Book of Common Prayer
A Prayer for Help[a] (A)
70 Save me, O God!
Lord, help me now!
2 May those who try to kill me
be defeated and confused.
May those who are happy because of my troubles
be turned back and disgraced.
3 May those who make fun of me
be dismayed by their defeat.
4 May all who come to you
be glad and joyful.
May all who are thankful for your salvation
always say, “How great is God!”
5 I am weak and poor;
come to me quickly, O God.
You are my savior and my Lord—
hurry to my aid!
The Prayer of an Elderly Person
71 Lord, I have come to you for protection;
never let me be defeated!
2 Because you are righteous, help me and rescue me.
Listen to me and save me!
3 Be my secure shelter
and a strong fortress[b] to protect me;
you are my refuge and defense.
4 My God, rescue me from wicked people,
from the power of cruel and evil people.
5 Sovereign Lord, I put my hope in you;
I have trusted in you since I was young.
6 I have relied on you all my life;
you have protected[c] me since the day I was born.
I will always praise you.
7 My life has been an example to many,
because you have been my strong defender.
8 All day long I praise you
and proclaim your glory.
9 Do not reject me now that I am old;
do not abandon me now that I am feeble.
10 My enemies want to kill me;
they talk and plot against me.
11 They say, “God has abandoned him;
let's go after him and catch him;
there is no one to rescue him.”
12 Don't stay so far away, O God;
my God, hurry to my aid!
13 May those who attack me
be defeated and destroyed.
May those who try to hurt me
be shamed and disgraced.
14 I will always put my hope in you;
I will praise you more and more.
15 I will tell of your goodness;
all day long I will speak of your salvation,
though it is more than I can understand.
16 I will go in the strength of the Lord God;
I will proclaim your goodness, yours alone.
17 You have taught me ever since I was young,
and I still tell of your wonderful acts.
18 Now that I am old and my hair is gray,
do not abandon me, O God!
Be with me while I proclaim your power and might
to all generations to come.
19 Your righteousness, God, reaches the skies.
You have done great things;
there is no one like you.
20 You have sent troubles and suffering on me,
but you will restore my strength;
you will keep me from the grave.
21 You will make me greater than ever;
you will comfort me again.
22 I will indeed praise you with the harp;
I will praise your faithfulness, my God.
On my harp I will play hymns to you,
the Holy One of Israel.
23 I will shout for joy as I play for you;
with my whole being I will sing
because you have saved me.
24 I will speak of your righteousness all day long,
because those who tried to harm me
have been defeated and disgraced.
A Prayer for National Deliverance[a]
74 Why have you abandoned us like this, O God?
Will you be angry with your own people forever?
2 Remember your people, whom you chose for yourself long ago,
whom you brought out of slavery to be your own tribe.
Remember Mount Zion, where once you lived.
3 Walk over these total ruins;
our enemies have destroyed everything in the Temple.
4 Your enemies have shouted in triumph in your Temple;
they have placed their flags there as signs of victory.
5 They looked like woodsmen
cutting down trees with their axes.[b]
6 They smashed all the wooden panels
with their axes and sledge hammers.
7 They wrecked your Temple and set it on fire;
they desecrated the place where you are worshiped.
8 They wanted to crush us completely;
they burned down every holy place in the land.
9 All our sacred symbols are gone;
there are no prophets left,
and no one knows how long this will last.
10 How long, O God, will our enemies laugh at you?
Will they insult your name forever?
11 Why have you refused to help us?
Why do you keep your hands behind you?[c]
12 But you have been our king from the beginning, O God;
you have saved us many times.
13 (A)With your mighty strength you divided the sea
and smashed the heads of the sea monsters;
14 (B)you crushed the heads of the monster Leviathan[d]
and fed his body to desert animals.[e]
15 You made springs and fountains flow;
you dried up large rivers.
16 You created the day and the night;
you set the sun and the moon in their places;
17 you set the limits of the earth;
you made summer and winter.
18 But remember, O Lord, that your enemies laugh at you,
that they are godless and despise you.
19 Don't abandon your helpless people to their cruel enemies;
don't forget your persecuted people!
20 Remember the covenant you made with us.
There is violence in every dark corner of the land.
21 Don't let the oppressed be put to shame;
let those poor and needy people praise you.
22 Rouse yourself, God, and defend your cause!
Remember that godless people laugh at you all day long.
