Book of Common Prayer
70 Rescue me, O God! Lord, hurry to my aid! 2-3 They are after my life and delight in hurting me. Confuse them! Shame them! Stop them! Don’t let them keep on mocking me! 4 But fill the followers of God with joy. Let those who love your salvation exclaim, “What a wonderful God he is!” 5 But I am in deep trouble. Rush to my aid, for only you can help and save me. O Lord, don’t delay.
71 Lord, you are my refuge! Don’t let me down! 2 Save me from my enemies, for you are just! Rescue me! Bend down your ear and listen to my plea and save me. 3 Be to me a great protecting Rock, where I am always welcome, safe from all attacks. For you have issued the order to save me. 4 Rescue me, O God, from these unjust and cruel men. 5 O Lord, you alone are my hope; I’ve trusted you from childhood. 6 Yes, you have been with me from birth and have helped me constantly—no wonder I am always praising you! 7 My success—at which so many stand amazed—is because you are my mighty protector. 8 All day long I’ll praise and honor you, O God, for all that you have done for me.
9 And now, in my old age, don’t set me aside. Don’t forsake me now when my strength is failing. 10 My enemies are whispering, 11 “God has forsaken him! Now we can get him. There is no one to help him now!” 12 O God, don’t stay away! Come quickly! Help! 13 Destroy them! Cover them with failure and disgrace—these enemies of mine.
14 I will keep on expecting you to help me. I praise you more and more. 15 I cannot count the times when you have faithfully rescued me from danger. I will tell everyone how good you are, and of your constant, daily care. 16 I walk in the strength of the Lord God. I tell everyone that you alone are just and good. 17 O God, you have helped me from my earliest childhood—and I have constantly testified to others of the wonderful things you do. 18 And now that I am old and gray, don’t forsake me. Give me time to tell this new generation (and their children too) about all your mighty miracles. 19 Your power and goodness, Lord, reach to the highest heavens. You have done such wonderful things. Where is there another God like you? 20 You have let me sink down deep in desperate problems. But you will bring me back to life again, up from the depths of the earth. 21 You will give me greater honor than before and turn again and comfort me.
22 I will praise you with music, telling of your faithfulness to all your promises, O Holy One of Israel. 23 I will shout and sing your praises for redeeming me. 24 I will talk to others all day long about your justice and your goodness. For all who tried to hurt me have been disgraced and dishonored.
74 O God, why have you cast us away forever? Why is your anger hot against us—the sheep of your own pasture? 2 Remember that we are your people—the ones you chose in ancient times from slavery and made the choicest of your possessions. You chose Jerusalem[a] as your home on earth!
3 Walk through the awful ruins of the city and see what the enemy has done to your sanctuary. 4 There they shouted their battle cry and erected their idols to flaunt their victory. 5-6 Everything lies in shambles like a forest chopped to the ground. They came with their axes and sledgehammers and smashed and chopped the carved paneling; 7 they set the sanctuary on fire, and razed it to the ground—your sanctuary, Lord. 8 “Let’s wipe out every trace of God,” they said, and went through the entire country burning down the assembly places where we worshiped you.
9-10 There is nothing left to show that we are your people. The prophets are gone, and who can say when it all will end? How long, O God, will you allow our enemies to dishonor your name? Will you let them get away with this forever? 11 Why do you delay? Why hold back your power? Unleash your fist and give them a final blow.
12 God is my King from ages past; you have been actively helping me everywhere throughout the land. 13-14 You divided the Red Sea with your strength; you crushed the sea god’s heads! You gave him to the desert tribes to eat! 15 At your command the springs burst forth to give your people water; and then you dried a path for them across the ever-flowing Jordan. 16 Day and night alike belong to you; you made the starlight and the sun. 17 All nature is within your hands; you make the summer and the winter too. 18 Lord, see how these enemies scoff at you. O Jehovah, an arrogant nation has blasphemed your name.
