Book of Common Prayer
31 Lord, I trust in you alone. Don’t let my enemies defeat me. Rescue me because you are the God who always does what is right. 2 Answer quickly when I cry to you; bend low and hear my whispered plea.[a] Be for me a great Rock of safety from my foes. 3 Yes, you are my Rock and my fortress; honor your name by leading me out of this peril. 4 Pull me from the trap my enemies have set for me. For you alone are strong enough.[b] 5-6 Into your hand I commit my spirit.
You have rescued me, O God who keeps his promises. I worship only you; how you hate all those who worship idols, those imitation gods. 7 I am radiant with joy because of your mercy, for you have listened to my troubles and have seen the crisis in my soul. 8 You have not handed me over to my enemy but have given me open ground in which to maneuver.
9-10 O Lord, have mercy on me in my anguish. My eyes are red from weeping; my health is broken from sorrow. I am pining away with grief; my years are shortened, drained away because of sadness. My sins have sapped my strength; I stoop with sorrow and with shame.[c] 11 I am scorned by all my enemies and even more by my neighbors and friends. They dread meeting me and look the other way when I go by. 12 I am forgotten like a dead man, like a broken and discarded pot. 13 I heard the lies about me, the slanders of my enemies. Everywhere I looked I was afraid, for they were plotting against my life.
14-15 But I am trusting you, O Lord. I said, “You alone are my God; my times are in your hands. Rescue me from those who hunt me down relentlessly. 16 Let your favor shine again upon your servant; save me just because you are so kind! 17 Don’t disgrace me, Lord, by not replying when I call to you for aid. But let the wicked be shamed by what they trust in; let them lie silently in their graves, 18 their lying lips quieted at last—the lips of these arrogant men who are accusing honest men of evil deeds.”
19 Oh, how great is your goodness to those who publicly declare that you will rescue them. For you have stored up great blessings for those who trust and reverence you.
20 Hide your loved ones in the shelter of your presence, safe beneath your hand, safe from all conspiring men. 21 Blessed is the Lord, for he has shown me that his never-failing love protects me like the walls of a fort! 22 I spoke too hastily when I said, “The Lord has deserted me,” for you listened to my plea and answered me.
23 Oh, love the Lord, all of you who are his people; for the Lord protects those who are loyal to him, but harshly punishes all who haughtily reject him. 24 So cheer up! Take courage if you are depending on the Lord.
35 O Lord, fight those fighting me; declare war on them for their attacks on me. 2 Put on your armor, take your shield and protect me by standing in front. 3 Lift your spear in my defense, for my pursuers are getting very close. Let me hear you say that you will save me from them. 4 Dishonor those who are trying to kill me. Turn them back and confuse them. 5 Blow them away like chaff in the wind—wind sent by the Angel of the Lord. 6 Make their path dark and slippery before them, with the Angel of the Lord pursuing them. 7 For though I did them no wrong, yet they laid a trap for me and dug a pitfall in my path. 8 Let them be overtaken by sudden ruin, caught in their own net and destroyed.
9 But I will rejoice in the Lord. He shall rescue me! 10 From the bottom of my heart praise rises to him. Where is his equal in all of heaven and earth? Who else protects the weak and helpless from the strong, and the poor and needy from those who would rob them?
11 These evil men swear to a lie. They accuse me of things I have never even heard about. 12 I do them good, but they return me harm. I am sinking down to death. 13 When they were ill, I mourned before the Lord in sackcloth, asking him to make them well; I refused to eat; I prayed for them with utmost earnestness, but God did not listen. 14 I went about sadly as though it were my mother, friend, or brother who was sick and nearing death. 15 But now that I am in trouble they are glad; they come together in meetings filled with slander against me—I didn’t even know some of those who were there. 16 For they gather with the worthless fellows of the town and spend their time cursing me.
17 Lord, how long will you stand there, doing nothing? Act now and rescue me, for I have but one life and these young lions are out to get it. 18 Save me, and I will thank you publicly before the entire congregation, before the largest crowd I can find.
19 Don’t give victory to those who fight me without any reason! Don’t let them rejoice[a] at my fall—let them die. 20 They don’t talk of peace and doing good, but of plots against innocent men who are minding their own business. 21 They shout that they have seen me doing wrong! “Aha!” they say. “With our own eyes we saw him do it.” 22 Lord, you know all about it. Don’t stay silent! Don’t desert me now!
