Book of Common Prayer
David wrote this song. Tell the music leader to use stringed instruments.
God will keep me safe[a]
61 God, please hear me when I call to you for help.
Listen carefully to my prayer.
2 I will call out to you from far away,
because I am sad and weak.
Lead me to a strong, safe rock
that is higher than I am.
3 You are the safe place where I can hide.
You are like a strong tower
that keeps me safe against my enemies.[b]
4 I want to live in your house for ever.
I want you to keep me safe,
like birds protect their babies under their wings.
Selah.
5 You, God, have heard my promises to you.
You have blessed me,
as you bless all those people who serve you.
6 Please give the king a long life.
Let him live to see many descendants.
7 Let him rule for ever
with your authority.
Cause your faithful love and your truth to keep him safe.[c]
8 Then I will always praise your name.
Every day I will give to you
the offerings that I have promised.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader, Jeduthun.
Only God can save me!
62 I will be patient as I wait for God to help me.
He is the only one who can make me safe.
2 He alone is the strong rock
where I can hide and be safe.
With him, nothing will make me fall.
3 How long will you all continue to attack me?
I am just one man,
and you want to kill me!
You want to knock me down,
like a weak wall or a fence that is falling down.[d]
4 You only want to push me off my high place.
You love to tell lies to deceive people.
When you say words to bless people,
you are cursing them in your thoughts.
Selah.
5 I must be patient as I wait for God to help me.
He is the only one that I can trust for help.
6 He alone is the strong rock
where I can hide and be safe.
With him, nothing will make me fall.
7 It is God who has kept me safe,
and he has made me great.
He is the strong place
where I can hide and be safe.
8 Yes, my friends,
you should always trust in God!
Tell him about all the troubles in your thoughts.
God is our safe place to hide!
Selah.
9 People are only as light as a breath!
Whoever they are, they are not important.
If you try to weigh them, all together,
they weigh less than a breath of air.[e]
10 Do not cheat people,
or rob them to get money!
That will not give you anything
that you can trust to help you.
Even if you become very rich,
do not think it is important.
11 I have heard God speak his truth
once, no twice!
God has great strength.
12 And also, my Lord, you have a faithful love.
You pay back to everybody what they should get
for the things that they have done.
This psalm is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
God will win![a]
68 God will rise up
and he will chase his enemies away!
The people who hate him
will quickly run away from him![b]
2 God, blow them away,
as wind blows smoke away.
Destroy those wicked people,
as wax melts near a fire!
3 But righteous people will be happy,
when they come near to you.
They will shout with joy,
because they are so happy!
4 Sing songs to God!
Sing to praise his name!
He is the one who rides on the clouds,
so praise him aloud!
His name is the Lord!
Shout with joy to worship him!
5 God is a father for those who have no father.
He takes care of widows.
He rules from his holy home.
6 God gives homes and a family to lonely people.
He makes prisoners go free
so that they are happy.
But people who turn against him
have to live in a hot, dry land.[c]
7 God, you led your people out.
You took them across the desert.
Selah.
8 Then the ground shook,
and rain poured down from the sky.
You showed your power at Sinai mountain.
You are the God who rules at Sinai.[d]
You are the God that Israel's people serve.
9 God, you caused much rain to fall
on your special land.
You made it fresh again
when it had been dry.[e]
10 Your own people came to live in it.
God, because you are kind,
you gave many good things to poor people.
11 The Lord gives a command!
Very many women take his message to other places.
12 Kings with large armies quickly run away.
Yes, they run away!
The women at home share the valuable things
that the armies have left behind.
13 Even those who stayed to take care of the sheep
found valuable things,
like a dove with silver wings
and bright gold feathers.[f]
14 When the Almighty God chased away foreign kings,
it was like snow that fell on Mount Zalmon.
15 Bashan mountain is great, like God.
It has many high rocks.
16 You high mountains, why are you jealous
when you look at Zion mountain?
That is the mountain where God has chosen to live.
Yes, that is where the Lord will live for ever!
17 God has millions of chariots.
The Lord has come from Sinai mountain
to his own holy place.
18 When you went up to the highest place,
you took many prisoners with you.
You received gifts from men,
even from the men who had fought against you.
Yes, the Lord God lives there!
