Book of Common Prayer

40 I waited patiently for God to help me; then he listened and heard my cry. ² He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out from the bog and the mire, and set my feet on a hard, firm path, and steadied me as I walked along. ³ He has given me a new song to sing, of praises to our God. Now many will hear of the glorious things he did for me, and stand in awe before the Lord, and put their trust in him. ⁴ Many blessings are given to those who trust the Lord and have no confidence in those who are proud or who trust in idols.

⁵ O Lord my God, many and many a time you have done great miracles for us, and we are ever in your thoughts. Who else can do such glorious things? No one else can be compared with you. There isn’t time to tell of all your wonderful deeds.

⁶ It isn’t sacrifices and offerings that you really want from your people. Burnt animals bring no special joy to your heart. But you have accepted the offer of my lifelong service.^{[a] 7} Then I^[b] said, “See, I have come, just as all the prophets foretold. ⁸ And I delight to do your will, my God, for your law is written upon my heart!”

⁹ I have told everyone the good news that you forgive people’s sins.^[c] I have not been timid about it, as you well know, O Lord. ¹⁰ I have not kept this good news hidden in my heart, but have proclaimed your loving-kindness and truth to all the congregation.

¹¹ O Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me! My only hope is in your love and faithfulness. ¹² Otherwise I perish, for problems far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile my sins, too many to count, have all caught up with me, and I am ashamed to look up. My heart quails within me.

¹³ Please, Lord, rescue me! Quick! Come and help me! ^14-15 Confuse them! Turn them around and send them sprawling—all these who are trying to destroy me. Disgrace these scoffers with their utter failure!

¹⁶ But may the joy of the Lord be given to everyone who loves him and his salvation. May they constantly exclaim, “How great God is!”

¹⁷ I am poor and weak, yet the Lord is thinking about me right now! O my God, you are my helper. You are my Savior; come quickly, and save me. Please don’t delay!

54 Written by David at the time the men of Ziph tried to betray him to Saul.

Come with great power,^[a] O God, and save me! Defend me with your might! ² Oh, listen to my prayer. ³ For violent men have risen against me—ruthless men who care nothing for God are seeking my life.

⁴ But God is my helper. He is a friend of mine!^{[b] 5} He will cause the evil deeds of my enemies to boomerang upon them. Do as you promised and put an end to these wicked men, O God. ⁶ Gladly I bring my sacrifices to you; I will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

⁷ God has rescued me from all my trouble, and triumphed over my enemies.

51 Written after Nathan the prophet had come to inform David of God’s judgment against him because of his adultery with Bathsheba, and his murder of Uriah, her husband.

O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions. ² Oh, wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again. ³ For I admit my shameful deed—it haunts me day and night. ⁴ It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing. You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. ⁵ But I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. ⁶ You deserve honesty from the heart; yes, utter sincerity and truthfulness. Oh, give me this wisdom.

⁷ Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood^[a] and I shall be clean again. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. ⁸ And after you have punished me, give me back my joy again. ⁹ Don’t keep looking at my sins—erase them from your sight. ¹⁰ Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. ¹¹ Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. ¹³ Then I will teach your ways to other sinners, and they—guilty like me—will repent and return to you. ^14-15 Don’t sentence me to death. O my God, you alone can rescue me. Then I will sing of your forgiveness,^[b] for my lips will be unsealed—oh, how I will praise you.

¹⁶ You don’t want penance;^[c] if you did, how gladly I would do it! You aren’t interested in offerings burned before you on the altar. ¹⁷ It is a broken spirit you want—remorse and penitence. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not ignore.

¹⁸ And Lord, don’t punish Israel for my sins—help your people and protect Jerusalem.^[d]

¹⁹ And when my heart is right,^[e] then you will rejoice in the good that I do and in the bullocks I bring to sacrifice upon your altar.

2 ^1-2 One day in April, four months later, as I was serving the king his wine he asked me, “Why so sad? You aren’t sick, are you? You look like a man with deep troubles.” (For until then I had always been cheerful when I was with him.) I was badly frightened, ³ but I replied, “Sir,^[a] why shouldn’t I be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates have been burned down.”

