Book of Common Prayer
Praise God Who Helps the Weak
146 Praise the Lord!
My whole being, praise the Lord.
2 I will praise the Lord all my life.
I will sing praises to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes
or other people, who cannot save you.
4 When people die, they are buried.
Then all of their plans come to an end.
5 Happy are those who are helped by the God of Jacob.
Their hope is in the Lord their God.
6 He made heaven and earth,
the sea and everything in it.
He remains loyal forever.
7 The Lord does what is fair for those who have been wronged.
He gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free.
8 The Lord gives sight to the blind.
The Lord lifts up people who are in trouble.
The Lord loves those who do right.
9 The Lord protects the foreigners.
He defends the orphans and widows.
But he overthrows the wicked.
10 The Lord will be King forever.
Jerusalem, your God is everlasting.
Praise the Lord!
Praise God Who Helps His People
147 Praise the Lord!
It is good to sing praises to our God.
It is good and pleasant to praise him.
2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem.
He brings back the scattered Israelites who were taken captive.
3 He heals the brokenhearted.
He bandages their wounds.
4 He counts the stars
and names each one.
5 Our Lord is great and very powerful.
There is no limit to what he knows.
6 The Lord defends those who are not proud.
But he throws the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing praises to the Lord.
Praise our God with harps.
8 He fills the sky with clouds.
He sends rain to the earth.
He makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives food to cattle
and to the little birds that call.
10 He is not pleased by the strength of a horse
or the power of a man.
11 The Lord is pleased with those who fear him,
with those who trust his love.
12 Jerusalem, praise the Lord.
Jerusalem, praise your God.
13 He makes your city gates strong.
He blesses the people inside.
14 He brings peace to your country.
He fills you with the finest grain.
15 He gives a command to the earth,
and it quickly obeys him.
16 He spreads the snow like wool.
He scatters the frost like ashes.
17 He throws down hail like rocks.
No one can stand the cold he sends.
18 Then he gives a command, and it melts.
He sends the breezes, and the waters flow.
19 He gave his word to Jacob.
He gave his laws and demands to Israel.
20 He didn’t do this for any other nation.
They don’t know his laws.
Praise the Lord!
Praise for God’s Goodness
111 Praise the Lord!
I will thank the Lord with all my heart
in the meeting of his good people.
2 The Lord does great things.
Those people who love them think about them.
3 What he does is glorious and splendid.
His goodness continues forever.
4 His miracles are unforgettable.
The Lord is kind and merciful.
5 He gives food to those who fear him.
He remembers his agreement forever.
6 He has shown his people his power
when he gave them the lands of other nations.
7 Everything he does is good and fair.
All his orders can be trusted.
8 They will continue forever.
They were made true and right.
9 He sets his people free.
He made his agreement everlasting.
He is holy and wonderful.
10 Wisdom begins with respect for the Lord.
Those who obey his orders have good understanding.
He should be praised forever.
Honest People Are Blessed
112 Praise the Lord!
Happy is the person who fears the Lord.
He loves what the Lord commands.
2 His descendants will be powerful in the land.
The children of honest people will be blessed.
3 His house will be full of wealth and riches.
His goodness will continue forever.
4 A light shines in the dark for honest people.
It shines for those who are good and kind and merciful.
5 It is good to be kind and generous.
Whoever is fair in his business
6 will never be defeated.
A good person will be remembered from now on.
7 He won’t be afraid of bad news.
He is safe because he trusts the Lord.
8 That person is confident. He will not be afraid.
He will look down on his enemies.
9 He gives freely to the poor.
The things he does are right and will continue forever.
He will be given great honor.
10 The wicked will see this and become angry.
They will grind their teeth in anger and then disappear.
The wishes of the wicked will come to nothing.
Praise for God’s Kindness
113 Praise the Lord!
Praise him, you servants of the Lord.
Praise the name of the Lord.
2 The Lord’s name should be praised
now and forever.
3 The Lord’s name should be praised
from where the sun rises to where it sets.
4 The Lord is supreme over all the nations.
His glory reaches to the skies.
5 No one is like the Lord our God.
He rules from heaven.
6 He bends down to look
at the skies and the earth.
7 The Lord lifts the poor from the dirt.
He takes the helpless from the ashes.
8 And he seats them with princes,
the princes of his people.
9 He gives children to the woman who has none.
He makes her a happy mother.
Praise the Lord!
David Counts His Army
24 The Lord was angry with Israel again. He caused David to turn against the Israelites. David said, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.”