19 Praise the Lord, as he deserves!
Every day he helps us with our troubles.
He is the God who keeps us safe!
Selah.
20 Our God is the God who rescues people.
The Almighty Lord saves us from death.
21 He will knock down the heads of his enemies.
He will destroy their skulls and their long hair,
if they continue to turn against him.
22 The Lord says, ‘I will bring my enemies back from Bashan,
even from deep down in the sea.
23 Then you can wash your feet in their blood.
Your dogs can have as much as they want!’[g]
24 God, you are my God and my King.
People will see the great crowd that goes with you,
as you go to your holy temple.
25 The singers will march in front.
The musicians will follow them.
Young women will be with them
as they beat their tambourines.
26 They all sing,
‘Praise God, all you crowd of people!
All you people of Israel,
praise the Lord!’
27 Benjamin, the smallest tribe, will lead them all.
The leaders of Judah, with their big group, will follow.
Then will come the leaders of Zebulun and Naphtali.[h]
28 God has commanded that you should be strong.
God, please show again how strong you are,
as you have used your strength to help us in past times.
29 As you live in your temple in Jerusalem,
kings will bring gifts to you.
30 Speak against your enemies!
Some are like wild animals that live in the reeds.[i]
Some are proud nations,
like bulls among their young cows.
They must be humble and offer to you
gifts of valuable silver things.
Chase away those nations that like to fight wars.
31 Egypt's leaders will come with gifts.
People will come from Cush
and they will agree to serve God.[j]
32 All you kingdoms of the earth,
sing to God!
Yes, sing to praise the Lord!
Selah.
33 He is the one who rides in the sky,
as he has done from the beginning of time.
Listen! He shouts with a powerful voice.
34 Agree that God is very powerful!
He is the King who rules over Israel.
He shows his power in the skies.
35 God, how great you are,
as you come from your holy temple!
He is the God of Israel.
He gives power to his people,
and he makes them strong.
Praise God as he deserves!
The people dedicate Jerusalem's wall to God
27 This is what happened when we dedicated the wall of Jerusalem to God. The people told the Levites to come to Jerusalem from the places where they lived. They wanted the Levites to help them to praise God with joy. The Levites would sing songs to thank God. They would make music with cymbals, harps and lyres.[a]
28 The temple singers came together from places near Jerusalem. They came from villages round Netophah, 29 and from Beth Gilgal, Geba and Azmaveth. The singers had built these villages so that they could live near to Jerusalem. 30 The priests and the Levites made themselves clean to serve God. Then they made the people clean, as well as the city's gates and its wall.[b]
31 I took the leaders of Judah to go and stand on top of the wall. I chose two large groups of singers to thank God with songs. I told the first group to walk along the wall to the south, in the direction of the Dung Gate.
42 Maaseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, Malkijah, Elam and Ezer followed them. Jezrahiah led the groups of singers, so that they sang loudly.
43 On that day, the people offered many sacrifices to God. They were full of joy because God had caused them to be very happy. Men, women and children were all shouting with joy. Far away from the city, people could hear the noise!
44 On the same day, we chose men to take care of the rooms where they stored the people's gifts. Those gifts to God were the first fruits from the harvest and the tithes. They had to bring these gifts from the fields near each city. They read this in the law. They were gifts for the Levites and the priests, as God's Law commanded. The people of Judah were happy to help the priests and Levites who served God.
45 The priests and the Levites did the work that God had given them to make the people clean. The temple singers and guards also served God in the way that King David and his son Solomon had commanded. 46 Long ago, at the time when King David and Asaph were alive, there had been people to lead the singers. They sang songs to praise God and to thank him. 47 In the time of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, all the Israelites shared their food with the singers and the guards. Every day they kept separate the part that was for the Levites. The Levites also kept separate the part that was for the priests.
God's two servants
11 Someone gave me a stick, like the sticks that people use to measure things. He told me, ‘Go and measure the size of the temple and the altar. Also count the number of people who worship God there. 2 But do not measure the yard that is outside God's house. Do not measure it, because God has given that yard to Gentiles who do not believe in him. They will stamp all over God's own city for 42 months and they will destroy it.
