Book of Common Prayer
80 O Shepherd of Israel who leads Israel like a flock; O God enthroned above the Guardian Angels, bend down your ear and listen as I plead. Display your power and radiant glory. 2 Let Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh see you rouse yourself and use your mighty power to rescue us.
3 Turn us again to yourself, O God. Look down on us in joy and love;[a] only then shall we be saved.
4 O Jehovah, God of heaven’s armies, how long will you be angry and reject our prayers? 5 You have fed us with sorrow and tears 6 and have made us the scorn of the neighboring nations. They laugh among themselves.
7 Turn us again to yourself, O God of Hosts. Look down on us in joy and love;[b] only then shall we be saved. 8 You brought us from Egypt as though we were a tender vine and drove away the heathen from your land and planted us. 9 You cleared the ground and tilled the soil, and we took root and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with our shadow; we were like the mighty cedar trees,[c] 11 covering the entire land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River. 12 But now you have broken down our walls, leaving us without protection. 13 The boar from the forest roots around us, and the wild animals feed on us.
14 Come back, we beg of you, O God of the armies of heaven, and bless us. Look down from heaven and see our plight and care for this your vine! 15 Protect what you yourself have planted, this son you have raised for yourself. 16 For we are chopped and burned by our enemies. May they perish at your frown. 17 Strengthen the man you love,[d] the son of your choice, 18 and we will never forsake you again. Revive us to trust in you.
19 Turn us again to yourself, O God of the armies of heaven. Look down on us, your face aglow with joy and love—only then shall we be saved.
77 I cry to the Lord; I call and call to him. Oh, that he would listen. 2 I am in deep trouble and I need his help so much. All night long I pray, lifting my hands to heaven, pleading. There can be no joy for me until he acts. 3 I think of God and moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. 4 I cannot sleep until you act. I am too distressed even to pray!
5 I keep thinking of the good old days of the past, long since ended. 6 Then my nights were filled with joyous songs. I search my soul and meditate upon the difference now. 7 Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be favorable? 8 Is his loving-kindness gone forever? Has his promise failed? 9 Has he forgotten to be kind to one so undeserving? Has he slammed the door in anger on his love? 10 And I said: This is my fate, that the blessings of God have changed to hate.[a] 11 I recall the many miracles he did for me so long ago. 12 Those wonderful deeds are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them.
13 O God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you? 14 You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.
15 You have redeemed us who are the sons of Jacob and of Joseph by your might. 16 When the Red Sea saw you, how it feared! It trembled to its depths! 17 The clouds poured down their rain, the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Your lightning flashed. 18 There was thunder in the whirlwind; the lightning lighted up the world! The earth trembled and shook.
19 Your road led by a pathway through the sea—a pathway no one knew was there! 20 You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.
79 O God, your land has been conquered by the heathen nations. Your Temple is defiled, and Jerusalem is a heap of ruins. 2 The bodies of your people lie exposed—food for birds and animals. 3 The enemy has butchered the entire population of Jerusalem; blood has flowed like water. No one is left even to bury them. 4 The nations all around us scoff. They heap contempt on us.
5 O Jehovah, how long will you be angry with us? Forever? Will your jealousy burn till every hope is gone? 6 Pour out your wrath upon the godless nations—not on us—on kingdoms that refuse to pray, that will not call upon your name! 7 For they have destroyed your people Israel, invading every home. 8 Oh, do not hold us guilty for our former sins! Let your tenderhearted mercies meet our needs, for we are brought low to the dust. 9 Help us, God of our salvation! Help us for the honor of your name. Oh, save us and forgive our sins. 10 Why should the heathen nations be allowed to scoff, “Where is their God?” Publicly avenge this slaughter of your people! 11 Listen to the sighing of the prisoners and those condemned to die. Demonstrate the greatness of your power by saving them. 12 O Lord, take sevenfold vengeance on these nations scorning you.
13 Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever and forever, praising your greatness from generation to generation.
58 Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast; tell my people of their sins! 2 Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and are so delighted to hear the reading of my laws—just as though they would obey them—just as though they don’t despise the commandments of their God! How anxious they are to worship correctly; oh, how they love the Temple services!
3 “We have fasted before you,” they say. “Why aren’t you impressed? Why don’t you see our sacrifices? Why don’t you hear our prayers? We have done much penance, and you don’t even notice it!” I’ll tell you why! Because you are living in evil pleasure even while you are fasting, and you keep right on oppressing your workers. 4 Look, what good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me. 5 Is this what I want—this doing of penance and bowing like reeds in the wind, putting on sackcloth and covering yourselves with ashes? Is this what you call fasting?
6 No, the kind of fast I want is that you stop oppressing those who work for you and treat them fairly and give them what they earn. 7 I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your own homes those who are helpless, poor, and destitute. Clothe those who are cold, and don’t hide from relatives who need your help.
8 If you do these things, God will shed his own glorious light upon you. He will heal you; your godliness will lead you forward, goodness will be a shield before you, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. 9 Then, when you call, the Lord will answer. “Yes, I am here,” he will quickly reply. All you need to do is to stop oppressing the weak and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors!
10 Feed the hungry! Help those in trouble! Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you shall be as bright as day. 11 And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy you with all good things, and keep you healthy too; and you will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. 12 Your sons will rebuild the long-deserted ruins of your cities, and you will be known as “The People Who Rebuild Their Walls and Cities.”
11 I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters! 12 Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save. 13 And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.
14 As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. 15 It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.
16 May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.
17 From now on please don’t argue with me about these things, for I carry on my body the scars of the whippings and wounds from Jesus’ enemies that mark me as his slave.
18 Dear brothers, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Sincerely, Paul
30-31 Leaving that region they traveled through Galilee where he tried to avoid all publicity in order to spend more time with his disciples, teaching them. He would say to them, “I, the Messiah, am going to be betrayed and killed and three days later I will return to life again.”
32 But they didn’t understand and were afraid to ask him what he meant.
33 And so they arrived at Capernaum. When they were settled in the house where they were to stay, he asked them, “What were you discussing out on the road?”
34 But they were ashamed to answer, for they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest!
35 He sat down and called them around him and said, “Anyone wanting to be the greatest must be the least—the servant of all!”
36 Then he placed a little child among them; and taking the child in his arms he said to them, 37 “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming my Father who sent me!”
38 One of his disciples, John, told him one day, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to cast out demons; but we told him not to, for he isn’t one of our group.”
39 “Don’t forbid him!” Jesus said. “For no one doing miracles in my name will quickly turn against me.[a] 40 Anyone who isn’t against us is for us. 41 If anyone so much as gives you a cup of water because you are Christ’s—I say this solemnly—he won’t lose his reward.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.