Book of Common Prayer
37 Never envy the wicked! 2 Soon they fade away like grass and disappear. 3 Trust in the Lord instead. Be kind and good to others; then you will live safely here in the land and prosper, feeding in safety.
4 Be delighted with the Lord. Then he will give you all your heart’s desires. 5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him to help you do it, and he will. 6 Your innocence will be clear to everyone. He will vindicate you with the blazing light of justice shining down as from the noonday sun.
7 Rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him to act. Don’t be envious of evil men who prosper.
8 Stop your anger! Turn off your wrath. Don’t fret and worry—it only leads to harm. 9 For the wicked shall be destroyed, but those who trust the Lord shall be given every blessing. 10 Only a little while and the wicked shall disappear. You will look for them in vain. 11 But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing and shall have wonderful peace.
12-13 The Lord is laughing at those who plot against the godly, for he knows their judgment day is coming. 14 Evil men take aim to slay the poor; they are ready to butcher those who do right. 15 But their swords will be plunged into their own hearts, and all their weapons will be broken.
16 It is better to have little and be godly than to own an evil man’s wealth; 17 for the strength of evil men shall be broken, but the Lord takes care of those he has forgiven.[a]
18 Day by day the Lord observes the good deeds done by godly men,[b] and gives them eternal rewards. 19 He cares for them when times are hard; even in famine, they will have enough. 20 But evil men shall perish. These enemies of God will wither like grass and disappear like smoke. 21 Evil men borrow and “cannot pay it back”! But the good man returns what he owes with some extra besides. 22 Those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall die.
23 The steps of good men are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. 24 If they fall, it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with his hand.
25 I have been young and now I am old. And in all my years I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves him; nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry. 26 Instead, the godly are able to be generous with their gifts and loans to others, and their children are a blessing.
27 So if you want an eternal home, leave your evil, low-down ways and live good lives. 28 For the Lord loves justice and fairness; he will never abandon his people. They will be kept safe forever; but all who love wickedness shall perish.
29 The godly shall be firmly planted in the land and live there forever. 30-31 The godly man is a good counselor because he is just and fair and knows right from wrong.
32 Evil men spy on the godly, waiting for an excuse to accuse them and then demanding their death. 33 But the Lord will not let these evil men succeed, nor let the godly be condemned when they are brought before the judge.
34 Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act! Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and in due season he will honor you with every blessing,[c] and you will see the wicked destroyed. 35-36 I myself have seen it happen: a proud and evil man, towering like a cedar of Lebanon, but when I looked again, he was gone! I searched but could not find him! 37 But the good man—what a different story! For the good man—the blameless, the upright, the man of peace—he has a wonderful future ahead of him. For him there is a happy ending. 38 But evil men shall be destroyed, and their posterity shall be cut off.
39 The Lord saves the godly! He is their salvation and their refuge when trouble comes. 40 Because they trust in him, he helps them and delivers them from the plots of evil men.
24-25 So David hid himself in the field.
When the new moon celebration began, the king sat down to eat at his usual place against the wall. Jonathan sat opposite him and Abner was sitting beside Saul, but David’s place was empty. 26 Saul didn’t say anything about it that day, for he supposed that something had happened so that David was ceremonially impure. Yes, surely that must be it! 27 But when his place was still empty the next day, Saul asked Jonathan, “Why hasn’t David been here for dinner either yesterday or today?”
28-29 “He asked me if he could go to Bethlehem to take part in a family celebration,” Jonathan replied. “His brother demanded that he be there, so I told him to go ahead.”
30 Saul boiled with rage. “You fool!”[a] he yelled at him. “Do you think I don’t know that you want this son of a nobody to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother? 31 As long as that fellow is alive, you’ll never be king. Now go and get him so I can kill him!”
32 “But what has he done?” Jonathan demanded. “Why should he be put to death?”
33 Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan, intending to kill him; so at last Jonathan realized that his father really meant it when he said David must die. 34 Jonathan left the table in fierce anger and refused to eat all that day, for he was crushed by his father’s shameful behavior toward David.
35 The next morning, as agreed, Jonathan went out into the field and took a young boy with him to gather his arrows.
36 “Start running,” he told the boy, “so that you can find the arrows as I shoot them.” So the boy ran and Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him. 37 When the boy had almost reached the arrow, Jonathan shouted, “The arrow is still ahead of you. 38 Hurry, hurry, don’t wait.” So the boy quickly gathered up the arrows and ran back to his master. 39 He, of course, didn’t understand what Jonathan meant; only Jonathan and David knew. 40 Then Jonathan gave his bow and arrows to the boy and told him to take them back to the city.
41 As soon as he was gone, David came out from where he had been hiding near the south edge of the field. Both of them were crying as they said good-bye, especially David.[b] 42 At last Jonathan said to David, “Cheer up, for we have entrusted each other and each other’s children into God’s hands forever.” So they parted, David going away and Jonathan returning to the city.
13 Among the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch were Barnabas and Symeon (also called “The Black Man”), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (the foster-brother of King Herod), and Paul. 2 One day as these men were worshiping and fasting the Holy Spirit said, “Dedicate Barnabas and Paul for a special job I have for them.” 3 So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them—and sent them on their way.
4 Directed by the Holy Spirit they went to Seleucia and then sailed for Cyprus. 5 There, in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogue and preached. (John Mark went with them as their assistant.)
6-7 Afterwards they preached from town to town across the entire island until finally they reached Paphos where they met a Jewish sorcerer, a fake prophet named Bar-Jesus. He had attached himself to the governor, Sergius Paulus, a man of considerable insight and understanding. The governor invited Barnabas and Paul to visit him, for he wanted to hear their message from God. 8 But the sorcerer, Elymas (his name in Greek), interfered and urged the governor to pay no attention to what Paul and Barnabas said, trying to keep him from trusting the Lord.
9 Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, glared angrily at the sorcerer and said, 10 “You son of the devil, full of every sort of trickery and villainy, enemy of all that is good, will you never end your opposition to the Lord? 11 And now God has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be stricken awhile with blindness.”
Instantly mist and darkness fell upon him, and he began wandering around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him. 12 When the governor saw what happened, he believed and was astonished at the power of God’s message.
23 Another time, on a Sabbath day as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields, the disciples were breaking off heads of wheat and eating the grain.[a]
24 Some of the Jewish religious leaders said to Jesus, “They shouldn’t be doing that! It’s against our laws to work by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.”
25-26 But Jesus replied, “Didn’t you ever hear about the time King David and his companions were hungry, and he went into the house of God—Abiathar was high priest then—and they ate the special bread[b] only priests were allowed to eat? That was against the law too. 27 But the Sabbath was made to benefit man, and not man to benefit the Sabbath. 28 And I, the Messiah,[c] have authority even to decide what men can do on Sabbath days!”
3 While in Capernaum Jesus went over to the synagogue again, and noticed a man there with a deformed hand.
2 Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man’s hand? If he did, they planned to arrest him!
3 Jesus asked the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. 4 Then turning to his enemies he asked, “Is it all right to do kind deeds on Sabbath days? Or is this a day for doing harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them?” But they wouldn’t answer him. 5 Looking around at them angrily, for he was deeply disturbed by their indifference to human need, he said to the man, “Reach out your hand.” He did, and instantly his hand was healed!
6 At once the Pharisees[d] went away and met with the Herodians to discuss plans for killing Jesus.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.