Book of Common Prayer
78 O my people, listen to my teaching. Open your ears to what I am saying. 2-3 For I will show you lessons from our history, stories handed down to us from former generations. 4 I will reveal these truths to you so that you can describe these glorious deeds of Jehovah to your children and tell them about the mighty miracles he did. 5 For he gave his laws to Israel and commanded our fathers to teach them to their children, 6 so that they in turn could teach their children too. Thus his laws pass down from generation to generation. 7 In this way each generation has been able to obey his laws and to set its hope anew on God and not forget his glorious miracles. 8 Thus they did not need to be as their fathers were—stubborn, rebellious, unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.
9 The people of Ephraim, though fully armed, turned their backs and fled when the day of battle came 10 because they didn’t obey his laws. They refused to follow his ways. 11-12 And they forgot about the wonderful miracles God had done for them and for their fathers in Egypt. 13 For he divided the sea before them and led them through! The water stood banked up along both sides of them! 14 In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and at night by a pillar of fire. 15 He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them plenty of water, as though gushing from a spring. 16 Streams poured from the rock, flowing like a river!
17 Yet they kept on with their rebellion, sinning against the God who is above all gods. 18 They murmured and complained, demanding other food than God was giving them. 19-20 They even spoke against God himself. “Why can’t he give us decent food as well as water?” they grumbled. 21 Jehovah heard them and was angry; the fire of his wrath burned against Israel 22 because they didn’t believe in God or trust in him to care for them, 23 even though he commanded the skies to open—he opened the windows of heaven— 24 and rained down manna for their food. He gave them bread from heaven! 25 They ate angels’ food! He gave them all they could hold.
26 And he led forth the east wind and guided the south wind by his mighty power. 27 He rained down birds as thick as dust, clouds of them like sands along the shore! 28 He caused the birds to fall to the ground among the tents. 29 The people ate their fill. He gave them what they asked for. 30 But they had hardly finished eating, and the meat was yet in their mouths, 31 when the anger of the Lord rose against them and killed the finest of Israel’s young men. 32 Yet even so the people kept on sinning and refused to believe in miracles. 33 So he cut their lives short and gave them years of terror and disaster.
34 Then at last, when he had ruined them, they walked awhile behind him; how earnestly they turned around and followed him! 35 Then they remembered that God was their Rock—that their Savior was the God above all gods. 36 But it was only with their words that they followed him, not with their hearts; 37 their hearts were far away. They did not keep their promises. 38 Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and didn’t destroy them all. Many and many a time he held back his anger. 39 For he remembered that they were merely mortal men, gone in a moment like a breath of wind.
40 Oh, how often they rebelled against him in those desert years and grieved his heart. 41 Again and again they turned away and tempted God to kill them, and limited the Holy One of Israel from giving them his blessings. 42 They forgot his power and love and how he had rescued them from their enemies; 43 they forgot the plagues he sent upon the Egyptians in Tanis[a]— 44 how he turned their rivers into blood so that no one could drink, 45 how he sent vast swarms of flies to fill the land, and how the frogs had covered all of Egypt!
46 He gave their crops to caterpillars. Their harvest was consumed by locusts. 47 He destroyed their grapevines and their sycamores with hail. 48 Their cattle died in the fields, mortally wounded by huge hailstones from heaven. Their sheep were killed by lightning. 49 He loosed on them the fierceness of his anger, sending sorrow and trouble. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. 50 He gave free course to his anger and did not spare the Egyptians’ lives, but handed them over to plagues and sickness. 51 Then he killed the eldest son[b] in each Egyptian family—he who was the beginning of its strength and joy.
52 But he led forth his own people like a flock, guiding them safely through the wilderness. 53 He kept them safe, so they were not afraid. But the sea closed in upon their enemies and overwhelmed them. 54 He brought them to the border of his land of blessing, to this land of hills he made for them. 55 He drove out the nations occupying the land and gave each tribe of Israel its apportioned place as its home.
56 Yet though he did all this for them, they still rebelled against the God above all gods and refused to follow his commands. 57 They turned back from entering the Promised Land and disobeyed as their fathers had. Like a crooked arrow, they missed the target of God’s will. 58 They made him angry by erecting idols and altars to other gods.
59 When God saw their deeds, his wrath was strong and he despised his people. 60 Then he abandoned his Tabernacle at Shiloh, where he had lived among mankind, 61 and allowed his Ark to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands. 62 He caused his people to be butchered because his anger was intense. 63 Their young men were killed by fire, and their girls died before they were old enough to sing their wedding songs. 64 The priests were slaughtered, and their widows died before they could even begin their lament. 65 Then the Lord rose up as though awakening from sleep, and like a mighty man aroused by wine, 66 he routed his enemies; he drove them back and sent them to eternal shame. 67 But he rejected Joseph’s family, the tribe of Ephraim, 68 and chose the tribe of Judah—and Mount Zion, which he loved. 69 There he built his towering temple, solid and enduring as the heavens and the earth. 70 He chose his servant David, taking him from feeding sheep 71-72 and from following the ewes with lambs; God presented David to his people as their shepherd, and he cared for them with a true heart and skillful hands.
