Book of Common Prayer
God Saved Israel from Egypt
A maskil of Asaph.
78 My people, listen to my teaching;
listen to what I say.
2 I will speak using stories;
I will tell secret things from long ago.
3 We have heard them and known them
by what our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not keep them from our children;
we will tell those who come later
about the praises of the Lord.
We will tell about his power
and the miracles he has done.
5 The Lord made an agreement with Jacob
and gave the teachings to Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach to their children.
6 Then their children would know them,
even their children not yet born.
And they would tell their children.
7 So they would all trust God
and would not forget what he had done
but would obey his commands.
8 They would not be like their ancestors
who were stubborn and disobedient.
Their hearts were not loyal to God,
and they were not true to him.
9 The men of Ephraim had bows for weapons,
but they ran away on the day of battle.
10 They didn’t keep their agreement with God
and refused to live by his teachings.
11 They forgot what he had done
and the miracles he had shown them.
12 He did miracles while their ancestors watched,
in the fields of Zoan in Egypt.
13 He divided the Red Sea and led them through.
He made the water stand up like a wall.
14 He led them with a cloud by day
and by the light of a fire by night.
15 He split the rocks in the desert
and gave them more than enough water, as if from the deep ocean.
16 He brought streams out of the rock
and caused water to flow down like rivers.
17 But the people continued to sin against him;
in the desert they turned against God Most High.
18 They decided to test God
by asking for the food they wanted.
19 Then they spoke against God,
saying, “Can God prepare food in the desert?
20 When he hit the rock, water poured out
and rivers flowed down.
But can he give us bread also?
Will he provide his people with meat?”
21 When the Lord heard them, he was very angry.
His anger was like fire to the people of Jacob;
his anger grew against the people of Israel.
22 They had not believed God
and had not trusted him to save them.
23 But he gave a command to the clouds above
and opened the doors of heaven.
24 He rained manna down on them to eat;
he gave them grain from heaven.
25 So they ate the bread of angels.
He sent them all the food they could eat.
26 He sent the east wind from heaven
and led the south wind by his power.
27 He rained meat on them like dust.
The birds were as many as the sand of the sea.
28 He made the birds fall inside the camp,
all around the tents.
29 So the people ate and became very full.
God had given them what they wanted.
30 While they were still eating,
and while the food was still in their mouths,
31 God became angry with them.
He killed some of the healthiest of them;
he struck down the best young men of Israel.
32 But they kept on sinning;
they did not believe even with the miracles.
33 So he ended their days without meaning
and their years in terror.
34 Anytime he killed them, they would look to him for help;
they would come back to God and follow him.
35 They would remember that God was their Rock,
that God Most High had saved them.
36 But their words were false,
and their tongues lied to him.
37 Their hearts were not really loyal to God;
they did not keep his agreement.
38 Still God was merciful.
He forgave their sins
and did not destroy them.
Many times he held back his anger
and did not stir up all his anger.
39 He remembered that they were only human,
like a wind that blows and does not come back.
40 They turned against God so often in the desert
and grieved him there.
41 Again and again they tested God
and brought pain to the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power
or the time he saved them from the enemy.
43 They forgot the signs he did in Egypt
and his wonders in the fields of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers to blood
so no one could drink the water.
45 He sent flies that bit the people.
He sent frogs that destroyed them.
46 He gave their crops to grasshoppers
and what they worked for to locusts.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamore trees with sleet.
48 He killed their animals with hail
and their cattle with lightning.
49 He showed them his hot anger.
He sent his strong anger against them,
his destroying angels.
50 He found a way to show his anger.
He did not keep them from dying
but let them die by a terrible disease.
51 God killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt,
the oldest son of each family of Ham.[a]
52 But God led his people out like sheep
and he guided them like a flock through the desert.
53 He led them to safety so they had nothing to fear,
but their enemies drowned in the sea.
54 So God brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain country he took with his own power.
55 He forced out the other nations,
and he had his people inherit the land.
He let the tribes of Israel settle there in tents.
56 But they tested God
and turned against God Most High;
they did not keep his rules.
57 They turned away and were disloyal just like their ancestors.
They were like a crooked bow that does not shoot straight.
58 They made God angry by building places to worship gods;
they made him jealous with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he became very angry
and rejected the people of Israel completely.
60 He left his dwelling at Shiloh,
the Tent where he lived among the people.
61 He let the Ark, his power, be captured;
he let the Ark, his glory, be taken by enemies.
62 He let his people be killed;
he was very angry with his children.
63 The young men died by fire,
and the young women had no one to marry.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
but their widows were not allowed to cry.