23 Rise up, O Lord my God; vindicate me. 24 Declare me “not guilty,” for you are just.[b] Don’t let my enemies rejoice over me in my troubles. 25 Don’t let them say, “Aha! Our dearest wish against him will soon be fulfilled!” and, “At last we have him!” 26 Shame them; let these who boast against me and who rejoice at my troubles be themselves overcome by misfortune that strips them bare of everything they own. Bare them to dishonor. 27 But give great joy to all who wish me well. Let them shout with delight, “Great is the Lord who enjoys helping his child!”[c] 28 And I will tell everyone how great and good you are; I will praise you all day long.
1 Subject: a message from the Lord.
To: Haggai the prophet, who delivered it to Zerubbabel (son of Shealtiel), governor of Judah; and to Joshua (son of Josedech), the High Priest—for it was addressed to them.[a]
When: In late August of the second year of the reign of King Darius I.
2 “Why is everyone saying it is not the right time for rebuilding my Temple?” asks the Lord.
3-4 His reply to them is this: “Is it then the right time for you to live in luxurious homes, when the Temple lies in ruins? 5 Look at the result: 6 You plant much but harvest little. You have scarcely enough to eat or drink and not enough clothes to keep you warm. Your income disappears, as though you were putting it into pockets filled with holes!
7 “Think it over,” says the Lord Almighty. “Consider how you have acted and what has happened as a result! 8 Then go up into the mountains, bring down timber, and rebuild my Temple, and I will be pleased with it and appear there in my glory,” says the Lord.
9 “You hope for much but get so little. And when you bring it home, I blow it away—it doesn’t last at all. Why? Because my Temple lies in ruins, and you don’t care. Your only concern is your own fine homes. 10 That is why I am holding back the rains from heaven and giving you such scant crops. 11 In fact, I have called for a drought upon the land, yes, and in the highlands too—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olives and all your other crops, a drought to starve both you and all your cattle and ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”
12 Then Zerubbabel (son of Shealtiel), the governor of Judah, and Joshua (son of Josedech), the High Priest, and the few people remaining in the land obeyed Haggai’s message from the Lord their God; they began to worship him in earnest.
13 Then the Lord told them (again sending the message through Haggai, his messenger), “I am with you; I will bless you.” 14-15 And the Lord gave them a desire to rebuild his Temple; so they all gathered in early September of the second year of King Darius’s reign and volunteered their help.
18
“This is a message from the Son of God, whose eyes penetrate like flames of fire, whose feet are like glowing brass.
19 “I am aware of all your good deeds—your kindness to the poor, your gifts and service to them; also I know your love and faith and patience, and I can see your constant improvement in all these things.
20 “Yet I have this against you: You are permitting that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach my servants that sex sin is not a serious matter; she urges them to practice immorality and to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to change her mind and attitude, but she refused. 22 Pay attention now to what I am saying: I will lay her upon a sickbed of intense affliction, along with all her immoral followers,[a] unless they turn again to me, repenting of their sin with her; 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches deep within men’s hearts, and minds; I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.
24-25 “As for the rest of you in Thyatira who have not followed this false teaching (‘deeper truths,’ as they call them—depths of Satan, really), I will ask nothing further of you; only hold tightly to what you have until I come.
26 “To everyone who overcomes—who to the very end keeps on doing things that please me—I will give power over the nations. 27 You will rule them with a rod of iron just as my Father gave me the authority to rule them; they will be shattered like a pot of clay that is broken into tiny pieces. 28 And I will give you the Morning Star!
29 “Let all who can hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.
27 “Woe to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders! You are like beautiful mausoleums—full of dead men’s bones, and of foulness and corruption. 28 You try to look like saintly men, but underneath those pious robes of yours are hearts besmirched with every sort of hypocrisy and sin.
29-30 “Yes, woe to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders—hypocrites! For you build monuments to the prophets killed by your fathers and lay flowers on the graves of the godly men they destroyed, and say, ‘We certainly would never have acted as our fathers did.’
31 “In saying that, you are accusing yourselves of being the sons of wicked men. 32 And you are following in their steps, filling up the full measure of their evil. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How shall you escape the judgment of hell?
34 “I will send you prophets, and wise men, and inspired writers, and you will kill some by crucifixion, and rip open the backs of others with whips in your synagogues, and hound them from city to city, 35 so that you will become guilty of all the blood of murdered godly men from righteous Abel to Zechariah (son of Barachiah), slain by you in the Temple between the altar and the sanctuary. 36 Yes, all the accumulated judgment of the centuries shall break upon the heads of this very generation.
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones all those God sends to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. 38 And now your house is left to you, desolate. 39 For I tell you this, you will never see me again until you are ready to welcome the one sent to you from God.”[a]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.