Book of Common Prayer
72 O God, help the king to judge as you would, and help his son to walk in godliness. 2 Help him to give justice to your people, even to the poor. 3 May the mountains and hills flourish in prosperity because of his good reign. 4 Help him to defend the poor and needy and to crush their oppressors. 5 May the poor and needy revere you constantly, as long as sun and moon continue in the skies! Yes, forever!
6 May the reign of this son of mine[a] be as gentle and fruitful as the springtime rains upon the grass—like showers that water the earth! 7 May all good men flourish in his reign with abundance of peace to the end of time.
8 Let him reign from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth. 9 The desert nomads shall bow before him; his enemies shall fall face downward in the dust. 10 Kings along the Mediterranean coast—the kings of Tarshish and the islands—and those from Sheba and from Seba—all will bring their gifts. 11 Yes, kings from everywhere! All will bow before him! All will serve him!
12 He will take care of the helpless and poor when they cry to him; for they have no one else to defend them. 13 He feels pity for the weak and needy and will rescue them. 14 He will save them from oppression and from violence, for their lives are precious to him.
15 And he shall live; and to him will be given the gold of Sheba, and there will be constant praise for him.[b] His people will bless him all day long. 16 Bless us with abundant crops throughout the land, even on the highland plains; may there be fruit like that of Lebanon; may the cities be as full of people as the fields are of grass. 17 His name will be honored forever; it will continue as the sun; and all will be blessed in him; all nations will praise him.
18 Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel, who only does wonderful things! 19 Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen!
20 (This ends the psalms of David, son of Jesse.)
111 1-2 Hallelujah! I want to express publicly before his people my heartfelt thanks to God for his mighty miracles. All who are thankful should ponder them with me. 3 For his miracles demonstrate his honor, majesty, and eternal goodness.
4 Who can forget the wonders he performs—deeds of mercy and of grace? 5 He gives food to those who trust him; he never forgets his promises. 6 He has shown his great power to his people by giving them the land of Israel, though it was the home of many nations living there. 7 All he does is just and good, and all his laws are right, 8 for they are formed from truth and goodness and stand firm forever. 9 He has paid a full ransom for his people; now they are always free to come to Jehovah (what a holy, awe-inspiring name that is).
10 How can men be wise? The only way to begin is by reverence for God. For growth in wisdom comes from obeying his laws. Praise his name forever.
113 Hallelujah! O servants of Jehovah, praise his name. 2 Blessed is his name forever and forever. 3 Praise him from sunrise to sunset! 4 For he is high above the nations; his glory is far greater than the heavens.
5 Who can be compared with God enthroned on high? 6 Far below him are the heavens and the earth; he stoops to look, 7 and lifts the poor from the dirt and the hungry from the garbage dump, 8 and sets them among princes! 9 He gives children to the childless wife, so that she becomes a happy mother.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.
9 “Who does Isaiah think he is,” the people say, “to speak to us like this! Are we little children, barely old enough to talk? 10 He tells us everything over and over again, a line at a time and in such simple words!”
11 But they won’t listen; the only language they can understand is punishment! So God will punish them by sending against them foreigners who speak strange gibberish! Only then will they listen to him! 12 They could have rest in their own land if they would obey him, if they were kind and good. He told them that, but they wouldn’t listen to him. 13 So the Lord will spell it out for them again, repeating it over and over in simple words whenever he can; yet over this simple, straightforward message they will stumble and fall and be broken, trapped and captured.
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffing rulers in Jerusalem:
15 You have struck a bargain with death, you say, and sold yourselves to the devil[a] in exchange for his protection against the Assyrians. “They can never touch us,” you say, “for we are under the care of one who will deceive and fool them.”
16 But the Lord God says, “See, I am placing a Foundation Stone in Zion—a firm, tested, precious Cornerstone that is safe to build on. He who believes need never run away again. 17 I will take the line and plummet of justice to check the foundation wall you built; it looks so fine, but it is so weak a storm of hail will knock it down! The enemy will come like a flood and sweep it away, and you will be drowned. 18 I will cancel your agreement of compromise with death and the devil, so when the terrible enemy floods in, you will be trampled into the ground. 19 Again and again that flood will come and carry you off, until at last the unmixed horror of the truth of my warnings will finally dawn on you.”
20 The bed you have made is far too short to lie on; the blankets are too narrow to cover you. 21 The Lord will come suddenly and in anger, as at Mount Perazim and Gibeon, to do a strange, unusual thing—to destroy his own people! 22 So scoff no more, lest your punishment be made even greater, for the Lord God has plainly told me that he is determined to crush you.
9 Then one of the seven angels who had emptied the flasks containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come with me and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”
10 In a vision he took me to a towering mountain peak, and from there I watched that wondrous city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of the skies from God. 11 It was filled with the glory of God and flashed and glowed like a precious gem, crystal clear like jasper. 12 Its walls were broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. 13 There were three gates on each side—north, south, east, and west. 14 The walls had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel held in his hand a golden measuring stick to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 When he measured it, he found it was a square as wide as it was long; in fact it was in the form of a cube, for its height was exactly the same as its other dimensions—1,500 miles each way. 17 Then he measured the thickness of the walls and found them to be 216 feet across (the angel called out these measurements to me, using standard units).[a]
18-20 The city itself was pure, transparent gold like glass! The wall was made of jasper, and was built on twelve layers of foundation stones inlaid with gems: the first layer[b] with jasper; the second with sapphire; the third with chalcedony; the fourth with emerald; the fifth with sardonyx; the sixth layer with sardus; the seventh with chrysolite; the eighth with beryl; the ninth with topaz; the tenth with chrysoprase; the eleventh with jacinth; the twelfth with amethyst.
21 The twelve gates were made of pearls—each gate from a single pearl! And the main street was pure, transparent gold, like glass.
26 The following month God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin, Mary, engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Congratulations, favored lady! The Lord is with you!”[a]
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.
30 “Don’t be frightened, Mary,” the angel told her, “for God has decided to wonderfully bless you! 31 Very soon now, you will become pregnant and have a baby boy, and you are to name him ‘Jesus.’ 32 He shall be very great and shall be called the Son of God. And the Lord God shall give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he shall reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom shall never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of God shall overshadow you; so the baby born to you will be utterly holy—the Son of God. 36 Furthermore, six months ago your Aunt[b] Elizabeth—‘the barren one,’ they called her—became pregnant in her old age! 37 For every promise from God shall surely come true.”
38 Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant, and I am willing to do whatever he wants. May everything you said come true.” And then the angel disappeared.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.