Book of Common Prayer
QOPH
145 With my whole being, I call to you,
‘Answer me, Lord!
I will obey your commands.’
146 I say to you, ‘Save me,
so that I can obey your rules.’
147 I wake up before dawn
and I cry to you for help.
I trust your promises to be true.
148 I am awake during each night,
and I think carefully about your message.
149 You love me with a faithful love,
so please listen to me!
Lord, do what is right,
and keep my life safe.
150 People who love to do evil things
are ready to attack me.
They have no interest in your Law.
151 Lord, you are near to me,
and I can trust all your commands.
152 I have studied your teaching since long ago.
I know that you have made it to remain for ever.
RESH
153 Look at my pain and trouble!
Please save me,
because I do not forget your Law.
154 Stand with me and make me free.
Keep me safe,
as you have promised to do.
155 Wicked people do not obey your rules,
so their lives will never be safe.
156 Lord, you are very kind.
Please do what is right,
and keep my life safe!
157 I have many enemies
who are ready to hurt me.
But I do not turn away from your teaching.
158 When I see people who have turned against you,
they make me very upset.
They do not obey your commands.
159 See how I love your teaching, Lord!
Please keep my life safe,
because of your faithful love for your people.
160 I can trust that your message is true.
All your righteous rules will continue for ever.
SHIN
161 Rulers want to hurt me for no good reason.
But it is your message that I respect with fear.
162 Your teaching makes me very happy.
I am like someone who has found great riches.
163 I hate all kinds of lies,
but I love your Law.
164 I praise you seven times each day,
because of your righteous rules.
165 People who love your Law have peace in their minds.
Nothing will cause them to fall down.
166 Lord, I trust you to save me,
as I obey your commands.
167 I will continue to obey your rules,
because I love them so much.
168 I obey your commands and your teaching,
because you know everything that I do.
TAW
169 Listen to me, Lord,
as I call to you for help!
Help me to understand your word.
170 I ask you to be kind to me,
so please listen!
Keep me safe,
as you have promised to do.
171 I will always speak aloud to praise you,
because you teach me your rules.
172 I will sing about your message,
because all your commands are righteous.
173 Please be ready to help me,
because I choose to obey your teaching.
174 Lord, I am waiting for you to save me.
Please do it soon!
Your Law makes me very happy.
175 Keep my life safe,
so that I can praise you.
Use your laws to give me help.
176 I have left the right way.
Come to make me safe again,
like a shepherd looks for his lost sheep.
Help me, your servant,
because I have not forgotten your commands.
A song to sing as we climb.
A happy family
128 If people respect the Lord
and they obey his commands,
God has blessed them!
2 You will eat the food that you have worked hard to grow.
You will have everything that you need.
You will be happy!
3 Your wife will be like a vine that grows in your home,
and it gives many grapes.
Your children will sit around your table,
like the branches of an olive tree that are around you.[a]
4 Yes, if a man respects the Lord,
that is how God blesses him.
5 The Lord rules from Zion,
and I pray that he will bless you.[b]
Then you will see that Jerusalem is a good place to live in
for as long as you live.
6 I pray that you will live to see your grandchildren.
May Israel have peace!
A song to sing as we climb.
129 Since I was young, my enemies have often attacked me.
Israel's people now answer:
2 ‘They have often attacked me since I was young,
but they have not won against me.
3 They hit my back with whips.
They made long marks on it,
like farmers who are ploughing their fields.
4 But the Lord is righteous.
He has made me free from those cruel people.’
5 I pray that everyone who hates Zion's people will be ashamed.
Then they will have to turn around and go back.
6 May they be useless, like grass that grows on a roof.
It dies before it can grow tall!
7 A gardener cannot use it.
A farmer will not keep it.[c]
8 People that go past will not say to them,
‘We will ask the Lord to bless you!’
Nobody will say to those who hate Zion's people,
‘Receive our blessing in the name of the Lord!’
A song to sing as we climb.
I have great trouble
130 Lord, I am crying aloud to you
because I have great trouble.
2 My Lord, please listen to me!
I am asking you to be kind and help me.
3 Lord, if you should write down all our sins,
nobody could stand as a righteous person.
4 But you forgive people for their sins,
and so we give you honour.
5 I will wait for the Lord to help me.
I trust him completely.
So I wait for him to do what he has promised.
