Book of Common Prayer
God the Supreme Ruler
97 The Lord is king! Earth, be glad!
Rejoice, you islands of the seas!
2 Clouds and darkness surround him;
he rules with righteousness and justice.
3 Fire goes in front of him
and burns up his enemies around him.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees it and trembles.
5 The hills melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the nations see his glory.
7 Everyone who worships idols is put to shame;
all the gods bow down[a] before the Lord.
8 The people of Zion are glad,
and the cities of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments, O Lord.
9 Lord Almighty, you are ruler of all the earth;
you are much greater than all the gods.
10 The Lord loves those who hate evil;[b]
he protects the lives of his people;
he rescues them from the power of the wicked.
11 Light shines on the righteous,
and gladness on the good.
12 All you that are righteous be glad
because of what the Lord has done!
Remember what the holy God has done,
and give thanks to him.
God the Supreme King
99 (A)The Lord is king,
and the people tremble.
He sits on his throne above the winged creatures,
and the earth shakes.
2 The Lord is mighty in Zion;
he is supreme over all the nations.
3 Everyone will praise his great and majestic name.
Holy is he!
4 Mighty king,[a] you love what is right;
you have established justice in Israel;
you have brought righteousness and fairness.
5 Praise the Lord our God;
worship before his throne!
Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were his priests,
and Samuel was one who prayed to him;
they called to the Lord, and he answered them.
7 (B)He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;
they obeyed the laws and commands that he gave them.
8 O Lord, our God, you answered your people;
you showed them that you are a God who forgives,
even though you punished them for their sins.
9 Praise the Lord our God,
and worship at his sacred hill![b]
The Lord our God is holy.
A Hymn of Praise[c]
100 Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Worship the Lord with joy;
come before him with happy songs!
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, we are his flock.
4 Enter the Temple gates with thanksgiving;
go into its courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise him.
5 (C)The Lord is good;
his love is eternal
and his faithfulness lasts forever.
God the Judge of All
94 Lord, you are a God who punishes;
reveal your anger!
2 You are the judge of us all;
rise and give the proud what they deserve!
3 How much longer will the wicked be glad?
How much longer, Lord?
4 How much longer will criminals be proud
and boast about their crimes?
5 They crush your people, Lord;
they oppress those who belong to you.
6 They kill widows and orphans,
and murder the strangers who live in our land.
7 They say, “The Lord does not see us;
the God of Israel does not notice.”
8 My people, how can you be such stupid fools?
When will you ever learn?
9 God made our ears—can't he hear?
He made our eyes—can't he see?
10 He scolds the nations—won't he punish them?[a]
He is the teacher of us all—hasn't he any knowledge?
11 (A)The Lord knows what we think;
he knows how senseless our reasoning is.
12 Lord, how happy are those you instruct,
the ones to whom you teach your law!
13 You give them rest from days of trouble
until a pit is dug to trap the wicked.
14 The Lord will not abandon his people;
he will not desert those who belong to him.
15 Justice will again be found in the courts,
and all righteous people will support it.
16 Who stood up for me against the wicked?
Who took my side against the evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not helped me,
I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.[b]
18 I said, “I am falling”;
but your constant love, O Lord, held me up.
19 Whenever I am anxious and worried,
you comfort me and make me glad.
20 You have nothing to do with corrupt judges,
who make injustice legal,
21 who plot against good people
and sentence the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord defends me;
my God protects me.
23 He will punish them for their wickedness
and destroy them for their sins;
the Lord our God will destroy them.
A Song of Praise
95 Come, let us praise the Lord!
Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and sing joyful songs of praise.
3 For the Lord is a mighty God,
a mighty king over all the gods.
4 He rules over the whole earth,
from the deepest caves to the highest hills.
5 He rules over the sea, which he made;
the land also, which he himself formed.
6 Come, let us bow down and worship him;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 (B)He is our God;
we are the people he cares for,
the flock for which he provides.
Listen today to what he says:
8 (C)“Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day in the desert at Massah.
9 There they put me to the test and tried me,
although they had seen what I did for them.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with those people.
I said, ‘How disloyal they are!
They refuse to obey my commands.’
11 (D)I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘You will never enter the land
where I would have given you rest.’”
