Book of Common Prayer
David wrote this song for the music leader. Use special music.
Trust God for help
69 Please rescue me, God,
because the deep water has come up to my neck.
2 I will soon sink into deep mud.
There is no safe place to put my feet.
I am now in deep water,
and the floods pour over me.
3 I have shouted so much for help
that I am tired and weak.
My mouth is so dry that it hurts.
I have looked so long for help from you, my God,
that my eyes have become weak.
4 Very many people hate me with no good reason.
They are more than the number of hairs on my head!
My enemies are too strong for me.
They want to destroy me with their lies.
They make me give back to them
things that I did not take from them!
5 You know, God, that I do foolish things.
I cannot hide my sins from you.
6 My Lord, Almighty Lord, Israel's God,
do not let anyone who trusts you
become ashamed because of me.
Do not let anyone who serves you
become ashamed because of me.
7 Because I belong to you,
people insult me.
They make me feel ashamed.
8 I have become like a stranger to my brothers.
I am like a foreigner to my family.
9 My love for your house burns inside me like a fire.
Anybody who insults you,
is also insulting me!
10 When I weep and I stop eating food,
it causes people to insult me.
11 When I wear rough clothes to show that I am sad,
people laugh at me.
12 People who sit at the city gate talk about me.[a]
People who are drunk make songs
to sing about me.
13 But as for me, Lord,
I continue to pray to you.
Please answer me at the right time.
Be kind to me, God,
because of your faithful love.
Save me, as you have promised to do.
14 Save me out of the mud
and do not let me sink down into it.
Rescue me from the people that hate me.
Save me from the deep water.
15 Do not let the floods pour over me.
Do not let the deep sea cause me to drown.
Do not let me fall into the deep hole of death.
16 Please answer me, Lord,
because your faithful love is great.
Turn to hear me,
because you are so very kind.
17 Do not turn away from me, your servant.
I am in great trouble,
so please answer me very soon.
18 Come very near to me,
and make me safe.
Rescue me from my enemies.
19 God, you know that people are insulting me.
They laugh at me
to make me feel ashamed.
You can see what all my enemies are doing.
20 When they insult me,
it makes me very upset.
I feel helpless.
I hoped that someone would be kind and help me,
but there was nobody.
I wanted someone to comfort me,
but I did not find anyone.
21 Instead, my enemies put poison in my food.
When I was thirsty,
they gave me vinegar to drink.[b]
22 Please God, cause their feasts to become a trap for them.
Let it bring trouble to them and their friends.
23 Let their eyes be in the dark
so that they cannot see.
Let their bodies become weak.
24 Yes, punish them,
because you are so angry with them!
25 Let their homes become empty,
so that nobody lives in them any more.
26 Do this, because they chase after
the people that you have already punished.
They talk about the pain
of the people that you have hurt.
27 Make a note of all their sins.
Do not ever forgive them,
so that they are righteous.
28 Remove their names from the book of living people.
Do not write their names
on the list of righteous people.
29 But I have pain in my body
and trouble in my mind.
God, rescue me and keep me safe!
30 I will sing to praise God's name!
I will thank him because he is great!
31 That will please the Lord more
than if I offer him an ox,
or a great bull with horns.[c]
32 When humble people see it,
they will be very happy.
People who want to serve God
will become strong in their lives.
33 For the Lord listens to the prayers of poor people.
He does not forget to help his people
when they are prisoners.
34 Heaven and earth should praise him!
The seas and everything that lives in them
should praise him!
35 For God will rescue Zion's people.
He will build again Judah's cities.
Then his people will live there.
The land will belong to them again.
36 Then the descendants of his servants
will have the land for themselves.
The people who love God
will live there safely.
This is a psalm that Asaph wrote.
God has helped me to understand[a]
73 God is truly good to the people of Israel,
to people who want to serve him honestly.
2 But this is what happened to me:
I nearly slipped and fell over.
I could no longer stand properly.
3 When I saw that wicked people had plenty of things,
I was jealous of those proud people.
4 Their bodies are fat and strong,
and they feel no pain in their lives.
5 They do not have trouble like other people.
They seem to have no problems.
6 Their pride is like their necklace.
They like to be cruel,
as they like to wear clothes.
7 Their greedy eyes lead them into sin.
Their minds think of evil things to do.
8 They laugh at people
and they say bad things about them.
They proudly speak about cruel things
that they want to do to people.
9 They think that they rule in heaven,
as well as on the earth!
10 As a result, God's people become confused,
and they listen to them.
They think that everything is true
that those wicked people say.[b]
11 They say, ‘Does God really know what we do?
Does the Most High God know everything?’
12 Take a good look,
and see how wicked those people are!
They have no troubles,
and they become richer and richer.
13 I decided that I had tried to do what is right,
but it did not help me at all!
I had refused to do anything wrong,
for no good reason!
14 I had trouble each and every day.
Punishment came to me every morning!
15 If I had spoken aloud things like that,
I would have turned against your own people.
16 When I thought about all this,
it was so hard for me to understand.
17 But I went into your temple, God.
Then I understood what would happen
to wicked people in the end.
18 Yes, I realized that they are in a dangerous place,
where they will easily slip.
You will cause them to fall down to their death.
19 It will take just a moment to destroy them!
Great fear will sweep them away!