18 Then David went into the Tabernacle and sat before the Lord and prayed, “O Lord God, why have you showered your blessings on such an insignificant person as I am? 19 And now, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving me an eternal dynasty! Such generosity is far beyond any human standard! O Lord God! 20 What can I say? For you know what I am like! 21 You are doing all these things just because you promised to and because you want to! 22 How great you are, Lord God! We have never heard of any other God like you. And there is no other God. 23 What other nation in all the earth has received such blessings as Israel, your people? For you have rescued your chosen nation in order to bring glory to your name. You have done great miracles to destroy Egypt and its gods. 24 You chose Israel to be your people forever, and you became our God.
25 “And now, Lord God, do as you have promised concerning me and my family. 26 And may you be eternally honored when you have established Israel as your people and have established my dynasty before you. 27 For you have revealed to me, O Lord of heaven, God of Israel, that I am the first of a dynasty which will rule your people forever; that is why I have been bold enough to pray this prayer of acceptance. 28 For you are indeed God, and your words are truth; and you have promised me these good things— 29 so do as you have promised! Bless me and my family forever! May our dynasty continue on and on before you; for you, Lord God, have promised it.”
12 But when Gallio became governor of Achaia, the Jews rose in concerted action against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment. 13 They accused Paul of “persuading men to worship God in ways that are contrary to Roman law.” 14 But just as Paul started to make his defense, Gallio turned to his accusers and said, “Listen, you Jews, if this were a case involving some crime, I would be obliged to listen to you, 15 but since it is merely a bunch of questions of semantics and personalities and your silly Jewish laws, you take care of it. I’m not interested and I’m not touching it.” 16 And he drove them out of the courtroom.
17 Then the mob[a] grabbed Sosthenes, the new leader of the synagogue, and beat him outside the courtroom. But Gallio couldn’t have cared less.
18 Paul stayed in the city several days after that and then said good-bye to the Christians and sailed for the coast of Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. At Cenchreae Paul had his head shaved according to Jewish custom, for he had taken a vow.[b] 19 Arriving at the port of Ephesus, he left us aboard ship while he went over to the synagogue for a discussion with the Jews. 20 They asked him to stay for a few days, but he felt that he had no time to lose.[c]
21 “I must by all means be at Jerusalem for the holiday,”[d] he said. But he promised to return to Ephesus later if God permitted; and so he set sail again.
22 The next stop was at the port of Caesarea from where he visited the church at Jerusalem[e] and then sailed on to Antioch. 23 After spending some time there, he left for Turkey again, going through Galatia and Phrygia visiting all the believers, encouraging them and helping them grow in the Lord.
24 As it happened, a Jew named Apollos, a wonderful Bible teacher and preacher, had just arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. 25-26 While he was in Egypt, someone had told him about John the Baptist and what John had said about Jesus, but that is all he knew. He had never heard the rest of the story! So he was preaching boldly and enthusiastically in the synagogue, “The Messiah is coming! Get ready to receive him!” Priscilla and Aquila were there and heard him—and it was a powerful sermon. Afterwards they met with him and explained what had happened to Jesus since the time of John, and all that it meant![f]
27 Apollos had been thinking about going to Greece, and the believers encouraged him in this. They wrote to their fellow-believers there, telling them to welcome him. And upon his arrival in Greece, he was greatly used of God to strengthen the church, 28 for he powerfully refuted all the Jewish arguments in public debate, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.
22 When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch and heal him. 23 Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and spat upon his eyes, and laid his hands over them.
“Can you see anything now?” Jesus asked him.
24 The man looked around. “Yes!” he said, “I see men! But I can’t see them very clearly; they look like tree trunks walking around!”
25 Then Jesus placed his hands over the man’s eyes again and as the man stared intently, his sight was completely restored, and he saw everything clearly, drinking in the sights around him.
26 Jesus sent him home to his family. “Don’t even go back to the village first,” he said.
27 Jesus and his disciples now left Galilee and went out to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along he asked them, “Who do the people think I am? What are they saying about me?”
28 “Some of them think you are John the Baptist,” the disciples replied, “and others say you are Elijah or some other ancient prophet come back to life again.”
29 Then he asked, “Who do you think I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” 30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone!
31 Then he began to tell them about the terrible things he would suffer,[a] and that he would be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the other Jewish leaders—and be killed, and that he would rise again three days afterwards. 32 He talked about it quite frankly with them, so Peter took him aside and chided him.[b] “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he told Jesus.
33 Jesus turned and looked at his disciples and then said to Peter very sternly, “Satan, get behind me! You are looking at this only from a human point of view and not from God’s.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.