Book of Common Prayer

137 Weeping, we sat beside the rivers of Babylon thinking of Jerusalem. ² We have put away our lyres, hanging them upon the branches of the willow trees, ^3-4 for how can we sing? Yet our captors, our tormentors, demand that we sing for them the happy songs of Zion! ^5-6 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill upon the harp. If I fail to love her more than my highest joy, let me never sing again.

⁷ O Jehovah, do not forget what these Edomites did on that day when the armies of Babylon captured Jerusalem. “Raze her to the ground!” they yelled. ⁸ O Babylon, evil beast, you shall be destroyed. Blessed is the man who destroys you as you have destroyed us. ⁹ Blessed is the man who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!^[a]

144 Bless the Lord who is my immovable Rock. He gives me strength and skill in battle. ² He is always kind and loving to me; he is my fortress, my tower of strength and safety, my deliverer. He stands before me as a shield. He subdues my people under me.

³ O Lord, what is man that you even notice him? Why bother at all with the human race?^{[a] 4} For man is but a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

⁵ Bend down the heavens, Lord, and come. The mountains smoke beneath your touch.

⁶ Let loose your lightning bolts, your arrows, Lord, upon your enemies, and scatter them.

⁷ Reach down from heaven and rescue me; deliver me from deep waters, from the power of my enemies. ⁸ Their mouths are filled with lies; they swear to the truth of what is false.

⁹ I will sing you a new song, O God, with a ten-stringed harp. ¹⁰ For you grant victory to kings! You are the one who will rescue your servant David from the fatal sword. ¹¹ Save me! Deliver me from these enemies, these liars, these treacherous men.

^12-15 Here is my description of^[b] a truly happy land where Jehovah is God:

104 ^1-2 I bless the Lord: O Lord my God, how great you are! You are robed with honor and with majesty and light! You stretched out the starry curtain of the heavens, ³ and hollowed out the surface of the earth to form the seas. The clouds are his chariots. He rides upon the wings of the wind. ⁴ The angels^[a] are his messengers—his servants of fire!

⁵ You bound the world together so that it would never fall apart. ⁶ You clothed the earth with floods of waters covering up the mountains. ^7-8 You spoke, and at the sound of your shout the water collected into its vast ocean beds, and mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. ⁹ And then you set a boundary for the seas so that they would never again cover the earth.

¹⁰ He placed springs in the valleys and streams that gush from the mountains. ¹¹ They give water for all the animals to drink. There the wild donkeys quench their thirst, ¹² and the birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees. ¹³ He sends rain upon the mountains and fills the earth with fruit. ¹⁴ The tender grass grows up at his command to feed the cattle, and there are fruit trees, vegetables, and grain for man to cultivate, ¹⁵ and wine to make him glad, and olive oil as lotion for his skin, and bread to give him strength. ¹⁶ The Lord planted the cedars of Lebanon. They are tall and flourishing. ¹⁷ There the birds make their nests, the storks in the firs. ¹⁸ High in the mountains are pastures for the wild goats, and rock badgers burrow in among the rocks and find protection there.

¹⁹ He assigned the moon to mark the months and the sun to mark the days. ²⁰ He sends the night and darkness, when all the forest folk come out. ²¹ Then the young lions roar for their food, but they are dependent on the Lord. ²² At dawn they slink back into their dens to rest, ²³ and men go off to work until the evening shadows fall again. ²⁴ O Lord, what a variety you have made! And in wisdom you have made them all! The earth is full of your riches.

²⁵ There before me lies the mighty ocean, teeming with life of every kind, both great and small. ²⁶ And look! See the ships! And over there, the whale you made to play in the sea. ²⁷ Every one of these depends on you to give them daily food. ²⁸ You supply it, and they gather it. You open wide your hand to feed them, and they are satisfied with all your bountiful provision.

²⁹ But if you turn away from them, then all is lost. And when you gather up their breath, they die and turn again to dust.

³⁰ Then you send your Spirit, and new life is born^[b] to replenish all the living of the earth. ³¹ Praise God forever! How he must rejoice in all his work! ³² The earth trembles at his glance; the mountains burst into flame at his touch.