20 They will completely disappear,
like a dream disappears after you wake up.
Lord, when you decide to do something,
you will forget that they were there!
21 I was very upset,
and my thoughts were confused.
22 I was stupid,
and I did not understand you properly.
I was no better than an animal.
23 But I am always near to you.
You hold my right hand,
as my guide.
24 You teach me the right way to go,
and you will lead me to glory.[c]
25 You are the only one in heaven or on earth
that I need to help me.
You are the only one that I want.
26 My body and my mind may become weak,
but God will always keep me safe and strong.
27 Those people who stay far away from you will die.
You destroy everybody who turns away from you.
28 But as for me, it is good for me to stay near to God.
I have gone to the Almighty Lord
as the place where I can be safe.
I will tell people about the great things that you have done.
God promises to bless all the nations
56 This is what the Lord says:
‘Always be fair and do what is right.
Soon I will come to rescue you.
I will do what is right for my people.
2 God will bless the people who do what is right.
They must be careful to obey my laws.
They must respect the rules for the Sabbath day
and keep it special.
They must refuse to do anything that is evil.
3 When a foreigner decides to serve the Lord, he should not say, “The Lord will keep me separate from his own people.” A eunuch should not say, “I am no better than a dead tree.” ’
4 The Lord says this:
‘I will bless eunuchs who obey my laws.
They must respect the rules for Sabbath days.
They must choose to do what pleases me.
They must always obey my covenant with my people.
5 If they do that, I will give them a special place in my temple.
It will cause people to remember them.
Their name will continue in a better way
than through sons and daughters.
People will always honour their name.
Nobody will cut it off.[a]
6 I will also bless foreigners who decide to serve me.
They must be faithful to me as my servants.
They must respect the rules for the Sabbath day and keep it special.
They must always obey my covenant.
7 Then I will bring them to my holy mountain.[b]
I will make them happy in my house, where people pray to me.
I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices,
when they offer them to me on my altar.
People will call my temple,
“A house where people from all nations may pray.” ’[c]
8 The Almighty Lord is the one who brings together all the Israelite people who are in exile. He says, ‘I will continue to bring more people to join with them.’
16 So this is what I say: Let God's Spirit show you how to live in a good way. Then you will not do the wrong things that you may want to do, as people who are weak and human. 17 The things that you want to do as a weak person are opposite to the things that God's Spirit wants. The things that God's Spirit wants are the opposite of what we want as weak people. Our own thoughts fight against what God's Spirit wants us to do. As a result, you are not free to do the things that you really want to do. 18 But if God's Spirit leads you, then the rules of God's Law have no authority over you.
19 Everyone knows the kinds of bad things that weak people want to do. They have sex with people that they are not married to. They do things that are bad and disgusting. 20 They worship idols. They do magic to hurt people. They become enemies and they fight one another. They are jealous of other people. They become very angry. They want to please themselves and to be important. They cause trouble. They make people belong to different groups. 21 They want things that belong to other people. They are drunks. They have wild parties. And they like to do many other bad things like those. So I warn you again, as I have already warned you before. People who continue to do any of those bad things will not receive good things from God. God has prepared those good things for the people who belong to his kingdom.
22 But God's Spirit causes us to live in a different way. We love other people. We are happy and we have peace in our minds. We are patient, kind and good. People can trust us to do what is right. 23 We respect other people and we rule ourselves properly. God's Spirit helps us to live in that way. There is no law that says these things are wrong.
24 We belong to Christ. As a result, we no longer obey our wrong human thoughts. We stop doing the bad things that our thoughts want us to do. It is like we have killed those thoughts on the cross.
2 Six days after that, Jesus asked Peter, James and John to go with him. Jesus led them up a high mountain, where they were alone together. Peter, James and John saw Jesus change in front of them. 3 His clothes became very white; they were shining. They were a brighter white than anyone on earth could wash them. 4 Then Elijah and Moses appeared in front of the three disciples. Elijah and Moses were talking with Jesus.[a][b]
5 So Peter said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, it is good that we are here. Please let us build three huts. One hut will be for you. One hut will be for Moses. And one hut will be for Elijah.’ 6 Peter did not really know what to say. That was because the three disciples were very afraid.[c]
7 Then a cloud appeared and it covered them all. A voice spoke from the cloud and it said, ‘This is my Son, and I love him. Listen to him.’
8 At that moment, the three disciples looked around. They saw that nobody else was there now. Only Jesus was there with them.
9 While they were walking down the mountain, Jesus said to the three disciples, ‘You must not tell anyone now about the things that you have just seen. One day the Son of Man will become alive again after his death. Then you can tell people about these things.’ 10 The three disciples kept these words secret. But they talked together about the words, ‘become alive again after his death’. They asked each other, ‘What does this mean?’
11 Then the three disciples asked Jesus, ‘Why do the teachers of God's Law say that God's prophet Elijah must return first, before the Messiah comes?’
12 Jesus said to them, ‘Elijah does come first. He makes everything ready. But what is written in the Bible about the Son of Man? It says that people will cause him to suffer a lot. They will think that he is nothing.[d] 13 But I tell you that Elijah has already come.[e] People did to him everything that they wanted to do. The Bible already showed that those things would happen to him.’
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