Book of Common Prayer
God and His People(A)
105 Give thanks to the Lord,
proclaim his greatness;
tell the nations what he has done.
2 Sing praise to the Lord;
tell the wonderful things he has done.
3 Be glad that we belong to him;
let all who worship him rejoice.
4 Go to the Lord for help;
and worship him continually.
5-6 You descendants of Abraham, his servant;
you descendants of Jacob, the man he chose:
remember the miracles that God performed
and the judgments that he gave.
7 The Lord is our God;
his commands are for all the world.
8 He will keep his covenant forever,
his promises for a thousand generations.
9 (B)He will keep the agreement he made with Abraham
and his promise to Isaac.
10 (C)The Lord made a covenant with Jacob,
one that will last forever.
11 “I will give you the land of Canaan,” he said.
“It will be your own possession.”
12 God's people were few in number,
strangers in the land of Canaan.
13 They wandered from country to country,
from one kingdom to another.
14 (D)But God let no one oppress them;
to protect them, he warned the kings:
15 “Don't harm my chosen servants;
do not touch my prophets.”
16 (E)The Lord sent famine to their country
and took away all their food.
17 (F)But he sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.
18 (G)His feet were kept in chains,
and an iron collar was around his neck,
19 until what he had predicted came true.
The word of the Lord proved him right.
20 (H)Then the king of Egypt had him released;
the ruler of nations set him free.
21 (I)He put him in charge of his government
and made him ruler over all the land,
22 with power over the king's officials
and authority to instruct his advisers.
23 (J)Then Jacob went to Egypt
and settled in that country.
24 (K)The Lord gave many children to his people
and made them stronger than their enemies.
25 He made the Egyptians hate his people
and treat his servants with deceit.
26 (L)Then he sent his servant Moses,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
27 They did God's mighty acts
and performed miracles in Egypt.
28 (M)God sent darkness on the country,
but the Egyptians did not obey[a] his command.
29 (N)He turned their rivers into blood
and killed all their fish.
30 (O)Their country was overrun with frogs;
even the palace was filled with them.
31 (P)God commanded, and flies and gnats
swarmed throughout the whole country.
32 (Q)He sent hail and lightning on their land
instead of rain;
33 he destroyed their grapevines and fig trees
and broke down all the trees.
34 (R)He commanded, and the locusts came,
countless millions of them;
35 they ate all the plants in the land;
they ate all the crops.
36 (S)He killed the first-born sons
of all the families of Egypt.
37 (T)Then he led the Israelites out;
they carried silver and gold,
and all of them were healthy and strong.
38 The Egyptians were afraid of them
and were glad when they left.
39 (U)God put a cloud over his people
and a fire at night to give them light.
40 (V)They[b] asked, and he sent quails;
he gave them food from heaven to satisfy them.
41 (W)He opened a rock, and water gushed out,
flowing through the desert like a river.
42 He remembered his sacred promise
to Abraham his servant.
43 So he led his chosen people out,
and they sang and shouted for joy.
44 (X)He gave them the lands of other peoples
and let them take over their fields,
45 so that his people would obey his laws
and keep all his commands.
Praise the Lord!
Absalom Plans Rebellion
15 After this, Absalom provided a chariot and horses for himself, and an escort of fifty men. 2 He would get up early and go and stand by the road at the city gate. Whenever someone came there with a dispute that he wanted the king to settle, Absalom would call him over and ask him where he was from. And after the man had told him what tribe he was from, 3 Absalom would say, “Look, the law is on your side, but there is no representative of the king to hear your case.” 4 And he would add, “How I wish I were a judge! Then anyone who had a dispute or a claim could come to me, and I would give him justice.” 5 When the man would approach Absalom to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out, take hold of him, and kiss him. 6 Absalom did this with every Israelite who came to the king for judgment, and so he won their loyalty.