³³ I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise God to my last breath! ³⁴ May he be pleased by all these thoughts about him, for he is the source of all my joy. ³⁵ Let all sinners perish—all who refuse to praise him. But I will praise him. Hallelujah!

23 These are the last words of David:

¹³ One time when David was living in the cave of Adullam and the invading Philistines were at the valley of Rephaim, three of the Thirty—the top-ranking officers of the Israeli army—went down at harvest time to visit him. ¹⁴ David was in the stronghold at the time, for Philistine marauders had occupied the nearby city of Bethlehem.

¹⁵ David remarked, “How thirsty I am for some of that good water in the city well!” (The well was near the city gate.)

¹⁶ So the three men broke through the Philistine ranks and drew water from the well and brought it to David. But he refused to drink it! Instead, he poured it out before the Lord.

¹⁷ “No, my God,” he exclaimed, “I cannot do it! This is the blood of these men who have risked their lives.”

¹³ A few days later King Agrippa arrived with Bernice^[a] for a visit with Festus. ¹⁴ During their stay of several days Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king. “There is a prisoner here,” he told him, “whose case was left for me by Felix. ¹⁵ When I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and other Jewish leaders gave me their side of the story and asked me to have him killed. ¹⁶ Of course I quickly pointed out to them that Roman law does not convict a man before he is tried. He is given an opportunity to defend himself face-to-face with his accusers.

¹⁷ “When they came here for the trial, I called the case the very next day and ordered Paul brought in. ¹⁸ But the accusations made against him weren’t at all what I supposed they would be. ¹⁹ It was something about their religion and about someone called Jesus who died, but Paul insists is alive! ²⁰ I was perplexed as to how to decide a case of this kind and asked him whether he would be willing to stand trial on these charges in Jerusalem. ²¹ But Paul appealed to Caesar! So I ordered him back to jail until I could arrange to get him to the emperor.”

²² “I’d like to hear the man myself,” Agrippa said.

And Festus replied, “You shall—tomorrow!”

²³ So the next day, after the king and Bernice had arrived at the courtroom with great pomp, accompanied by military officers and prominent men of the city, Festus ordered Paul brought in.

²⁴ Then Festus addressed the audience: “King Agrippa and all present,” he said, “this is the man whose death is demanded both by the local Jews and by those in Jerusalem! ²⁵ But in my opinion he has done nothing worthy of death. However, he appealed his case to Caesar, and I have no alternative but to send him. ²⁶ But what shall I write the emperor? For there is no real charge against him! So I have brought him before you all, and especially you, King Agrippa, to examine him and then tell me what to write. ²⁷ For it doesn’t seem reasonable to send a prisoner to the emperor without any charges against him!”

13 As he was leaving the Temple that day, one of his disciples said, “Teacher, what beautiful buildings these are! Look at the decorated stonework on the walls.”

² Jesus replied, “Yes, look! For not one stone will be left upon another, except as ruins.”

^3-4 And as he sat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives across the valley from Jerusalem, Peter, James, John, and Andrew got alone with him and asked him, “Just when is all this going to happen to the Temple? Will there be some warning ahead of time?”

⁵ So Jesus launched into an extended reply. “Don’t let anyone mislead you,” he said, ⁶ “for many will come declaring themselves to be your Messiah and will lead many astray. ⁷ And wars will break out near and far, but this is not the signal of the end-time.

⁸ “For nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be earthquakes in many lands, and famines. These herald only the early stages of the anguish ahead. ⁹ But when these things begin to happen, watch out! For you will be in great danger. You will be dragged before the courts, and beaten in the synagogues, and accused before governors and kings of being my followers. This is your opportunity to tell them the Good News. ¹⁰ And the Good News must first be made known in every nation before the end-time finally comes.^{[a] 11} But when you are arrested and stand trial, don’t worry about what to say in your defense. Just say what God tells you to. Then you will not be speaking, but the Holy Spirit will.

¹² “Brothers will betray each other to death, fathers will betray their own children, and children will betray their parents to be killed. ¹³ And everyone will hate you because you are mine. But all who endure to the end without renouncing me shall be saved.