Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and cried
as we remembered Zion.
2 We hung our lyres on willow trees.
3 It was there that those who had captured us demanded that we sing.
Those who guarded us wanted us to entertain them.
They said, “Sing a song from Zion for us!”
4 How could we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget how to play the lyre.
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I don’t remember you,
if I don’t consider Jerusalem my highest joy.
7 O Yahweh, remember the people of Edom.
Remember what they did the day Jerusalem was captured.
They said, “Tear it down! Tear it down to its foundation.”
8 You destructive people of Babylon,
blessed is the one who pays you back
with the same treatment you gave us.
9 Blessed is the one who grabs your little children
and smashes them against a rock.
Psalm 144
By David.
1 Thank Yahweh, my Tsur,
who trained my hands to fight
and my fingers to do battle,
2 my merciful one, my Metsuda,
my stronghold, and my savior,
my Magen, the one in whom I take refuge,
and the one who brings people under my authority.
3 O Yahweh, what are humans that you should care about them?
What are mere mortals that you should think about them?
4 Humans are like a breath of air.
Their life span is like a fleeting shadow.
5 O Yahweh, bend your heaven low, and come down.
Touch the mountains, and they will smoke.
6 Hurl bolts of lightning, and scatter them.
Shoot your arrows, and throw them into confusion.
7 Stretch out your hands from above.
Snatch me, and rescue me from raging waters
and from foreigners’ hands.
8 Their mouths speak lies.
Their right hands take false pledges.
9 O Elohim, I will sing a new song to you.
I will sing a psalm to you on a ten-stringed harp.
10 You are the one who gives victory to kings.
You are the one who snatches your servant David
away from a deadly sword.
11 Snatch me, and rescue me from foreigners’ hands.
Their mouths speak lies.
Their right hands take false pledges.
12 May our sons be like full-grown, young plants.
May our daughters be like stately columns
that adorn the corners of a palace.
13 May our barns be filled with all kinds of crops.
May our sheep give birth to thousands of lambs,
tens of thousands in our fields.
14 May our cattle have many calves.[a]
May no one break in, and may no one be dragged out.
May there be no cries of distress in our streets.
15 Blessed are the people who have these blessings!
Blessed are the people whose Elohim is Yahweh!
BOOK TWO
(Psalms 42–72)
Psalm 42
For the choir director; a maskil[a] by Korah’s descendants.
1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O Elohim.
2 My soul thirsts for Elohim, for El Chay.
When may I come to see Elohim’s face?
3 My tears are my food day and night.
People ask me all day long, “Where is your Elohim?”
4 I will remember these things as I pour out my soul:
how I used to walk with the crowd
and lead it in a procession to Elohim’s house.
I sang songs of joy and thanksgiving
while crowds of people celebrated a festival.
5 Why are you discouraged, my soul?
Why are you so restless?
Put your hope in Elohim,
because I will still praise him.
He is my savior and my Elohim.
6 My soul is discouraged.
That is why I will remember you
in the land of Jordan, on the peaks of Hermon, on Mount Mizar.
7 One deep sea calls to another at the roar of your waterspouts.
All the whitecaps on your waves have swept over me.[b]
8 Yahweh commands his mercy during the day,
and at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the El of my life.
9 I will ask Elohim, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk around in mourning
while the enemy oppresses me?”
10 With a shattering blow to my bones,
my enemies taunt me.
They ask me all day long, “Where is your Elohim?”
11 Why are you discouraged, my soul?
Why are you so restless?
Put your hope in Elohim,
because I will still praise him.
He is my savior and my Elohim.
Psalm 43
1 Judge me, O Elohim,
and plead my case against an ungodly nation.
Rescue me from deceitful and unjust people.
2 You are my fortress, O Elohim!
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I walk around in mourning
while the enemy oppresses me?
3 Send your light and your truth.
Let them guide me.
Let them bring me to your holy mountain
and to your dwelling place.
4 Then let me go to the altar of Elohim, to God my highest joy,
and I will give thanks to you on the lyre, O Elohim, my Elohim.
5 Why are you discouraged, my soul?
Why are you so restless?
Put your hope in Elohim,
because I will still praise him.
He is my savior and my Elohim.
