Book of Common Prayer
40 I waited patiently for God to help me; then he listened and heard my cry. 2 He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out from the bog and the mire, and set my feet on a hard, firm path, and steadied me as I walked along. 3 He has given me a new song to sing, of praises to our God. Now many will hear of the glorious things he did for me, and stand in awe before the Lord, and put their trust in him. 4 Many blessings are given to those who trust the Lord and have no confidence in those who are proud or who trust in idols.
5 O Lord my God, many and many a time you have done great miracles for us, and we are ever in your thoughts. Who else can do such glorious things? No one else can be compared with you. There isn’t time to tell of all your wonderful deeds.
6 It isn’t sacrifices and offerings that you really want from your people. Burnt animals bring no special joy to your heart. But you have accepted the offer of my lifelong service.[a] 7 Then I[b] said, “See, I have come, just as all the prophets foretold. 8 And I delight to do your will, my God, for your law is written upon my heart!”
9 I have told everyone the good news that you forgive people’s sins.[c] I have not been timid about it, as you well know, O Lord. 10 I have not kept this good news hidden in my heart, but have proclaimed your loving-kindness and truth to all the congregation.
11 O Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me! My only hope is in your love and faithfulness. 12 Otherwise I perish, for problems far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile my sins, too many to count, have all caught up with me, and I am ashamed to look up. My heart quails within me.
13 Please, Lord, rescue me! Quick! Come and help me! 14-15 Confuse them! Turn them around and send them sprawling—all these who are trying to destroy me. Disgrace these scoffers with their utter failure!
16 But may the joy of the Lord be given to everyone who loves him and his salvation. May they constantly exclaim, “How great God is!”
17 I am poor and weak, yet the Lord is thinking about me right now! O my God, you are my helper. You are my Savior; come quickly, and save me. Please don’t delay!
54 Written by David at the time the men of Ziph tried to betray him to Saul.
Come with great power,[a] O God, and save me! Defend me with your might! 2 Oh, listen to my prayer. 3 For violent men have risen against me—ruthless men who care nothing for God are seeking my life.
4 But God is my helper. He is a friend of mine![b] 5 He will cause the evil deeds of my enemies to boomerang upon them. Do as you promised and put an end to these wicked men, O God. 6 Gladly I bring my sacrifices to you; I will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 God has rescued me from all my trouble, and triumphed over my enemies.
51 Written after Nathan the prophet had come to inform David of God’s judgment against him because of his adultery with Bathsheba, and his murder of Uriah, her husband.
O loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon me and take away the awful stain of my transgressions. 2 Oh, wash me, cleanse me from this guilt. Let me be pure again. 3 For I admit my shameful deed—it haunts me day and night. 4 It is against you and you alone I sinned and did this terrible thing. You saw it all, and your sentence against me is just. 5 But I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 You deserve honesty from the heart; yes, utter sincerity and truthfulness. Oh, give me this wisdom.
7 Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood[a] and I shall be clean again. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 And after you have punished me, give me back my joy again. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins—erase them from your sight. 10 Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. 11 Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to other sinners, and they—guilty like me—will repent and return to you. 14-15 Don’t sentence me to death. O my God, you alone can rescue me. Then I will sing of your forgiveness,[b] for my lips will be unsealed—oh, how I will praise you.
16 You don’t want penance;[c] if you did, how gladly I would do it! You aren’t interested in offerings burned before you on the altar. 17 It is a broken spirit you want—remorse and penitence. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not ignore.
18 And Lord, don’t punish Israel for my sins—help your people and protect Jerusalem.[d]
19 And when my heart is right,[e] then you will rejoice in the good that I do and in the bullocks I bring to sacrifice upon your altar.
22 Joshua summoned their leaders and demanded, “Why have you lied to us by saying that you lived in a distant land, when you were actually living right here among us? 23 Now a curse shall be upon you! From this moment you must always furnish us with servants to chop wood and carry water for the service of our God.”
24 They replied, “We did it because we were told that Jehovah instructed his disciple Moses to conquer this entire land and destroy all the people living in it. So we feared for our lives because of you; that is why we have done it. 25 But now we are in your hands; you may do with us as you wish.”
26 So Joshua would not allow the people of Israel to kill them, 27 but they became woodchoppers and water-carriers for the people of Israel and for the altar of the Lord—wherever it would be built (for the Lord hadn’t yet told them where to build it). This arrangement is still in force at the time of this writing.
