Book of Common Prayer

David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judah wilderness.

A morning song^[a]

God rules the world^[a]

This is a song that David wrote.

The love of God^[a]

The Lord takes care of his people

8 Be careful to obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. If you do that, you will continue to live, and you will have many children. You will go into the land that the Lord your God promised to your ancestors. It will become your home. ² Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way across the desert. He took care of you for 40 years. He caused many troubles to come and to test you. He did that to see if you would trust him. He wanted to know whether you would continue to obey his commands. ³ He caused you to become hungry and then he fed you with manna.^[a] Neither you nor your ancestors had ever seen this food before. In this way, he taught you that food alone cannot cause people to live. They need to hear every word that the Lord speaks. That is what gives them true life.

⁴ During those 40 years in the desert, your clothes did not spoil. Your feet did not become big with pain. ⁵ You should realize that the Lord your God wants you to learn what is right. When he punishes you, he is warning you. That is what a parent does to teach his child. ⁶ So obey the Lord's commands. Live in a way that pleases him. Respect him with fear.

⁷ Remember that the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. It is a land that has many streams, pools and springs of water. There is water that runs in the valleys and in the hills. ^8-9 It is a land where you will have plenty of food to eat. There is wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey. You will have everything that you need. The rocks have iron in them. You can dig copper out of the hills. ¹⁰ You can eat all the food that you want. Then remember to thank the Lord your God for the good land that he has given to you.

¹⁷ Christ did not send me to baptize people. But he did send me to tell God's good news to people. When I speak his message, I do not use clever words. It is Christ's death on the cross that has power to save people. I do not want to spoil that power with clever words.

Christ's death on the cross

¹⁸ Some people think that the message about Christ's death on the cross is silly. Those people are destroying themselves. But it is different for us, the people that God is saving. The message about the cross shows us God's power to save us.

¹⁹ It says in the Bible:

²⁰ So the wise people in this world are not really important. The clever teachers of God's Law are not really important. People who know how to argue well are not really important. God has shown that the wise ideas that belong to this world have no value.

²¹ God himself is wise. He has decided that people cannot know him just because they are wise in their own way. Instead, God uses the message about Jesus to save people. That message may seem to be silly to some people. But when we tell it to people, God saves them if they believe it.

²² Jewish people want to see God do a miracle. Then they will listen. Gentile people want to listen to a message that has clever ideas. ²³ But as for us, we tell people about how Christ died on a cross. That is a message that Jewish people refuse to accept as true. Gentile people think that it is a silly message. ²⁴ But it is different for us whom God has called to come to him. Some of us are Jews, and some of us are Gentiles. For us, Christ shows God's great power. He shows how wise God is. ²⁵ Christ's death on a cross may seem a silly thing for God to do. But really it shows that God is very wise. He is wiser than people with their clever ideas. Christ's death on a cross may seem to show that God is weak. But really he is stronger than any human power.

²⁶ Christian friends, remember the time when God called you to come to him. Think about what you were like. Not many of you were clever or powerful in the way that people think is good. Not many of you belonged to important families. ²⁷ Instead, God chose to use things that people think are silly. He did this so that clever people would be ashamed. Yes, God chose to use things that people think are weak. He did this so that powerful people would be ashamed. ²⁸ God chose to use things that people think are useless. People who belong to this world do not like those things. They think that they have no value. God did this so that the things that seem important would become unimportant.

²⁹ Because of all this, nobody can be proud of themselves in front of God. ³⁰ It is because of God's work that you now belong to Christ Jesus. As a result of Christ's death on the cross, we share in God's wise plan. Because we belong to Christ, God makes us right with himself. He makes us his own special people. He makes us free from the power of sin.

³¹ Remember what is written in the Bible:

¹⁸ At this time, the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and they asked him this question: ‘The disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees often fast for a time. So why do your disciples never do that?’^[a]

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, ‘When a man marries, his friends cannot refuse to eat. They cannot fast while he is with them. ²⁰ But there will be a time when people will take the man away from his friends. At that time his friends will fast.’^[b]

²¹ Then Jesus said, ‘Nobody uses a piece of new cloth to mend an old coat. If he does, the new cloth will cause the old cloth to tear again. It will make a bigger hole than before. ²² And nobody pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does that, the new wine will tear the old wineskins. He will lose the wine and the wineskins will spoil. Instead, you must put new wine into new wineskins.’^[c]