Book of Common Prayer
41 God blesses those who are kind to the poor. He helps them out of their troubles. 2 He protects them and keeps them alive; he publicly honors them and destroys the power of their enemies. 3 He nurses them when they are sick and soothes their pains and worries.[a]
4 “O Lord,” I prayed, “be kind and heal me, for I have confessed my sins.” 5 But my enemies say, “May he soon die and be forgotten!” 6 They act so friendly when they come to visit me while I am sick; but all the time they hate me and are glad that I am lying there upon my bed of pain. And when they leave, they laugh and mock. 7 They whisper together about what they will do when I am dead. 8 “It’s fatal, whatever it is,” they say. “He’ll never get out of that bed!”
9 Even my best friend has turned against me—a man I completely trusted; how often we ate together. 10 Lord, don’t you desert me! Be gracious, Lord, and make me well again so I can pay them back! 11 I know you are pleased with me because you haven’t let my enemies triumph over me. 12 You have preserved me because I was honest; you have admitted me forever to your presence.
13 Bless the Lord, the God of Israel, who exists from everlasting ages past—and on into everlasting eternity ahead. Amen and amen!
52 Written by David to protest against his enemy Doeg (1 Samuel 22), who later slaughtered eighty-five priests and their families.
You call yourself a hero, do you? You boast about this evil deed of yours against God’s people. 2 You are sharp as a tack in plotting your evil tricks. 3 How you love wickedness—far more than good! And lying more than truth! 4 You love to slander—you love to say anything that will do harm, O man with the lying tongue.
5 But God will strike you down, pull you from your home, and drag you away from the land of the living. 6 The followers of God will see it happen. They will watch in awe. Then they will laugh and say, 7 “See what happens to those who despise God and trust in their wealth, and become ever more bold in their wickedness.”[a]
8 But I am like a sheltered olive tree protected by the Lord himself. I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever. 9 O Lord, I will praise you forever and ever for your punishment.[b] And I will wait for your mercies—for everyone knows what a merciful God you are.
44 1-2 O God, we have heard of the glorious miracles you did in the days of long ago. Our forefathers have told us how you drove the heathen nations from this land and gave it all to us, spreading Israel from one end of the country to the other. 3 They did not conquer by their own strength and skill, but by your mighty power and because you smiled upon them and favored them.
4 You are my King and my God. Decree victories for your people. 5 For it is only by your power and through your name that we tread down our enemies; 6 I do not trust my weapons. They could never save me. 7 Only you can give us the victory over those who hate us.
8 My constant boast is God. I can never thank you enough! 9 And yet for a time, O Lord, you have tossed us aside in dishonor and have not helped us in our battles. 10 You have actually fought against us and defeated us before our foes. Our enemies have invaded our land and pillaged the countryside. 11 You have treated us like sheep in a slaughter pen and scattered us among the nations. 12 You sold us for a pittance. You valued us at nothing at all. 13 The neighboring nations mock and laugh at us because of all the evil you have sent. 14 You have made the word Jew a byword of contempt and shame among the nations, disliked by all. 15-16 I am constantly despised, mocked, taunted, and cursed by my vengeful enemies.
17 And all this has happened, Lord, despite our loyalty to you. We have not violated your covenant. 18 Our hearts have not deserted you! We have not left your path by a single step. 19 If we had, we could understand your punishing us in the barren wilderness and sending us into darkness and death. 20 If we had turned away from worshiping our God and were worshiping idols, 21 would God not know it? Yes, he knows the secrets of every heart. 22 But that is not our case. For we are facing death threats constantly because of serving you! We are like sheep awaiting slaughter.
23 Waken! Rouse yourself! Don’t sleep, O Lord! Are we cast off forever? 24 Why do you look the other way? Why do you ignore our sorrows and oppression? 25 We lie face downward in the dust. 26 Rise up, O Lord, and come and help us. Save us by your constant love.
24 After Saul’s return from his battle with the Philistines, he was told that David had gone into the wilderness of Engedi; 2 so he took three thousand special troops and went to search for him among the rocks and wild goats of the desert. 3 At the place where the road passes some sheepfolds, Saul went into a cave to go to the bathroom, but as it happened, David and his men were hiding in the cave!
4 “Now’s your time!” David’s men whispered to him. “Today is the day the Lord was talking about when he said, ‘I will certainly put Saul into your power, to do with as you wish’!” Then David crept forward and quietly slit off the bottom of Saul’s robe! 5 But then his conscience began bothering him.