10 When Adoni-zedek, the king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured and destroyed Ai and had killed its king, the same as he had done at Jericho, and how the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were now their allies, 2 he was very frightened. For Gibeon was a great city—as great as the royal cities and much larger than Ai—and its men were known as hard fighters. 3 So King Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem sent messengers to several other kings: King Hoham of Hebron, King Piram of Jarmuth, King Japhia of Lachish, King Debir of Eglon.
4 “Come and help me destroy Gibeon,” he urged them, “for they have made peace with Joshua and the people of Israel.”
5 So these five Amorite kings combined their armies for a united attack on Gibeon. 6 The men of Gibeon hurriedly sent messengers to Joshua at Gilgal.
“Come and help your servants!” they demanded. “Come quickly and save us! For all the kings of the Amorites who live in the hills are here with their armies.”
7 So Joshua and the Israeli army left Gilgal and went to rescue Gibeon.
8 “Don’t be afraid of them,” the Lord said to Joshua, “for they are already defeated! I have given them to you to destroy. Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.”
9 Joshua traveled all night from Gilgal and took the enemy armies by surprise. 10 Then the Lord threw them into a panic so that the army of Israel slaughtered great numbers of them at Gibeon and chased the others all the way to Beth-horon and Azekah and Makkedah, killing them along the way. 11 And as the enemy was racing down the hill to Beth-horon, the Lord destroyed them with a great hailstorm that continued all the way to Azekah; in fact, more men died from the hail than by the swords of the Israelis.
12 As the men of Israel were pursuing and harassing the foe, Joshua prayed aloud, “Let the sun stand still over Gibeon, and let the moon stand in its place over the valley of Aijalon!”
13 And the sun and the moon didn’t move until the Israeli army had finished the destruction of its enemies! This is described in greater detail in The Book of Jashar. So the sun stopped in the heavens and stayed there for almost twenty-four hours! 14 There had never been such a day before, and there has never been another since, when the Lord stopped the sun and moon—all because of the prayer of one man. But the Lord was fighting for Israel. 15 (Afterwards Joshua and the Israeli army returned to Gilgal.)
14 I know that you are wise and good, my brothers, and that you know these things so well that you are able to teach others all about them. 15-16 But even so I have been bold enough to emphasize some of these points, knowing that all you need is this reminder from me; for I am, by God’s grace, a special messenger from Jesus Christ to you Gentiles, bringing you the Gospel and offering you up as a fragrant sacrifice to God; for you have been made pure and pleasing to him by the Holy Spirit. 17 So it is right for me to be a little proud of all Christ Jesus has done through me. 18 I dare not judge how effectively he has used others, but I know this: he has used me to win the Gentiles to God. 19 I have won them by my message and by the good way I have lived before them and by the miracles done through me as signs from God—all by the Holy Spirit’s power. In this way I have preached the full Gospel[a] of Christ all the way from Jerusalem clear over into Illyricum.
20 But all the while my ambition has been to go still farther, preaching where the name of Christ has never yet been heard, rather than where a church has already been started by someone else. 21 I have been following the plan spoken of in the Scriptures where Isaiah says that those who have never heard the name of Christ before will see and understand. 22 In fact, that is the very reason I have been so long in coming to visit you.
23 But now at last I am through with my work here, and I am ready to come after all these long years of waiting. 24 For I am planning to take a trip to Spain, and when I do, I will stop off there in Rome; and after we have had a good time together for a little while, you can send me on my way again.
27 When it was morning, the chief priests and Jewish leaders met again to discuss how to induce the Roman government to sentence Jesus to death.[a] 2 Then they sent him in chains to Pilate, the Roman governor.
3 About that time Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that Jesus had been condemned to die, changed his mind and deeply regretted what he had done,[b] and brought back the money to the chief priests and other Jewish leaders.
4 “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.”
“That’s your problem,” they retorted.
5 Then he threw the money onto the floor of the Temple and went out and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests picked the money up. “We can’t put it in the collection,” they said, “since it’s against our laws to accept money paid for murder.”
7 They talked it over and finally decided to buy a certain field where the clay was used by potters, and to make it into a cemetery for foreigners who died in Jerusalem. 8 That is why the cemetery is still called “The Field of Blood.”
9 This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah which says,
“They took the thirty pieces of silver—the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel— 10 and purchased a field from the potters as the Lord directed me.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.