Book of Common Prayer
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
Lord, please help me!
31 Lord, I have come to you to keep me safe.
Never let me become ashamed.
You always do what is right
so please save me!
2 Listen to me,
and quickly send help to me.
Lord, be a rock where I can hide.
Be a strong place to keep me safe.
3 You are my high rock and my strong place.
Because of your good name,
lead me and be my guide.[a]
4 You are the place where I can hide,
so keep me safe.
Do not let my enemies' traps catch me.
5 I put my life into your hands.
I know that you will save me, Lord,
because you are a God that I can trust.
6 I hate people who worship useless idols.
As for me, I trust in the Lord.
7 I am very happy because of your faithful love.
You see when I suffer.
You know when I am very upset.
8 You have not put me under the power of my enemies.
You have led me into an open place,
where I can be safe.
9 Lord, I am very upset,
so please be kind to me.
My eyes are tired because I weep so much.
My whole body has become very weak.
10 I am near to death, because I am so sad.
I am crying with pain as my life comes to an end.
I have so much trouble
that I have no strength at all.
Even my bones have become weak.
11 All my enemies hate me.
My friends insult me.
Everyone who knows me is afraid of me.
They run away when they see me in the street.
12 Everybody has forgotten about me.
I might as well be dead!
They think that I am useless,
like a broken plate.
13 I hear what many people are saying against me.
News from everywhere makes me afraid.
They are deciding together
how to kill me.
14 But I continue to trust you, Lord.
I say, ‘You are my God!’[b]
15 You are the one who decides
what will happen to me in my whole life.
Save me from the power of my enemies
and from the people who want to catch me.
16 Turn towards me, your servant,
and be kind to me!
Keep me safe,
because of your faithful love.
17 Lord, do not let me become ashamed.
I call to you for help.
Cause evil people to become ashamed.
Let them go to their graves
and be silent there!
18 May people that tell lies become silent.
They insult righteous people.
They are proud people,
and they boast about themselves.
19 You have prepared many good things
to bless people who respect you.
While everyone watches,
you bless those who come to you for help.
20 You give them a place to hide,
and you keep them safe with you.
When their enemies want to attack them,
you take care of them.
When their enemies speak lies against them,
they are safe with you.
21 Praise the Lord!
When my enemies were all around me,
he showed me that his faithful love is very great.
22 When I was afraid, I said,
‘God is no longer with me!’
But I spoke too soon.
When I called to you for help,
you heard me and you answered me.
23 Love the Lord, all you people who belong to him!
If people serve the Lord faithfully,
he keeps them safe.
But if people are proud,
he punishes them as they deserve.
24 All you people who trust the Lord to help you,
you should be strong and very brave!
David wrote this song.
God, please help me
35 Lord, please attack those people who are attacking me.
Fight against those people who are fighting against me.
2 Yes, pick up your shield
and put on your armour!
Prepare to fight and give me help!
3 Take your spears and throw them,
to stop the people who are chasing me.
Say to me, ‘I will make you safe.’
4 Cause the people who want to kill me
to become ashamed.
Chase away the people who want to hurt me,
so that they become confused.
5 Make them become like chaff
that the wind blows away.
Send the angel of the Lord
to chase them away.
6 Make their way dark and dangerous,
as the angel of the Lord chases after them.
7 They hid a trap to catch me.
There was no reason for them to do that.
They even dug a deep hole for me to fall into.
8 Surprise my enemies and destroy them!
Let their own traps catch them!
Let them fall to their own death!
9 Then I will be happy
because of what the Lord has done.
I will be happy
because he has made me safe.
10 I will shout with all my strength,
‘Lord, who is like you?
When strong people try to hurt weak people,
you are the one who keeps the weak people safe.
You also keep poor people safe
when robbers try to take things from them.’
11 Cruel people tell lies against me in court.
I do not even know what they are talking about.
12 When I do good things to help them,
they pay me back with evil things!
That makes me feel very sad and upset.
13 When they were ill,
I wore rough clothes,
and I stopped eating food.
I bent down my head as I prayed for them.
14 I wept as I prayed,
as I would weep when a friend or my mother had died.
15 But when I had troubles myself,
they were happy.
They stood together
and they laughed at me.
Even strangers attacked me
and they would not stop.
16 Useless people like that insulted me,
and they showed their teeth to frighten me.
17 My Lord, how long will you continue to watch
as they do this to me?
Keep me safe when they attack me.
They attack me like hungry lions.
Do not let them kill me!
18 Then I will praise you
in the great meeting of your people.
I will thank you so that everyone hears me.
19 My enemies tell lies about me.
Do not let them win against me,
and be happy.
They have no reason to hate me,
so do not let them laugh at me.
20 They do not talk in a way that brings peace.
Instead, they try to deceive people who want to live quietly.
21 They open their mouths wide
to speak against me.
They say, ‘Aha![a]
We have seen the bad things that you do!’
22 Lord, you have seen all this.
Do not remain silent, my Lord.
Do not stay far away from me.
23 Wake up! Get ready to give me justice!
Show that I am not guilty,
my Lord and my God.
24 Lord, you are righteous.
Give me justice, my God.
Do not let them laugh at me.
25 Do not let them say,
‘Aha! This is what we wanted.’
Do not let them say,
‘We have eaten him alive!’
26 Punish those people who are happy when I have troubles.
Make them ashamed and confused!
Bring down those proud people who laugh at me.
Make them feel very ashamed.
27 But for those who want justice for me,
let them shout aloud in their pleasure.
May they always say, ‘The Lord is great!
He is happy when his servant is safe and well!’
28 Then I will tell everyone that you are righteous.
I will praise you all through each day.