65 Then the Lord got up as if he had been asleep;
he awoke like a man who had been drunk with wine.
66 He struck down his enemies
and disgraced them forever.
67 But God rejected the family of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead, he chose the tribe of Judah
and Mount Zion, which he loves.
69 And he built his Temple high like the mountains.
Like the earth, he built it to last forever.
70 He chose David to be his servant
and took him from the sheep pens.
71 He brought him from tending the sheep
so he could lead the flock, the people of Jacob,
his own people, the people of Israel.
72 And David led them with an innocent heart
and guided them with skillful hands.
7 Early in the morning Jerub-Baal (also called Gideon) and all his men set up their camp at the spring of Harod. The Midianites were camped north of them in the valley at the bottom of the hill called Moreh. 2 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men to defeat the Midianites. I don’t want the Israelites to brag that they saved themselves. 3 So now, announce to the people, ‘Anyone who is afraid may leave Mount Gilead and go back home.’” So twenty-two thousand men returned home, but ten thousand remained.
4 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take the men down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say, ‘This man will go with you, he will go. But if I say, ‘That one will not go with you,’ he will not go.”
5 So Gideon led the men down to the water. There the Lord said to him, “Separate them into those who drink water by lapping it up like a dog and those who bend down to drink.” 6 There were three hundred men who used their hands to bring water to their mouths, lapping it as a dog does. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
7 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “Using the three hundred men who lapped the water, I will save you and hand Midian over to you. Let all the others go home.” 8 So Gideon sent the rest of Israel to their homes. But he kept three hundred men and took the jars and the trumpets of those who left.
Now the camp of Midian was in the valley below Gideon. 9 That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up. Go down and attack the camp of the Midianites, because I will give them to you. 10 But if you are afraid to go down, take your servant Purah with you. 11 When you come to the camp of Midian, you will hear what they are saying. Then you will not be afraid to attack the camp.”
Gideon Is Encouraged
So Gideon and his servant Purah went down to the edge of the enemy camp. 12 The Midianites, the Amalekites, and all the peoples from the east were camped in that valley. There were so many of them they seemed like locusts. Their camels could not be counted because they were as many as the grains of sand on the seashore!
13 When Gideon came to the enemy camp, he heard a man telling his friend about a dream. He was saying, “I dreamed that a loaf of barley bread rolled into the camp of Midian. It hit the tent so hard that the tent turned over and fell flat!”
14 The man’s friend said, “Your dream is about the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel. God will hand Midian and the whole army over to him!”
15 When Gideon heard about the dream and what it meant, he worshiped God. Then Gideon went back to the camp of Israel and called out to them, “Get up! The Lord has handed the army of Midian over to you!” 16 Gideon divided the three hundred men into three groups. He gave each man a trumpet and an empty jar with a burning torch inside.
17 Gideon told the men, “Watch me and do what I do. When I get to the edge of the camp, do what I do. 18 Surround the enemy camp. When I and everyone with me blow our trumpets, you blow your trumpets, too. Then shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon!’”
Peter Heals a Crippled Man
3 One day Peter and John went to the Temple at three o’clock, the time set each day for the afternoon prayer service. 2 There, at the Temple gate called Beautiful Gate, was a man who had been crippled all his life. Every day he was carried to this gate to beg for money from the people going into the Temple. 3 The man saw Peter and John going into the Temple and asked them for money. 4 Peter and John looked straight at him and said, “Look at us!” 5 The man looked at them, thinking they were going to give him some money. 6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold, but I do have something else I can give you. By the power of Jesus Christ from Nazareth, stand up and walk!” 7 Then Peter took the man’s right hand and lifted him up. Immediately the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk. He went into the Temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. 9-10 All the people recognized him as the crippled man who always sat by the Beautiful Gate begging for money. Now they saw this same man walking and praising God, and they were amazed. They wondered how this could happen.
Peter Speaks to the People
11 While the man was holding on to Peter and John, all the people were amazed and ran to them at Solomon’s Porch.
John Tells People About Jesus
19 Here is the truth John[a] told when the leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 John spoke freely and did not refuse to answer. He said, “I am not the Christ.”
21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”[b]
He answered, “No, I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”[c] they asked.
He answered, “No.”
22 Then they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to tell those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John told them in the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“I am the voice of one
calling out in the desert:
‘Make the road straight for the Lord.’” Isaiah 40:3
24 Some Pharisees who had been sent asked John: 25 “If you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet, why do you baptize people?”
26 John answered, “I baptize with water, but there is one here with you that you don’t know about. 27 He is the One who comes after me. I am not good enough to untie the strings of his sandals.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan River, where John was baptizing people.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.