King Hezekiah of Judah(A)
29 Hezekiah became king of Judah at the age of twenty-five, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. 2 Following the example of his ancestor King David, he did what was pleasing to the Lord.
The Purification of the Temple
3 In the first month of the year after Hezekiah became king, he reopened the gates of the Temple and had them repaired.
Preparations for Passover
30 (A)1-3 The people had not been able to celebrate the Passover Festival at the proper time in the first month, because not enough priests were ritually clean and not many people had assembled in Jerusalem. So King Hezekiah, his officials, and the people of Jerusalem agreed to celebrate it in the second month, and the king sent word to all the people of Israel and Judah. He took special care to send letters to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover in honor of the Lord, the God of Israel. 4 The king and the people were pleased with their plan, 5 so they invited all the Israelites, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, to come together in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover according to the Law, in larger numbers than ever before. 6 Messengers went out at the command of the king and his officials through all Judah and Israel with the following invitation:
“People of Israel, you have survived the Assyrian conquest of the land. Now return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will return to you. 7 Do not be like your ancestors and your Israelite relatives who were unfaithful to the Lord their God. As you can see, he punished them severely. 8 Do not be stubborn as they were, but obey the Lord. Come to the Temple in Jerusalem, which the Lord your God has made holy forever, and worship him so that he will no longer be angry with you. 9 If you return to the Lord, then those who have taken your relatives away as prisoners will take pity on them and let them come back home. The Lord your God is kind and merciful, and if you return to him, he will accept you.”
10 The messengers went to every city in the territory of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far north as the tribe of Zebulun, but people laughed at them and made fun of them. 11 Still, there were some from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun who were willing to come to Jerusalem. 12 God was also at work in Judah and united the people in their determination to obey his will by following the commands of the king and his officials.
Passover Is Celebrated
13 A great number of people gathered in Jerusalem in the second month to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. 14 They took all the altars that had been used in Jerusalem for offering sacrifices and burning incense and threw them into Kidron Valley. 15 And on the fourteenth day of the month they killed the lambs for the Passover sacrifice. The priests and Levites who were not ritually clean became so ashamed that they dedicated themselves to the Lord, and now they could sacrifice burnt offerings in the Temple. 16 They took their places in the Temple according to the instructions in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The Levites gave the blood of the sacrifices to the priests, who sprinkled it on the altar. 17 Because many of the people were not ritually clean, they could not kill the Passover lambs, so the Levites did it for them and dedicated the lambs to the Lord. 18 In addition, many of those who had come from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not performed the ritual of purification, and so they were observing Passover improperly. King Hezekiah offered this prayer for them: 19 “O Lord, the God of our ancestors, in your goodness forgive those who are worshiping you with all their heart, even though they are not ritually clean.” 20 The Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer; he forgave the people and did not harm them. 21 For seven days the people who had gathered in Jerusalem celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread with great joy, and day after day the Levites and the priests praised the Lord with all their strength.[a] 22 Hezekiah praised the Levites for their skill in conducting the worship of the Lord.
A Second Celebration
After the seven days during which they offered sacrifices in praise of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, 23 they all decided to celebrate for another seven days. So they celebrated with joy. 24 King Hezekiah contributed 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for the people to kill and eat, and the officials gave them another 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep. A large number of priests went through the ritual of purification. 25 So everyone was happy—the people of Judah, the priests, the Levites, the people who had come from the north, and the foreigners who had settled permanently in Israel and Judah. 26 The city of Jerusalem was filled with joy, because nothing like this had happened since the days of King Solomon, the son of David. 27 The priests and the Levites asked the Lord's blessing on the people. In his home in heaven God heard their prayers and accepted them.
32 I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord. 33 But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife; 34 and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.
35 I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.
36 In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not acting properly toward the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to.[a] There is no sin in this. 37 But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his mind not to marry,[b] and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do—then he does well not to marry the young woman.[c] 38 So the man who marries[d] does well, but the one who doesn't marry[e] does even better.
39 A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian. 40 She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.
Judging Others(A)
7 “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 2 (B)for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. 3 Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? 4 How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs—they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs—they will only trample them underfoot.
Ask, Seek, Knock(C)
7 (D)“Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock. 9 Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone when he asks for bread? 10 Or would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish? 11 As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
12 (E)“Do for others what you want them to do for you: this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets.
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.