I have spread out my hands to You.

¹⁰ Will You show Your great works to the dead? Will the dead rise and praise You? ¹¹ Will Your loving-kindness be told about in the grave, and how faithful You are in the place that destroys? ¹² Will Your great works be known in the darkness, and Your right and good works in the land where all is forgotten?

¹³ But I have cried to You for help, O Lord. My prayer comes to You in the morning. ¹⁴ O Lord, why do You turn away from me? Why do You hide Your face from me? ¹⁵ I have been troubled and near death since I was young. I have suffered Your punishment. And I cannot win. ¹⁶ Your burning anger has passed over me. The punishment You have sent destroys me. ¹⁷ They gather around me like water all day long. Together they close in upon me. ¹⁸ You have taken my friend and loved one far from me. Friends that were near to me are in darkness.

The Lord—the One We Trust

91 He who lives in the safe place of the Most High will be in the shadow of the All-powerful. ² I will say to the Lord, “You are my safe and strong place, my God, in Whom I trust.” ³ For it is He Who takes you away from the trap, and from the killing sickness. ⁴ He will cover you with His wings. And under His wings you will be safe. He is faithful like a safe-covering and a strong wall.

⁵ You will not be afraid of trouble at night, or of the arrow that flies by day. ⁶ You will not be afraid of the sickness that walks in darkness, or of the trouble that destroys at noon. ⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand. But it will not come near you. ⁸ You will only look on with your eyes, and see how the sinful are punished. ⁹ Because you have made the Lord your safe place, and the Most High the place where you live, ¹⁰ nothing will hurt you. No trouble will come near your tent.

¹¹ For He will tell His angels to care for you and keep you in all your ways. ¹² They will hold you up in their hands. So your foot will not hit against a stone. ¹³ You will walk upon the lion and the snake. You will crush under your feet the young lion and the snake.

¹⁴ Because he has loved Me, I will bring him out of trouble. I will set him in a safe place on high, because he has known My name. ¹⁵ He will call upon Me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will take him out of trouble and honor him. ¹⁶ I will please him with a long life. And I will show him My saving power.

A Song of Praise

92 It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and sing praises to Your name, O Most High. ² It is good to tell of Your loving-kindness in the morning, and of how faithful You are at night, ³ with harps, and with music of praise. ⁴ For You have made me glad by what You have done, O Lord. I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.

⁵ How great are Your works, O Lord! How deep are Your thoughts! ⁶ A man who cannot reason does not have much learning. A fool does not understand this. ⁷ Even if the sinful grow up like grass and all goes well with wrong-doers, they will be destroyed forever. ⁸ But You, O Lord, rule from Your high place forever. ⁹ For, look, those who hate You will be lost from You forever, O Lord. All those who do wrong will be destroyed.

¹⁰ But You have lifted up my horn like that of a wild bull. New oil has been poured upon me. ¹¹ My eyes have seen those who wait to hurt me. My ears hear the bad men who rise up against me. ¹² The man who is right and good will grow like the palm tree. He will grow like a tall tree in Lebanon. ¹³ Planted in the house of the Lord, they will grow well in the home of our God. ¹⁴ They will still give fruit when they are old. They will be full of life and strength. ¹⁵ And they will show that the Lord is faithful. He is my rock. There is nothing in Him that is not right and good.

God Sends His Spirit

²⁸ “In the last days I will send My Spirit on all men. Then your sons and daughters will speak God’s Word. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see special dreams. ²⁹ Yes, on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days. ³⁰ I will show powerful works in the heavens and on the earth, like blood and fire and clouds of smoke. ³¹ The sun will turn dark and the moon will turn to blood before the day of the Lord. His coming will be a great and troubled day. ³² It will be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved from the punishment of sin. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem some will be taken out of trouble, as the Lord has said. Those whom the Lord calls will be kept alive.

The Nations Will Be Judged

3 “In those days and at that time, I will return the riches of Judah and Jerusalem. ² I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will judge them for what they did to My people Israel. They have sent My people out among the different nations, and have divided up My land. ³ They have drawn names to see who would get My people. They have traded a boy for a woman who sells the use of her body. And they have sold a girl for wine to drink. ⁴ What are you to Me, O Tyre, Sidon, and all the lands of Philistia? Are you paying Me back for something? If you are, I will be quick to pay you back! ⁵ You have taken My silver and My gold, and brought My riches to your places of worship. ⁶ You have sold the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, sending them far from their land. ⁷ So I am going to move them from the place where you have sold them, and do to you what you have done to them. ⁸ I will sell your sons and daughters to the sons of Judah. And they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away.” The Lord has spoken.

¹⁶ My Christian brothers, do not be fooled about this. ¹⁷ Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God. He is the One Who made all light. He does not change. No shadow is made by His turning. ¹⁸ He gave us our new lives through the truth of His Word only because He wanted to. We are the first children in His family.

¹⁹ My Christian brothers, you know everyone should listen much and speak little. He should be slow to become angry. ²⁰ A man’s anger does not allow him to be right with God. ²¹ Put out of your life all that is unclean and wrong. Receive with a gentle spirit the Word that was taught. It has the power to save your souls from the punishment of sin.

²² Obey the Word of God. If you hear only and do not act, you are only fooling yourself. ²³ Anyone who hears the Word of God and does not obey is like a man looking at his face in a mirror. ²⁴ After he sees himself and goes away, he forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But the one who keeps looking into God’s perfect Law and does not forget it will do what it says and be happy as he does it. God’s Word makes men free.

²⁶ If a person thinks he is religious, but does not keep his tongue from speaking bad things, he is fooling himself. His religion is worth nothing. ²⁷ Religion that is pure and good before God the Father is to help children who have no parents and to care for women whose husbands have died who have troubles. Pure religion is also to keep yourself clean from the sinful things of the world.

The Picture-Story of the Boss Who Stole

16 Jesus said to His followers, “There was a rich man who put a boss over his houses and lands. Someone told him that his boss was not using his riches in a right way. ² The rich man sent for the boss and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Tell me what you have done with my things. You are not to be the boss of my houses and lands anymore.’

³ “The boss said to himself, ‘What will I do now? The owner of the houses and lands is taking my work away from me. I cannot dig in the ground for a living. I am too proud to ask for help. ⁴ I know what I will do. I will make it so that when I lose this work I will be able to go to the homes of my friends.’

⁵ “He sent for the people who owed the rich man. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe the owner?’ ⁶ The first man said, ‘One hundred barrels of oil.’ The boss said to him, ‘Take your bill. Sit down at once and change it to fifty.’ ⁷ He asked another one, ‘How much do you owe?’ He said, ‘One hundred bags of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and change it to eighty.’ ⁸ Then the rich man said that this sinful boss had been wise to plan for himself for the days ahead. For the people of the world are wiser in their day than the children of light.

⁹ “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by using the riches of the world that are so often used in wrong ways. So when riches are a thing of the past, friends may receive you into a home that will be forever.