6 “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said to his men. “It is a serious sin to attack God’s chosen king in any way.”
7-8 These words of David persuaded his men not to kill Saul.
After Saul had left the cave and gone on his way, David came out and shouted after him, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked around, David bowed low before him.
9-10 Then he shouted to Saul, “Why do you listen to the people who say I am trying to harm you? This very day you have seen it isn’t true. For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave, and some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you. For I said, ‘I will never harm him—he is the Lord’s chosen king.’ 11 See what I have in my hand? It is the hem of your robe! I cut it off, but I didn’t kill you! Doesn’t this convince you that I am not trying to harm you and that I have not sinned against you, even though you have been hunting for my life?
12 “The Lord will decide between us. Perhaps he will kill you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you. 13 As that old proverb says, ‘Wicked is as wicked does,’ but despite your wickedness, I’ll not touch you. 14 And who is the king of Israel trying to catch, anyway? Should he spend his time chasing one who is as worthless as a dead dog or a flea? 15 May the Lord judge as to which of us is right and punish whichever one of us is guilty. He is my lawyer and defender, and he will rescue me from your power!”
16 Saul called back, “Is it really you, my son David?” Then he began to cry. 17 And he said to David, “You are a better man than I am, for you have repaid me good for evil. 18 Yes, you have been wonderfully kind to me today, for when the Lord delivered me into your hand, you didn’t kill me. 19 Who else in all the world would let his enemy get away when he had him in his power? May the Lord reward you well for the kindness you have shown me today. 20 And now I realize that you are surely going to be king, and Israel shall be yours to rule. 21 Oh, swear to me by the Lord that when that happens you will not kill my family and destroy my line of descendants!”
22 So David promised, and Saul went home, but David and his men went back to their cave.
44 The following week almost the entire city turned out to hear them preach the Word of God.
45 But when the Jewish leaders[a] saw the crowds, they were jealous, and cursed and argued against whatever Paul said.
46 Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and declared, “It was necessary that this Good News from God should be given first to you Jews. But since you have rejected it and shown yourselves unworthy of eternal life—well, we will offer it to Gentiles. 47 For this is as the Lord commanded when he said, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to lead them from the farthest corners of the earth to my salvation.’”
48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were very glad and rejoiced in Paul’s message; and as many as wanted[b] eternal life, believed. 49 So God’s message spread all through that region.
50 Then the Jewish leaders stirred up both the godly women and the civic leaders of the city and incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas, and ran them out of town. 51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against the town and went on to the city of Iconium. 52 And their converts[c] were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
4 Once again an immense crowd gathered around him on the beach as he was teaching, so he got into a boat and sat down and talked from there. 2 His usual method of teaching was to tell the people stories. One of them went like this:
3 “Listen! A farmer decided to sow some grain. As he scattered it across his field, 4 some of it fell on a path, and the birds came and picked it off the hard ground and ate it. 5-6 Some fell on thin soil with underlying rock. It grew up quickly enough, but soon wilted beneath the hot sun and died because the roots had no nourishment in the shallow soil. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns that shot up and crowded the young plants so that they produced no grain. 8 But some of the seeds fell into good soil and yielded thirty times as much as he had planted—some of it even sixty or a hundred times as much! 9 If you have ears, listen!”
10 Afterwards, when he was alone with the Twelve and with his other disciples, they asked him, “What does your story mean?”
11-12 He replied, “You are permitted to know some truths about the Kingdom of God that are hidden to those outside the Kingdom:
‘Though they see and hear, they will not understand or turn to God, or be forgiven for their sins.’
13
14 “The farmer I talked about is anyone who brings God’s message to others, trying to plant good seed within their lives. 15 The hard pathway, where some of the seed fell, represents the hard hearts of some of those who hear God’s message; Satan comes at once to try to make them forget it. 16 The rocky soil represents the hearts of those who hear the message with joy, 17 but, like young plants in such soil, their roots don’t go very deep, and though at first they get along fine, as soon as persecution begins, they wilt.
18 “The thorny ground represents the hearts of people who listen to the Good News and receive it, 19 but all too quickly the attractions of this world and the delights of wealth, and the search for success and lure of nice things come in and crowd out God’s message from their hearts, so that no crop is produced.
20 “But the good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a plentiful harvest for God—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as was planted in their hearts.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.