Book of Common Prayer

45 My heart is overflowing with a beautiful thought! I will write a lovely poem to the King, for I am as full of words as the speediest writer pouring out his story.

⁸ Your robes are perfumed with myrrh, aloes, and cassia. In your palaces of inlaid ivory, lovely music is being played for your enjoyment. ⁹ Kings’ daughters are among your concubines.^[a] Standing beside you is the queen, wearing jewelry of finest gold from Ophir.

^10-11 “I advise you, O daughter, not to fret about your parents in your homeland far away. Your royal husband delights in your beauty. Reverence him, for he is your lord. ¹² The people of Tyre, the richest people of our day, will shower you with gifts and entreat your favors.”

¹³ The bride,^[b] a princess, waits within her chamber, robed in beautiful clothing woven with gold. ¹⁴ Lovely^[c] she is, led beside her maids of honor to the king! ¹⁵ What a joyful, glad procession as they enter in the palace gates! ¹⁶ “Your sons will some day be kings like their father. They shall sit on thrones around the world!

¹⁷ “I will cause your name to be honored in all generations; the nations of the earth will praise you forever.”

47 Come, everyone, and clap for joy! Shout triumphant praises to the Lord! ² For the Lord, the God above all gods, is awesome beyond words; he is the great King of all the earth. ³ He subdues the nations before us ⁴ and will personally select his choicest blessings for his Jewish people^[a]—the very best for those he loves.

⁵ God has ascended with a mighty shout, with trumpets blaring. ^6-7 Sing out your praises to our God, our King. Yes, sing your highest praises to our King, the King of all the earth. Sing thoughtful praises! ⁸ He reigns above the nations, sitting on his holy throne. ⁹ The Gentile rulers of the world have joined with us in praising him—praising^[b] the God of Abraham—for the battle shields of all the armies of the world are his trophies. He is highly honored everywhere.

48 How great is the Lord! How much we should praise him. He lives upon Mount Zion in Jerusalem. ² What a glorious sight! See Mount Zion rising north of the city^[c] high above the plains for all to see—Mount Zion, joy of all the earth, the residence of the great King.

³ God himself is the defender of Jerusalem.^{[d] 4} The kings of the earth have arrived together to inspect the city. ⁵ They marvel at the sight and hurry home again, ⁶ afraid of what they have seen; they are filled with panic like a woman in travail! ⁷ For God destroys the mightiest warships with a breath of wind. ⁸ We have heard of the city’s glory—the city of our God, the Commander of the armies of heaven. And now we see it for ourselves! God has established Jerusalem forever.

⁹ Lord, here in your Temple we meditate upon your kindness and your love. ¹⁰ Your name is known throughout the earth, O God. You are praised everywhere for the salvation^[e] you have scattered throughout the world. ¹¹ O Jerusalem,^[f] rejoice! O people of Judah, rejoice! For God will see to it that you are finally treated fairly. ¹² Go, inspect the city! Walk around and count her many towers! ¹³ Note her walls and tour her palaces so that you can tell your children.

¹⁴ For this great God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide until we die.

25 Shortly afterwards Samuel died, and all Israel gathered for his funeral and buried him in his family plot at Ramah.

Meanwhile David went down to the wilderness of Paran. ² A wealthy man from Maon owned a sheep ranch there, near the village of Carmel. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and was at his ranch at this time for the sheepshearing. ³ His name was Nabal and his wife, a beautiful and very intelligent woman, was named Abigail. But the man, who was a descendant of Caleb, was uncouth, churlish, stubborn, and ill-mannered.

⁴ When David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep, ⁵ he sent ten of his young men to Carmel to give him this message: ⁶ “May God prosper you and your family and multiply everything you own. ⁷ I am told that you are shearing your sheep and goats. While your shepherds have lived among us, we have never harmed them, nor stolen anything from them the whole time they have been in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men and they will tell you whether or not this is true. Now I have sent my men to ask for a little contribution from you, for we have come at a happy time of holiday. Please give us a present of whatever is at hand.”

⁹ The young men gave David’s message to Nabal and waited for his reply.