7 After four[a] years Absalom said to King David, “Sir, let me go to Hebron and keep a promise I made to the Lord. 8 While I was living in Geshur in Syria, I promised the Lord that if he would take me back to Jerusalem, I would worship him in Hebron.”[b]
9 “Go in peace,” the king said. So Absalom went to Hebron. 10 But he sent messengers to all the tribes of Israel to say, “When you hear the sound of trumpets, shout, ‘Absalom has become king at Hebron!’” 11 There were two hundred men who at Absalom's invitation had gone from Jerusalem with him; they knew nothing of the plot and went in all good faith. 12 And while he was offering sacrifices, Absalom also sent to the town of Gilo for Ahithophel, who was one of King David's advisers. The plot against the king gained strength, and Absalom's followers grew in number.
David Flees from Jerusalem
13 A messenger reported to David, “The Israelites are pledging their loyalty to Absalom.”
14 So David said to all his officials who were with him in Jerusalem, “We must get away at once if we want to escape from Absalom! Hurry! Or else he will soon be here and defeat us and kill everyone in the city!”
15 “Yes, Your Majesty,” they answered. “We are ready to do whatever you say.” 16 So the king left, accompanied by all his family and officials, except for ten concubines, whom he left behind to take care of the palace.
17 As the king and all his men were leaving the city, they stopped at the last house. 18 All his officials stood[c] next to him as the royal bodyguards passed by in front of him. The six hundred soldiers who had followed him from Gath also passed by,
Paul Is Arrested in the Temple
27 But just when the seven days were about to come to an end, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the Temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and grabbed Paul. 28 “People of Israel!” they shouted. “Help! This is the man who goes everywhere teaching everyone against the people of Israel, the Law of Moses, and this Temple. And now he has even brought some Gentiles into the Temple and defiled this holy place!” (29 (A)They said this because they had seen Trophimus from Ephesus with Paul in the city, and they thought that Paul had taken him into the Temple.)
30 Confusion spread through the whole city, and the people all ran together, grabbed Paul, and dragged him out of the Temple. At once the Temple doors were closed. 31 The mob was trying to kill Paul, when a report was sent up to the commander of the Roman troops that all of Jerusalem was rioting. 32 At once the commander took some officers and soldiers and rushed down to the crowd. When the people saw him with the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 The commander went over to Paul, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked, “Who is this man, and what has he done?” 34 Some in the crowd shouted one thing, others something else. There was such confusion that the commander could not find out exactly what had happened, so he ordered his men to take Paul up into the fort. 35 They got as far as the steps with him, and then the soldiers had to carry him because the mob was so wild. 36 They were all coming after him and screaming, “Kill him!”
Jesus Speaks a Third Time about His Death(A)
32 Jesus and his disciples were now on the road going up to Jerusalem. Jesus was going ahead of the disciples, who were filled with alarm; the people who followed behind were afraid. Once again Jesus took the twelve disciples aside and spoke of the things that were going to happen to him. 33 “Listen,” he told them, “we are going up to Jerusalem where the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. They will condemn him to death and then hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will make fun of him, spit on him, whip him, and kill him; but three days later he will rise to life.”
The Request of James and John(B)
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus. “Teacher,” they said, “there is something we want you to do for us.”
36 “What is it?” Jesus asked them.
37 They answered, “When you sit on your throne in your glorious Kingdom, we want you to let us sit with you, one at your right and one at your left.”
38 (C)Jesus said to them, “You don't know what you are asking for. Can you drink the cup of suffering that I must drink? Can you be baptized in the way I must be baptized?”
39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink the cup I must drink and be baptized in the way I must be baptized. 40 But I do not have the right to choose who will sit at my right and my left. It is God who will give these places to those for whom he has prepared them.”
41 When the other ten disciples heard about it, they became angry with James and John. 42 (D)So Jesus called them all together to him and said, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority. 43 (E)This, however, is not the way it is among you. If one of you wants to be great, you must be the servant of the rest; 44 and if one of you wants to be first, you must be the slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.