10 Isaiah also gave this message from the Lord to Ahaz. 11 He said, ‘Ask the Lord your God to do a miracle for you. That will show you that what he has said is true. Ask for anything, deep in the earth or high in the sky.’
12 But Ahaz said, ‘I will never ask the Lord to do that. I do not want to test him.’
13 So Isaiah replied, ‘Now listen, you royal family of David! You cause trouble for people like me. That is bad enough. But now you are trying to cause trouble for God himself. 14 So the Lord God himself will show you that he speaks a true message. Look, the young woman who has never had sex will become pregnant. She will give birth to a son. She will call his name Immanuel. 15 One day he will know how to choose good things and refuse to do evil things. By that time there will be cream and honey for him to eat. 16 Even before that, the two kings that you are now afraid of will have no power. Their land will be empty.
17 But the Lord will bring even greater trouble to you! It will be very bad for you, for the royal family, and for your people. Nothing as bad will have happened since Ephraim became separate from Judah. Yes, the Lord will bring the king of Assyria to attack you!’
18 At that time, the Lord will call the soldiers of Egypt to come and attack you. And they will come like a crowd of flies! He will call for soldiers to come from Assyria. And they will come like a crowd of bees! 19 They will all come in great crowds. They will come into the valleys, the cliffs, the holes in the rocks, the thorn bushes and the pools of water.
20 At that time, the Lord will use the king of Assyria to bring trouble and pain. He will come from beyond the Euphrates river. He will be like a sharp knife that cuts off all your hair, the hair from your head, your legs and your beard.
21 At that time, a farmer will have only one young cow and two goats.[a] 22 They will give him a lot of milk. So he will have butter and cream to eat. Everyone who remains in the land will have milk and honey as their food. 23 On that day, in every place where there had been 1,000 valuable vines, there will now be only weeds and thorn bushes. 24 In the whole land there will be only weeds and thorn bushes. So men will go to shoot wild animals there with their bows and arrows. 25 Nobody will go to the fields in the hills, because only thorn bushes grow there. People will be afraid to go there. They will send their cows there to eat grass. Sheep will run over the fields.
The believers must continue to trust God
13 We always thank God for you, our Christian friends that the Lord loves. We ought to thank God, because he has chosen to save you. God chose you to belong to him, as some of the first people that he would save. You believed God's true message. And God's Spirit makes you separate from things that are bad. 14 We told you God's good news. That is how God called you to come to him. He saved you so that you would join with our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.
15 Because of that, our Christian friends, you must continue to trust Christ. Continue to believe the true things that we taught you. Those are the things that we told you when we were with you. We also wrote about them in our letter to you.
16 We ask our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, our Father, to help you. God has shown that he loves us very much. He has helped us to be brave and strong for all time. We continue to hope for the good things that will come. Yes, God has been very kind to us! 17 We pray that he will continue to help you and make you strong. Then you will always be able to do good things and to say good things.
Paul asks the Christians to pray for him and for his friends
3 Now, friends, we ask you to pray for us. Pray that more and more people will soon hear the Lord's message. Pray that people will receive the message well and accept it as true. That is how you received it. 2 Pray also that God will not let bad people cause trouble for us. Not everyone believes the message about our Lord. 3 But the Lord always does what he has promised. So he will help you to be strong inside yourselves. He will keep you safe when Satan attacks you.
4 Because you belong to the Lord, he makes us sure about you. We know that you are doing the things that we tell you to do. And we know that you will continue to do those things. 5 We pray that the Lord will lead you in your thoughts. Then you will understand God's love better and better. And you will be patient and strong, as Christ is.
14 When it was time to eat the meal, Jesus arrived. He sat down with his apostles to eat it. 15 He said to them, ‘I have wanted very much to eat this Passover meal with you. It has to happen before I die. 16 I tell you this: I will not eat another Passover meal in this world. Now it is a picture. But when God begins to rule in his kingdom, then this meal will become real. I will eat it again then.’
17 Then Jesus took a cup and he thanked God for the wine. ‘Take this cup,’ he said to them. ‘Each of you drink some wine from it. 18 I tell you this. I will not drink wine again until God begins to rule in his kingdom.’
19 Then he took a loaf of bread and he thanked God for it. He broke the bread into pieces and he gave some of it to each of them. He said, ‘This is my body. I am giving it to save you. When you eat this meal from now on, remember me.’[a]
20 After supper, Jesus took a cup of wine and did the same thing. He said to the disciples, ‘This cup shows the new promise that God makes because of my death. When I die, my blood will pour out of my body. I will do that for you. 21 But look! The person who will give me to the rulers is sitting at the table with me. He is eating the same food as I am. 22 The Son of Man must die in the way that God says. But it will be very bad for the man who gives me to my enemies.’
23 The 12 apostles asked each other, ‘Who is the man that would do this thing?’
Jesus tells who is most important
24 Then the apostles began to argue among themselves. They were arguing about which of them seemed to be the most important. 25 Jesus said to them, ‘Kings of other countries use great authority over their people. Leaders of those countries want people to say good things about them. 26 You must not be like that. The most important person among you must become like the least important person. The person who is your leader must become like your servant. 27 Tell me, which person is the more important one? Is it the person who sits at the table to eat? Or is it the servant that puts out the meal for him? Yes, it is the person who sits at the table. But I am here to be your servant.
28 You have never left me. You have been by my side when trouble came to me. 29 So now I tell you that you will rule with me. My Father has said that I will rule with him in his kingdom. I also say to you that you will rule with me. 30 In my kingdom you will sit at my table. You will eat and drink with me. You will sit like kings on thrones. You will judge the people of the 12 tribes of Israel.’
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