3 I will give authority to my two servants who speak my message clearly. They will tell people my messages for 1,260 days. They will wear rough clothes made from goats' hair.’[a]
4 These servants are the two olive trees and the two lampstands.[b] They stand in front of God who is the Lord of the earth. 5 If anyone tries to hurt them, fire comes out of the servants' mouths. This fire destroys their enemies. Anyone who wants to hurt the two servants must die in this way. 6 These servants of God have authority to shut up the sky. Then there will be no rain during the time that they tell their messages from God. They also have authority to cause the water on earth to become blood. They can cause many different kinds of trouble to happen on the earth. They can do this as often as they want to.
7 When these two servants of God have finished speaking God's messages, a wild animal will attack them. This is the animal that lives in the deep hole.[c] It will come up out of the hole. It will be stronger than the two servants and it will kill them. 8 Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city where people killed their Lord on a cross.[d] This city should be called Sodom or Egypt, because it is as bad as those places.[e]
9 People from everywhere in the world will look at the servants' dead bodies for three and a half days. Those are people from every nation, from every tribe and from every language. They will not agree to bury the bodies. 10 The people who live on the earth will be very happy because the two servants of God are now dead. They will send gifts to each other because they are so happy. These two prophets of God had caused bad trouble for them, but now they have died.
11 But after three and a half days, God breathed life into those dead bodies. They stood up. The people who saw them were very afraid. 12 Then God's two servants heard a loud voice that came from heaven. The voice said, ‘Come up here.’ They went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.[f]
13 At the same time the ground shook with a strong earthquake. One in every ten buildings in the city fell down. 7,000 people died because of the earthquake. The people who were still alive became very afraid. They praised the God of heaven and said that he is very powerful.
14 That is the second great trouble and it has now finished. But the third great trouble will come soon.
The seventh trumpet
15 The seventh angel made a sound with his trumpet. Then there was the sound of loud voices in heaven. They shouted:
‘Our Lord God and his Messiah now have all authority!
The whole world has become their kingdom.
God will rule as King for ever!’
16 The 24 leaders were sitting on their thrones in front of God. Now they threw themselves down on their faces and they worshipped God. 17 They said:
‘We thank you, Lord God, because you have all authority!
You are alive now and you have always been alive.
You have great power and now you have begun to rule the whole world!
18 The nations of the world were very angry.
But now it is time for you to be angry with them.
Now you will judge all the people who have died.
You will give good things to your servants, the prophets,
and to all your people.
You will bless everyone who respects and obeys you,
whether they are important people or not.
But you will destroy all those people who destroy the earth.
The time has now come for all this to happen.’
19 Then the door of the temple in heaven became open. Inside it, I saw God's Covenant Box.[g] There was a great storm with bright lightning and the loud noise of thunder. There was an earthquake and strong rain with stones of ice fell from the sky.
Jesus tells a story about a man who found valuable things in the ground
44 ‘I can tell you again what the kingdom of heaven is like,’ Jesus said. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like some valuable things that a man buried in a field. Another man found it, but then he covered it over again with dirt. The second man was very happy and he went away. He sold everything that he had. Then he went and bought the field with the valuable things in it.’[a]
Jesus tells a story about some valuable stones
45 ‘I will tell you again what the kingdom of heaven is like,’ Jesus said. ‘A trader looks for beautiful stones that he can buy. 46 One day he found a very valuable stone that someone wanted to sell. So he went away and he sold everything that he had. Then he went and he bought that very valuable stone.’
47 Jesus also said, ‘I can tell you again what the kingdom of heaven is like. Some men had nets to catch fish in. They threw their nets into the lake and they caught many different kinds of fish. 48 When the net was full of fish, the men pulled it up onto the shore. Then they sat down. Some of the fish were good to eat, and they put these fish into baskets. Some of the fish were not good to eat, and they threw these fish away. 49 This is what will happen when the world's time comes to an end. God will send his angels. They will put wicked people in one place. And they will put God's righteous people in a separate place. 50 The angels will throw the wicked people into the great fire. There those people will weep and they will bite their teeth together.’[b]
51 Then Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Have you understood all these things?’ They replied, ‘Yes, we have.’
52 Jesus said to them, ‘Some teachers of God's Law have now learned about the kingdom of heaven. These men are like the master of a house who takes things out of the room where he keeps them. Some of the valuable things he brings out are new and some of them are old.’
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