Book of Common Prayer
A Hymn About the Lord’s Power
97 The Lord is king. Let the earth rejoice;
faraway lands should be glad.
2 Thick, dark clouds surround him.
His kingdom is built on what is right and fair.
3 A fire goes before him
and burns up his enemies all around.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
when the people see it, they tremble.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens tell about his goodness,
and all the people see his glory.
7 Those who worship idols should be ashamed;
they brag about their gods.
All the gods should worship the Lord.
8 When Jerusalem hears this, she is glad,
and the towns of Judah rejoice.
They are happy because of your judgments, Lord.
9 You are the Lord Most High over all the earth;
you are supreme over all gods.
10 People who love the Lord hate evil.
The Lord watches over those who follow him
and frees them from the power of the wicked.
11 Light shines on those who do right;
joy belongs to those who are honest.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you who do right.
Praise his holy name.
The Lord, the Fair and Holy King
99 The Lord is king.
Let the peoples shake with fear.
He sits between the gold creatures with wings.
Let the earth shake.
2 The Lord in Jerusalem is great;
he is supreme over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your name;
it is great, holy and to be feared.
4 The King is powerful and loves justice.
Lord, you made things fair;
you have done what is fair and right
for the people of Jacob.
5 Praise the Lord our God,
and worship at the Temple, his footstool.
He is holy.
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
and Samuel was among his worshipers.
They called to the Lord,
and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud.
They kept the rules and laws he gave them.
8 Lord our God, you answered them.
You showed them that you are a forgiving God,
but you punished them for their wrongs.
9 Praise the Lord our God,
and worship at his holy mountain,
because the Lord our God is holy.
A Call to Praise the Lord
A psalm of thanks.
100 Shout to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Serve the Lord with joy;
come before him with singing.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, the sheep he tends.
4 Come into his city with songs of thanksgiving
and into his courtyards with songs of praise.
Thank him and praise his name.
5 The Lord is good. His love is forever,
and his loyalty goes on and on.
God Will Pay Back His Enemies
94 The Lord is a God who punishes.
God, show your greatness and punish!
2 Rise up, Judge of the earth,
and give the proud what they deserve.
3 How long will the wicked be happy?
How long, Lord?
4 They are full of proud words;
those who do evil brag about what they have done.
5 Lord, they crush your people
and make your children suffer.
6 They kill widows and foreigners
and murder orphans.
7 They say, “The Lord doesn’t see;
the God of Jacob doesn’t notice.”
8 You stupid ones among the people, pay attention.
You fools, when will you understand?
9 Can’t the creator of ears hear?
Can’t the maker of eyes see?
10 Won’t the one who corrects nations punish you?
Doesn’t the teacher of people know everything?
11 The Lord knows what people think.
He knows their thoughts are just a puff of wind.
12 Lord, those you correct are happy;
you teach them from your law.
13 You give them rest from times of trouble
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 The Lord won’t leave his people
nor give up his children.
15 Judgment will again be fair,
and all who are honest will follow it.
16 Who will help me fight against the wicked?
Who will stand with me against those who do evil?
17 If the Lord had not helped me,
I would have died in a minute.
18 I said, “I am about to fall,”
but, Lord, your love kept me safe.
19 I was very worried,
but you comforted me and made me happy.
20 Crooked leaders cannot be your friends.
They use the law to cause suffering.
21 They join forces against people who do right
and sentence to death the innocent.
22 But the Lord is my defender;
my God is the rock of my protection.
23 God will pay them back for their sins
and will destroy them for their evil.
The Lord our God will destroy them.
A Call to Praise and Obedience
95 Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord.
Let’s shout praises to the Rock who saves us.
2 Let’s come to him with thanksgiving.
Let’s sing songs to him,
3 because the Lord is the great God,
the great King over all gods.
4 The deepest places on earth are his,
and the highest mountains belong to him.
5 The sea is his because he made it,
and he created the land with his own hands.
6 Come, let’s worship him and bow down.
Let’s kneel before the Lord who made us,
7 because he is our God
and we are the people he takes care of,
the sheep that he tends.
Today listen to what he says:
8 “Do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day at Massah in the desert.
9 There your ancestors tested me
and tried me even though they saw what I did.
10 I was angry with those people for forty years.
I said, ‘They are not loyal to me
and have not understood my ways.’
11 I was angry and made a promise,
‘They will never enter my rest.’”