27 “The days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will plant the nations of Israel and Judah with people and animals. 28 Once I watched over them to uproot them, to tear them down, and to wreck, ruin, and hurt them. Now I will watch over them to build them up and to plant them,” declares Yahweh. 29 “When those days come, people will no longer say, ‘Fathers have eaten sour grapes, and their children’s teeth are set on edge.’ 30 But each person will die for his own sin. Whoever eats sour grapes will have his own teeth set on edge.
The New Promise
31 “The days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will make a new promise[a] to Israel and Judah. 32 It will not be like the promise that I made to their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of Egypt. They rejected that promise, although I was a husband to them,” declares Yahweh. 33 “But this is the promise that I will make to Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put my teachings inside them, and I will write those teachings on their hearts. I will be their Elohim, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will each person teach his neighbors or his relatives by saying, ‘Know Yahweh.’ All of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” declares Yahweh, “because I will forgive their wickedness and I will no longer hold their sins against them.”
25 Brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery so that you won’t become arrogant. The minds of some Israelites have become closed until all of God’s non-Jewish people are included. 26 In this way Israel as a whole will be saved, as Scripture says,
“The Savior will come from Zion.
He will remove godlessness from Jacob.
27 My promise[a] to them will be fulfilled
when I take away their sins.”
28 The Good News made the Jewish people enemies because of you. But by God’s choice they are loved because of their ancestors. 29 God never changes his mind when he gives gifts or when he calls someone. 30 In the past, you disobeyed God. But now God has been merciful to you because of the disobedience of the Jewish people. 31 In the same way, the Jewish people have also disobeyed so that God may be merciful to them as he was to you. 32 God has placed all people into the prison of their own disobedience so that he could be merciful to all people.
33 God’s riches, wisdom, and knowledge are so deep
that it is impossible to explain his decisions
or to understand his ways.
34 “Who knows how the Lord thinks?
Who can become his adviser?”
35 Who gave the Lord something
which the Lord must pay back?
36 Everything is from him and by him and for him.
Glory belongs to him forever! Amen!
28 After Martha had said this, she went back home and whispered to her sister Mary, “The teacher is here, and he is calling for you.”
29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Yeshua. 30 (Yeshua had not yet come into the village but was still where Martha had met him.) 31 The Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave. So they followed her. They thought that she was going to the tomb to cry. 32 When Mary arrived where Yeshua was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33 When Yeshua saw her crying, and the Jews who were crying with her, he was deeply moved and troubled.
34 So Yeshua asked, “Where did you put Lazarus?”
They answered him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Yeshua cried. 36 The Jews said, “See how much Yeshua loved him.” 37 But some of the Jews asked, “Couldn’t this man who gave a blind man sight keep Lazarus from dying?”
38 Deeply moved again, Yeshua went to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone covering the entrance. 39 Yeshua said, “Take the stone away.”
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told Yeshua, “Lord, there must already be a stench. He’s been dead for four days.”
40 Yeshua said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see God’s glory?” 41 So the stone was moved away from the entrance of the tomb.
Yeshua looked up and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. 42 I’ve known that you always hear me. However, I’ve said this so that the crowd standing around me will believe that you sent me.” 43 After Yeshua had said this, he shouted as loudly as he could, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 The dead man came out. Strips of cloth were wound around his feet and hands, and his face was wrapped with a handkerchief. Yeshua told them, “Free Lazarus, and let him go.”
37 Although they had seen Yeshua perform so many miracles, they wouldn’t believe in him. 38 In this way the words of the prophet Isaiah came true:
“Lord, who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord’s power been revealed?”
39 So the people couldn’t believe because, as Isaiah also said,
40 “God blinded them
and made them close-minded
so that their eyes don’t see
and their minds don’t understand.
And they never turn to me for healing!”
41 Isaiah said this because he had seen Yeshua’s glory and had spoken about him.
42 Many rulers believed in Yeshua. However, they wouldn’t admit it publicly because the Pharisees would have thrown them out of the synagogue. 43 They were more concerned about what people thought of them than about what God thought of them.
44 Then Yeshua said loudly, “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me. 45 Whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. 46 I am the light that has come into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not live in the dark. 47 If anyone hears my words and doesn’t follow them, I don’t condemn them. I didn’t come to condemn the world but to save the world. 48 Those who reject me by not accepting what I say have a judge appointed for them. The words that I have spoken will judge them on the last day. 49 I have not spoken on my own. Instead, the Father who sent me told me what I should say and how I should say it. 50 I know that what he commands is eternal life. Whatever I say is what the Father told me to say.”
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.