⁴ “Well, what should be done?” the king asked.

With a quick prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, “If it please Your Majesty and if you look upon me with your royal favor, send me to Judah to rebuild the city of my fathers!”

^5-6 The king replied, with the queen sitting beside him, “How long will you be gone? When will you return?”

So it was agreed! And I set a time for my departure!

⁷ Then I added this to my request: “If it please the king, give me letters to the governors west of the Euphrates River instructing them to let me travel through their countries on my way to Judah; ⁸ also a letter to Asaph, the manager of the king’s forest, instructing him to give me timber for the beams and for the gates of the fortress near the Temple, and for the city walls, and for a house for myself.”

And the king granted these requests, for God was being gracious to me.

⁹ When I arrived in the provinces west of the Euphrates River, I delivered the king’s letters to the governors there. (The king, I should add, had sent along army officers and troops to protect me!) ¹⁰ But when Sanballat (the Horonite) and Tobiah (an Ammonite who was a government official) heard of my arrival, they were very angry that anyone was interested in helping Israel.

^11-12 Three days after my arrival at Jerusalem I stole out during the night, taking only a few men with me; for I hadn’t told a soul about the plans for Jerusalem that God had put into my heart. I was mounted on my donkey and the others were on foot, ¹³ and we went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal’s Well and over to the Dung Gate to see the broken walls and burned gates. ^14-15 Then we went to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but my donkey couldn’t get through the rubble. So we circled the city, and I followed the brook, inspecting the wall, and entered again at the Valley Gate.

¹⁶ The city officials did not know I had been out there or why, for as yet I had said nothing to anyone about my plans—not to the political or religious leaders, or even to those who would be doing the work.

¹⁷ But now I told them, “You know full well the tragedy of our city; it lies in ruins and its gates are burned. Let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and rid ourselves of this disgrace!”

¹⁸ Then I told them about the desire God had put into my heart, and of my conversation with the king, and the plan to which he had agreed.

They replied at once, “Good! Let’s rebuild the wall!” And so the work began.

¹⁹ But when Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab heard of our plan, they scoffed and said, “What are you doing, rebelling against the king like this?”

²⁰ But I replied, “The God of heaven will help us, and we, his servants, will rebuild this wall; but you may have no part in this affair.”

¹² I watched as he broke the sixth seal, and there was a vast earthquake; and the sun became dark like black cloth, and the moon was blood-red. ¹³ Then the stars of heaven appeared to be falling to earth^[a]—like green fruit from fig trees buffeted by mighty winds. ¹⁴ And the starry heavens disappeared^[b] as though rolled up like a scroll and taken away; and every mountain and island shook and shifted. ¹⁵ The kings of the earth, and world leaders, and rich men, and high-ranking military officers, and all men great and small, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ and cried to the mountains to crush them. “Fall on us,” they pleaded, “and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb, ¹⁷ because the great day of their anger has come, and who can survive it?”

7 Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds from blowing so that not a leaf rustled in the trees, and the ocean became as smooth as glass. ² And I saw another angel coming from the east, carrying the Great Seal of the Living God. And he shouted out to those four angels who had been given power to injure earth and sea, ³ “Wait! Don’t do anything yet—hurt neither earth nor sea nor trees—until we have placed the Seal of God upon the foreheads of his servants.”

^4-8 How many were given this mark? I heard the number—it was 144,000; out of all twelve tribes of Israel, as listed here:

²⁴ Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer sowing good seed in his field; ²⁵ but one night as he slept, his enemy came and sowed thistles among the wheat. ²⁶ When the crop began to grow, the thistles grew too.

²⁷ “The farmer’s men came and told him, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that choice seed is full of thistles!’

²⁸ “‘An enemy has done it,’ he exclaimed.

“‘Shall we pull out the thistles?’ they asked.

²⁹ “‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’ll hurt the wheat if you do. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest, and I will tell the reapers to sort out the thistles and burn them, and put the wheat in the barn.’”