2 King David spoke to Joab, the commander of the army. David said, “Go through all the tribes of Israel. Go from Dan to Beersheba[a] and count the people. Then I will know how many there are.”
10 David felt ashamed after he had counted the people. He said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done! Lord, I beg you, forgive my sin! I have been very foolish.”
11 Before David got up in the morning, the Lord spoke his word to Gad. He was a prophet and David’s seer. 12 The Lord told Gad, “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I offer you three choices. Choose one for me to do to you.’”
13 Gad went to David and told him. Gad said, “Choose one of these three things. Should three years of hunger come to you and your land? Or should your enemies chase you for three months? Or should there be three days of disease in your country? Think about it. Then decide which of these things I should tell the Lord who sent me.”
14 David said to Gad, “I am really in trouble. But the Lord is very merciful. So let the Lord punish us. Don’t let my punishment come from people!”
15 So the Lord sent disease on Israel. It began in the morning. And it continued until the chosen time to stop. From Dan to Beersheba 70,000 people died. 16 The angel raised his arm toward Jerusalem to destroy it also. But the Lord felt very sorry about the terrible things that had happened. He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “That’s enough! Put down your arm!” At this time the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17 David saw the angel that killed the people. Then he said to the Lord, “I’ve sinned! I’ve done wrong! But these people only followed me like sheep! They did nothing wrong! Please let your punishment be against me and my father’s family!”
18 That day Gad came to David. Gad told him, “Go and build an altar to the Lord. Build it on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David did what Gad told him to do. He obeyed the Lord’s command and went to see Araunah.
20 Araunah looked and saw the king and his servants coming to him. So he went out and bowed facedown on the ground. 21 He said, “Why has my master the king come to me?”
David answered, “To buy the threshing floor from you. I want to build an altar to the Lord. Then the disease will stop.”
22 Araunah said to David, “My master and king, you may take anything you want for a sacrifice. Here are some oxen for the whole burnt offering. Here are the threshing boards and the yokes for the wood! 23 My king, I give everything to you!” Araunah also said to the king, “May the Lord your God be pleased with you!”
24 But the king answered Araunah, “No. I will pay you for the land. I won’t offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings which cost me nothing!”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for one and one-fourth pounds of silver. 25 Then he built an altar to the Lord there. And he offered whole burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer for the country. And the disease in Israel stopped.
23 Before this faith came, we were all held prisoners by the law. We had no freedom until God showed us the way of faith that was coming. 24 So the law was our master until Christ came. After Christ came, we could be made right with God through faith. 25 Now the way of faith has come, and we no longer live under the law.
26-27 You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 28 Now, in Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Greek. There is no difference between slaves and free men. There is no difference between male and female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus. 29 You belong to Christ. So you are Abraham’s descendants. You get all of God’s blessings because of the promise that God made to Abraham.
4 I want to tell you this: While the one who will inherit his father’s property is still a child, he is no different from a slave. It does not matter that the child owns everything. 2 While he is a child, he must obey those who are chosen to care for him. But when the child reaches the age set by his father, he is free. 3 It is the same for us. We were once like children. We were slaves to the useless rules of this world. 4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son. His Son was born of a woman and lived under the law. 5 God did this so that he could buy freedom for those who were under the law. His purpose was to make us his children.
6 And you are God’s children. That is why God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. The Spirit cries out, “Father, dear Father.”[a] 7 So now you are not a slave; you are God’s child, and God will give you what he promised, because you are his child.
Jesus Is the Light of the World
12 Later, Jesus talked to the people again. He said, “I am the light of the world. The person who follows me will never live in darkness. He will have the light that gives life.”
13 But the Pharisees said to Jesus, “When you talk about yourself, you are the only one to say these things are true. We cannot accept these things you say.”
14 Jesus answered, “Yes, I am saying these things about myself, but they are true. I know where I came from. And I know where I am going. You don’t know where I came from or where I am going. 15 You judge me the way you would judge any man. I don’t judge anyone. 16 But if I judge, I judge truthfully. When I judge, I am not alone. The Father who sent me is with me. 17 Your own law says that when two witnesses say the same thing, then you must accept what they say. 18 I am one of the witnesses who speaks about myself. And the Father who sent me is my other witness.”
19 They asked, “Where is your father?”
Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father. But if you knew me, then you would know my Father, too.” 20 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the Temple. He was near the place where the money that the people give is kept. But no one arrested him. The right time for Jesus had not yet come.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.