23 Don't forget the angry shouts of your enemies,
the continuous noise made by your foes.
4 Now Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet, and she was serving as a judge for the Israelites at that time. 5 She would sit under a certain palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel would go there for her decisions. 6 One day she sent for Barak son of Abinoam from the city of Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, has given you this command: ‘Take ten thousand men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them to Mount Tabor. 7 I will bring Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, to fight you at the Kishon River. He will have his chariots and soldiers, but I will give you victory over him.’”
8 Then Barak replied, “I will go if you go with me, but if you don't go with me, I won't go either.”
9 She answered, “All right, I will go with you, but you won't get any credit for the victory, because the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman.” So Deborah set off for Kedesh with Barak. 10 Barak called the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, and ten thousand men followed him. Deborah went with him.
11 In the meantime Heber the Kenite had set up his tent close to Kedesh near the oak tree at Zaanannim. He had moved away from the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses.
12 When Sisera learned that Barak had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13 he called out his nine hundred iron chariots and all his men, and sent them from Harosheth-of-the-Gentiles to the Kishon River.
14 Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! The Lord is leading you! Today he has given you victory over Sisera.” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with his ten thousand men. 15 When Barak attacked with his army, the Lord threw Sisera into confusion together with all his chariots and men. Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot. 16 Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-of-the-Gentiles, and Sisera's whole army was killed. Not a man was left.
17 Sisera ran away to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because King Jabin of Hazor was at peace with Heber's family. 18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, sir; come into my tent. Don't be afraid.” So he went in, and she hid him behind a curtain.[a] 19 He said to her, “Please give me a drink of water; I'm thirsty.” She opened a leather bag of milk, gave him a drink, and hid him again. 20 Then he told her, “Stand at the door of the tent, and if anyone comes and asks you if anyone is here, say no.”
21 Sisera was so tired that he fell sound asleep. Then Jael took a hammer and a tent peg, quietly went up to him, and killed him by driving the peg right through the side of his head and into the ground. 22 When Barak came looking for Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come here! I'll show you the man you're looking for.” So he went in with her, and there was Sisera on the ground, dead, with the tent peg through his head.
23 That day God gave the Israelites victory over Jabin, the Canaanite king.
15 A few days later there was a meeting of the believers, about a hundred and twenty in all, and Peter stood up to speak. 16 “My friends,” he said, “the scripture had to come true in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, made a prediction about Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 Judas was a member of our group, for he had been chosen to have a part in our work.”
(18 (A)With the money that Judas got for his evil act he bought a field, where he fell to his death; he burst open and all his insides spilled out. 19 All the people living in Jerusalem heard about it, and so in their own language they call that field Akeldama, which means “Field of Blood.”)
20 (B)“For it is written in the book of Psalms,
‘May his house become empty;
may no one live in it.’
It is also written,
‘May someone else take his place of service.’
21-22 (C)“So then, someone must join us as a witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He must be one of the men who were in our group during the whole time that the Lord Jesus traveled about with us, beginning from the time John preached his message of baptism[a] until the day Jesus was taken up from us to heaven.”
23 So they proposed two men: Joseph, who was called Barsabbas (also known as Justus), and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know the thoughts of everyone, so show us which of these two you have chosen 25 to serve as an apostle in the place of Judas, who left to go to the place where he belongs.” 26 Then they drew lots to choose between the two men, and the one chosen was Matthias, who was added to the group of eleven apostles.
55 (A)There were many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee and helped him. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the wife of Zebedee.
The Burial of Jesus(B)
57 When it was evening, a rich man from Arimathea arrived; his name was Joseph, and he also was a disciple of Jesus. 58 He went into the presence of Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate gave orders for the body to be given to Joseph. 59 So Joseph took it, wrapped it in a new linen sheet, 60 and placed it in his own tomb, which he had just recently dug out of solid rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the entrance to the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there, facing the tomb.
The Guard at the Tomb
62 The next day, which was a Sabbath, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate 63 (C)and said, “Sir, we remember that while that liar was still alive he said, ‘I will be raised to life three days later.’ 64 Give orders, then, for his tomb to be carefully guarded until the third day, so that his disciples will not be able to go and steal the body, and then tell the people that he was raised from death. This last lie would be even worse than the first one.”
65 “Take a guard,” Pilate told them; “go and make the tomb as secure as you can.”
66 So they left and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and leaving the guard on watch.
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.