6 I want my Lord to come and help me,
more than a guard at night wants the morning to come.
Yes, I want my Lord to come quickly, even more than that.
7 Israel's people, trust the Lord to help you.
The Lord has faithful love for his people.
He is always ready to save them.
8 He will save Israel's people from all their sins.
The day of the Lord
15 The day of the Lord will come soon for all the world's people.[a]
God will do to you what you did to other people.
God will be angry with you because you did those things to them.
16 You drank on my special hill.[b]
In the same way, people from all countries will drink and they will not stop.
They will drink until God has killed them.[c]
17 But on Mount Zion, people will be free.
It will be special to me.
Jacob's descendants will have the country that belongs to them.
I will give it to them.
18 The people in Jacob's and Joseph's family will kill all the people that belong to Esau's family.’
This is what the Lord said.
19 People will come from the Negev. They will come to live in the mountains of Edom.
People will come from the low hills in the west, and they will take the Philistines' country for themselves.
They will live in the fields in Ephraim and Samaria.[d]
Benjamin's people will take Gilead.
20 Some people lived in Israel,
but they now have to live with the Canaanites.
They will get the country as far as Zarephath.
Some people lived in Jerusalem, but now they have to be in Sepharad.
They will get the towns in the Negev.
21 Men will come to make Jerusalem free,
and they will rule over Edom.
And that country will belong to the Lord.[e]
2 So you must refuse to do any evil things. Do not tell lies to deceive people. Do not be hypocrites. Do not be jealous of other people. Do not say bad things against other people. 2 Instead, you should want to learn about God more and more. New babies always want their mothers' milk, which makes them grow strong. God's true message is like good food that will make you strong in your spirits. Then you will continue to grow as believers so that God saves you. 3 Do this, because you have already begun to know how kind the Lord is to you.
Jesus is like the most important stone in God's house
4 So come to the Lord Jesus. He is like a big stone that a builder uses to build a house. But he is alive. People decided that he was not important. So they refused him. But God had chosen him. To God, Jesus is very valuable. 5 You yourselves are also like stones that are alive. God is using you, like stones, to build a house where his Spirit lives. You will serve him like his special priests who offer sacrifices to him. God will be happy with the spiritual offerings that you give to him, because you belong to Jesus Christ.[a]
6 In the Bible, God says this:
‘Look, I have chosen a stone that is very valuable.
I have chosen this stone as the most important stone,
for the corner of my house in Zion.[b]
Anyone who believes in him will never be disappointed.’[c]
7 This stone is very valuable to you who believe in Jesus. But the Bible says this about people who do not believe in him:
‘The builders refused to use a certain stone.
They thought that it had no value.
But now that stone has become the most important stone at the corner of the building.’[d]
8 The Bible also says this:
‘This stone will cause people to fall to the ground.
It is a rock that will make them fall down.’[e]
They fall down like that because they refuse to obey God's message. God already decided that this would happen to them.
9 But you are not like that. You are a special group of people that God has chosen. You serve God like priests who serve a King. You are his own holy people who belong to him. He has taken you out of the dark place of sin, and he has brought you into his great light. He has done all this so that you can tell people how great he is. 10 In past times, you were not people who knew God. But now you are God's people. In past times, God did not forgive you. But now he has been very kind to you and he has forgiven you.[f]
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘What I say is true. It is very difficult for rich people to let God rule in their lives. 24 The hole in a needle is very small. A camel cannot go through it! But I tell you, it is even more difficult than that for a rich person to let God rule in their life.’
25 When the disciples heard this, they were even more surprised. They said, ‘So perhaps God will not save anyone!’
26 Jesus looked at them and he replied, ‘For people, it really is impossible. But God can do it. God can do everything.’
27 Peter said to Jesus, ‘Look! We have left everything that we had. Now we are your disciples. What will we receive because we have done this?’
28 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you this: One day God will cause all things to become new. I, the Son of Man, will sit on my great throne as King and I will rule that new world. You who are my disciples will also sit like kings on thrones. You will judge the people of the 12 tribes of Israel. 29 Some people have left their homes. Or they may have left their brothers or sisters. Or they may have left their mother or their father. Or they may have left their wife or their children or their fields. They have done that because of me. God will give those people many more things than they have left behind, even 100 times more! And after they die, they will live for ever with God. 30 But many people who are very important now will become the least important. And many people who are not important now will become very important then.’
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