Jacob Runs Away
31 One day Jacob heard Laban’s sons talking. They said, “Jacob has taken everything our father owned, and in this way he has become rich.” 2 Then Jacob noticed that Laban was not as friendly as he had been before. 3 The Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land where your ancestors lived, and I will be with you.”
4 So Jacob told Rachel and Leah to meet him in the field where he kept his flocks. 5 He said to them, “I have seen that your father is not as friendly with me as he used to be, but the God of my father has been with me. 6 You both know that I have worked as hard as I could for your father, 7 but he cheated me and changed my pay ten times. But God has not allowed your father to harm me. 8 When Laban said, ‘You can have all the speckled animals as your pay,’ all the animals gave birth to speckled young ones. But when he said, ‘You can have all the streaked animals as your pay,’ all the flocks gave birth to streaked babies. 9 So God has taken the animals away from your father and has given them to me.
10 “I had a dream during the season when the flocks were mating. I saw that the only male goats who were mating were streaked, speckled, or spotted. 11 The angel of God spoke to me in that dream and said, ‘Jacob!’ I answered, ‘Yes!’ 12 The angel said, ‘Look! Only the streaked, speckled, or spotted male goats are mating. I have seen all the wrong things Laban has been doing to you. 13 I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, where you poured olive oil on the stone you set up on end and where you made a promise to me. Now I want you to leave here and go back to the land where you were born.’”
14 Rachel and Leah answered Jacob, “Our father has nothing to give us when he dies. 15 He has treated us like strangers. He sold us to you, and then he spent all of the money you paid for us. 16 God took all this wealth from our father, and now it belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you to do.”
17 So Jacob put his children and his wives on camels, 18 and they began their journey back to Isaac, his father, in the land of Canaan. All the flocks of animals that Jacob owned walked ahead of them. He carried everything with him that he had gotten while he lived in Northwest Mesopotamia.
19 While Laban was gone to cut the wool from his sheep, Rachel stole the idols that belonged to him. 20 And Jacob tricked Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was leaving. 21 Jacob and his family left quickly, crossed the Euphrates River, and traveled toward the mountains of Gilead.
22 Three days later Laban learned that Jacob had run away, 23 so he gathered his relatives and began to chase him. After seven days Laban found him in the mountains of Gilead. 24 That night God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream and said, “Be careful! Do not say anything to Jacob, good or bad.”
Jesus Is Our Helper
2 My dear children, I write this letter to you so you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a helper in the presence of the Father—Jesus Christ, the One who does what is right. 2 He died in our place to take away our sins, and not only our sins but the sins of all people.
3 We can be sure that we know God if we obey his commands. 4 Anyone who says, “I know God,” but does not obey God’s commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if someone obeys God’s teaching, then in that person God’s love has truly reached its goal. This is how we can be sure we are living in God: 6 Whoever says that he lives in God must live as Jesus lived.
The Command to Love Others
7 My dear friends, I am not writing a new command to you but an old command you have had from the beginning. It is the teaching you have already heard. 8 But also I am writing a new command to you, and you can see its truth in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.
9 Anyone who says, “I am in the light,”[a] but hates a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light and will not cause anyone to stumble in his faith. 11 But whoever hates a brother or sister is in darkness, lives in darkness, and does not know where to go, because the darkness has made that person blind.
18 These leaders did not believe that he had been blind and could now see again. So they sent for the man’s parents 19 and asked them, “Is this your son who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”
20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But we don’t know how he can now see. We don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the elders, who had already decided that anyone who said Jesus was the Christ would be avoided. 23 That is why his parents said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”
24 So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind. They said, “You should give God the glory by telling the truth. We know that this man is a sinner.”
25 He answered, “I don’t know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I see.”
26 They asked, “What did he do to you? How did he make you see again?”
27 He answered, “I already told you, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his followers, too?”
28 Then they insulted him and said, “You are his follower, but we are followers of Moses. 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”
30 The man answered, “This is a very strange thing. You don’t know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We all know that God does not listen to sinners, but he listens to anyone who worships and obeys him. 32 Nobody has ever heard of anyone giving sight to a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 They answered, “You were born full of sin! Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out.
Spiritual Blindness
35 When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, Jesus found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 He asked, “Who is the Son of Man, sir, so that I can believe in him?”
37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him. The Son of Man is the one talking with you.”
38 He said, “Lord, I believe!” Then the man worshiped Jesus.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world so that the world could be judged. I came so that the blind[a] would see and so that those who see will become blind.”
40 Some of the Pharisees who were nearby heard Jesus say this and asked, “Are you saying we are blind, too?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you keep saying you see, your guilt remains.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.