¹⁰ “Who is this fellow David?” he sneered. “Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. ¹¹ Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I’ve slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a gang who comes from God knows where?”

¹² So David’s messengers returned and told him what Nabal had said.

¹³ “Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own. Four hundred of them started off with David and two hundred remained behind to guard their gear.

¹⁴ Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s men went and told Abigail, “David sent men from the wilderness to talk to our master, but he insulted them and railed at them. ^15-16 But David’s men were very good to us and we never suffered any harm from them; in fact, day and night they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep, and nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us. ¹⁷ You’d better think fast, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family—he’s such a stubborn lout that no one can even talk to him!”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurriedly took two hundred loaves of bread, two barrels of wine, five dressed sheep, two bushels of roasted grain, one hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes, and packed them onto donkeys.

¹⁹ “Go on ahead,” she said to her young men, “and I will follow.” But she didn’t tell her husband what she was doing. ²⁰ As she was riding down the trail on her donkey, she met David coming toward her.

²¹ David had been saying to himself, “A lot of good it did us to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness so that not one thing was lost or stolen, but he has repaid me bad for good. All that I get for my trouble is insults. ²² May God curse me if even one of his men remains alive by tomorrow morning!”

14 At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went together to the synagogue and preached with such power that many—both Jews and Gentiles—believed.

² But the Jews who spurned God’s message stirred up distrust among the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas, saying all sorts of evil things about them. ³ Nevertheless, they stayed there a long time, preaching boldly, and the Lord proved their message was from him by giving them power to do great miracles. ⁴ But the people of the city were divided in their opinion about them. Some agreed with the Jewish leaders, and some backed the apostles.

^5-6 When Paul and Barnabas learned of a plot to incite a mob of Gentiles, Jews, and Jewish leaders to attack and stone them, they fled for their lives, going to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, Derbe, and the surrounding area, ⁷ and preaching the Good News there.

⁸ While they were at Lystra, they came upon a man with crippled feet who had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. ⁹ He was listening as Paul preached, and Paul noticed him and realized he had faith to be healed. ¹⁰ So Paul called to him, “Stand up!” and the man leaped to his feet and started walking!

¹¹ When the listening crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted (in their local dialect, of course), “These men are gods in human bodies!” ¹² They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Jupiter, and that Paul, because he was the chief speaker, was Mercury! ¹³ The local priest of the Temple of Jupiter, located on the outskirts of the city, brought them cartloads of flowers and prepared to sacrifice oxen to them at the city gates before the crowds.

¹⁴ But when Barnabas and Paul saw what was happening, they ripped at their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting, ¹⁵ “Men! What are you doing? We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring you the Good News that you are invited to turn from the worship of these foolish things and to pray instead to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. ¹⁶ In bygone days he permitted the nations to go their own ways, ¹⁷ but he never left himself without a witness; there were always his reminders—the kind things he did such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and gladness.”

¹⁸ But even so, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them!

²¹ Then he asked them, “When someone lights a lamp, does he put a box over it to shut out the light? Of course not! The light couldn’t be seen or used. A lamp is placed on a stand to shine and be useful.

²² “All that is now hidden will someday come to light. ²³ If you have ears, listen! ²⁴ And be sure to put into practice what you hear. The more you do this, the more you will understand what I tell you. ²⁵ To him who has shall be given; from him who has not shall be taken away even what he has.

²⁶ “Here is another story illustrating what the Kingdom of God is like:

“A farmer sowed his field ²⁷ and went away, and as the days went by, the seeds grew and grew without his help. ²⁸ For the soil made the seeds grow. First a leaf blade pushed through, and later the heads of wheat formed, and finally the grain ripened, ²⁹ and then the farmer came at once with his sickle and harvested it.”

³⁰ Jesus asked, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story shall I use to illustrate it? ^31-32 It is like a tiny mustard seed! Though this is one of the smallest of seeds, yet it grows to become one of the largest of plants, with long branches where birds can build their nests and be sheltered.”

³³ He used many such illustrations to teach the people as much as they were ready to understand.^{[a] 34} In fact, he taught only by illustrations in his public teaching, but afterwards, when he was alone with his disciples, he would explain his meaning to them.