Book of Common Prayer
The Lord's Goodness to His People
106 (A)Praise the Lord!
Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good;
his love is eternal.
2 Who can tell all the great things he has done?
Who can praise him enough?
3 Happy are those who obey his commands,
who always do what is right.
4 Remember me, Lord, when you help your people;
include me when you save them.
5 Let me see the prosperity of your people
and share in the happiness of your nation,
in the glad pride of those who belong to you.
6 We have sinned as our ancestors did;
we have been wicked and evil.
7 (B)Our ancestors in Egypt did not understand God's wonderful acts;
they forgot the many times he showed them his love,
and they rebelled against the Almighty[a] at the Red Sea.
8 But he saved them, as he had promised,
in order to show his great power.
9 (C)He gave a command to the Red Sea,
and it dried up;
he led his people across on dry land.
10 He saved them from those who hated them;
he rescued them from their enemies.
11 But the water drowned their enemies;
not one of them was left.
12 (D)Then his people believed his promises
and sang praises to him.
13 But they quickly forgot what he had done
and acted without waiting for his advice.
14 (E)They were filled with craving in the desert
and put God to the test;
15 so he gave them what they asked for,
but also sent a terrible disease among them.
16 (F)There in the desert they were jealous of Moses
and of Aaron, the Lord's holy servant.
17 Then the earth opened up and swallowed Dathan
and buried Abiram and his family;
18 fire came down on their followers
and burned up those wicked people.
19 (G)They made a gold bull-calf at Sinai
and worshiped that idol;
20 they exchanged the glory of God
for the image of an animal that eats grass.
21 They forgot the God who had saved them
by his mighty acts in Egypt.
22 What wonderful things he did there!
What amazing things at the Red Sea!
23 When God said that he would destroy his people,
his chosen servant, Moses, stood up against God
and kept his anger from destroying them.
24 (H)Then they rejected the pleasant land,
because they did not believe God's promise.
25 They stayed in their tents and grumbled
and would not listen to the Lord.
26 So he have them a solemn warning
that he would make them die in the desert
27 (I)and scatter their descendants among the heathen,
letting them die in foreign countries.
28 (J)Then at Peor, God's people joined in the worship of Baal
and ate sacrifices offered to dead gods.
29 They stirred up the Lord's anger by their actions,
and a terrible disease broke out among them.
30 But Phinehas stood up and punished the guilty,
and the plague was stopped.
31 This has been remembered in his favor ever since
and will be for all time to come.
32 (K)At the springs of Meribah the people made the Lord angry,
and Moses was in trouble on their account.
33 They made him so bitter
that he spoke without stopping to think.
34 (L)They did not kill the heathen,
as the Lord had commanded them to do,
35 but they intermarried with them
and adopted their pagan ways.
36 God's people worshiped idols,
and this caused their destruction.
37 (M)They offered their own sons and daughters
as sacrifices to the idols of Canaan.
38 (N)They killed those innocent children,
and the land was defiled by those murders.
39 They made themselves impure by their actions
and were unfaithful to God.
40 (O)So the Lord was angry with his people;
he was disgusted with them.
41 He abandoned them to the power of the heathen,
and their enemies ruled over them.
42 They were oppressed by their enemies
and were in complete subjection to them.
43 Many times the Lord rescued his people,
but they chose to rebel against him
and sank deeper into sin.
44 Yet the Lord heard them when they cried out,
and he took notice of their distress.
45 For their sake he remembered his covenant,
and because of his great love he relented.
46 He made all their oppressors
feel sorry for them.
47 (P)Save us, O Lord our God,
and bring us back from among the nations,
so that we may be thankful
and praise your holy name.
48 Praise the Lord, the God of Israel;
praise him now and forever!
Let everyone say, “Amen!”
Praise the Lord!
God Will Judge the Nations
3 The Lord says,
“At that time I will restore
the prosperity of Judah and Jerusalem.
2 I will gather all the nations
and bring them to the Valley of Judgment.
There I will judge them
for all they have done to my people.
They have scattered the Israelites in foreign countries
and divided Israel, my land.
9 “Make this announcement among the nations:
‘Prepare for war;
call your warriors;
gather all your soldiers and march!
10 (A)Hammer the points of your plows into swords
and your pruning knives into spears.
Even the weak must fight.
11 Hurry[a] and come,
all you surrounding nations,
and gather in the valley.’”
Send down, O Lord, your army to attack them!
12 “The nations must get ready
and come to the Valley of Judgment.
There I, the Lord, will sit to judge
all the surrounding nations.
13 (B)They are very wicked;
cut them down like grain
at harvest time;
crush them as grapes are crushed
in a full wine press
until the wine runs over.”
14 Thousands and thousands
are in the Valley of Judgment.
It is there that the day of the Lord
will soon come.
15 The sun and the moon grow dark,
and the stars no longer shine.
God Will Bless His People
16 (C)The Lord roars from Mount Zion;
his voice thunders from Jerusalem;
earth and sky tremble.
But he will defend his people.
17 “Then, Israel, you will know that I am the Lord your God.
I live on Zion, my sacred hill.
Jerusalem will be a sacred city;
foreigners will never conquer it again.
1 From Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ—
To God's chosen people who live as refugees scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. 2 You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by his blood.
May grace and peace be yours in full measure.
A Living Hope
3 Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope, 4 (A)and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away. 5 They are for you, who through faith are kept safe by God's power for the salvation which is ready to be revealed at the end of time.
6 Be glad about this, even though it may now be necessary for you to be sad for a while because of the many kinds of trials you suffer. 7 (B)Their purpose is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire; and so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor on the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 You love him, although you have not seen him, and you believe in him, although you do not now see him. So you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express, 9 because you are receiving the salvation of your souls, which is the purpose of your faith in him.
10 It was concerning this salvation that the prophets made careful search and investigation, and they prophesied about this gift which God would give you. 11 They tried to find out when the time would be and how it would come.[a] This was the time to which Christ's Spirit in them was pointing, in predicting the sufferings that Christ would have to endure and the glory that would follow. 12 God revealed to these prophets that their work was not for their own benefit, but for yours, as they spoke about those things which you have now heard from the messengers who announced the Good News by the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things which even the angels would like to understand.
Jesus Teaches about Divorce(A)
19 When Jesus finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the territory of Judea on the other side of the Jordan River. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 Some Pharisees came to him and tried to trap him by asking, “Does our Law allow a man to divorce his wife for whatever reason he wishes?”
4 (B)Jesus answered, “Haven't you read the scripture that says that in the beginning the Creator made people male and female? 5 (C)And God said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one.’ 6 So they are no longer two, but one. No human being must separate, then, what God has joined together.”
7 (D)The Pharisees asked him, “Why, then, did Moses give the law for a man to hand his wife a divorce notice and send her away?”
8 Jesus answered, “Moses gave you permission to divorce your wives because you are so hard to teach. But it was not like that at the time of creation. 9 (E)I tell you, then, that any man who divorces his wife for any cause other than her unfaithfulness, commits adultery if he marries some other woman.”
10 His disciples said to him, “If this is how it is between a man and his wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus answered, “This teaching does not apply to everyone, but only to those to whom God has given it. 12 For there are different reasons why men cannot marry: some, because they were born that way; others, because men made them that way; and others do not marry for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Let him who can accept this teaching do so.”
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.