19 O Lord, save me! Protect your turtledove from the hawks.[b] Save your beloved people from these beasts. 20 Remember your promise! For the land is full of darkness and cruel men. 21 O Lord, don’t let your downtrodden people be constantly insulted. Give cause for these poor and needy ones to praise your name! 22 Arise, O God, and state your case against our enemies. Remember the insults these rebels have hurled against you all day long. 23 Don’t overlook the cursing of these enemies of yours; it grows louder and louder.
55 Say there! Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine and milk—it’s all free! 2 Why spend your money on food that doesn’t give you strength? Why pay for groceries that do you no good? Listen and I’ll tell you where to get good food that fattens up the soul!
3 Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, for the life of your soul is at stake. I am ready to make an everlasting covenant with you, to give you all the unfailing mercies and love that I had for King David.[a] 4 He proved my power by conquering foreign nations.[b] 5 You also will command the nations, and they will come running to obey, not because of your own power or virtue, but because I, the Lord your God, have glorified you.
6 Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call upon him now while he is near. 7 Let men cast off their wicked deeds; let them banish from their minds the very thought of doing wrong! Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy upon them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon! 8 This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours! 9 For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.
10 As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, 11 so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it. 12 You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills, the trees of the field—all the world around you—will rejoice. 13 Where once were thorns, fir trees will grow; where briars grew, the myrtle trees will sprout up. This miracle will make the Lord’s name very great and be an everlasting sign of God’s power and love.[c]
5 So Christ has made us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get all tied up again in the chains of slavery to Jewish laws and ceremonies. 2 Listen to me, for this is serious: if you are counting on circumcision and keeping the Jewish laws to make you right with God, then Christ cannot save you. 3 I’ll say it again. Anyone trying to find favor with God by being circumcised must always obey every other Jewish law or perish. 4 Christ is useless to you if you are counting on clearing your debt to God by keeping those laws; you are lost from God’s grace.
5 But we by the help of the Holy Spirit are counting on Christ’s death to clear away our sins and make us right with God. 6 And we to whom Christ has given eternal life don’t need to worry about whether we have been circumcised or not, or whether we are obeying the Jewish ceremonies or not; for all we need is faith working through love.
7 You were getting along so well. Who has interfered with you to hold you back from following the truth? 8 It certainly isn’t God who has done it, for he is the one who has called you to freedom in Christ. 9 But it takes only one wrong person among you to infect all the others.
10 I am trusting the Lord to bring you back to believing as I do about these things. God will deal with that person, whoever he is, who has been troubling and confusing you.
11 Some people even say that I myself am preaching that circumcision and Jewish laws are necessary to the plan of salvation. Well, if I preached that, I would be persecuted no more—for that message doesn’t offend anyone. The fact that I am still being persecuted proves that I am still preaching salvation through faith in the cross of Christ alone.
12 I only wish these teachers who want you to cut yourselves by being circumcised would cut themselves off from you and leave you alone![a]
13 For, dear brothers, you have been given freedom: not freedom to do wrong, but freedom to love and serve each other. 14 For the whole Law can be summed up in this one command: “Love others as you love yourself.” 15 But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always critical and catty, watch out! Beware of ruining each other.
27 Jesus and his disciples now left Galilee and went out to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along he asked them, “Who do the people think I am? What are they saying about me?”
28 “Some of them think you are John the Baptist,” the disciples replied, “and others say you are Elijah or some other ancient prophet come back to life again.”
29 Then he asked, “Who do you think I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” 30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone!
31 Then he began to tell them about the terrible things he would suffer,[a] and that he would be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the other Jewish leaders—and be killed, and that he would rise again three days afterwards. 32 He talked about it quite frankly with them, so Peter took him aside and chided him.[b] “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he told Jesus.
33 Jesus turned and looked at his disciples and then said to Peter very sternly, “Satan, get behind me! You are looking at this only from a human point of view and not from God’s.”
34 Then he called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen. “If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them, “you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely. 35 If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.
36 “And how does a man benefit if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process? 37 For is anything worth more than his soul? 38 And anyone who is ashamed of me and my message in these days of unbelief and sin, I, the Messiah,[c] will be ashamed of him when I return in the glory of my Father, with the holy angels.”
9 Jesus went on to say to his disciples, “Some of you who are standing here right now will live to see the Kingdom of God arrive in great power!”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.