Book of Common Prayer
33 He dries up rivers 34 and turns the good land of the wicked into deserts of salt. 35 Again, he turns deserts into fertile, watered valleys. 36 He brings the hungry to settle there and build their cities, 37 to sow their fields and plant their vineyards, and reap their bumper crops! 38 How he blesses them! They raise big families there and many cattle.
39 But others become poor through oppression, trouble, and sorrow. 40 For God pours contempt upon the haughty and causes princes to wander among ruins; 41 but he rescues the poor who are godly and gives them many children and much prosperity. 42 Good men everywhere will see it and be glad, while evil men are stricken silent.
43 Listen, if you are wise, to what I am saying. Think about the loving-kindness of the Lord!
108 O God, my heart is ready to praise you! I will sing and rejoice before you.
2 Wake up, O harp and lyre! We will meet the dawn with song. 3 I will praise you everywhere around the world, in every nation. 4 For your loving-kindness is great beyond measure, high as the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches the skies. 5 His glory is far more vast than the heavens. It towers above the earth. 6 Hear the cry of your beloved child—come with mighty power and rescue me.
7 God has given sacred promises; no wonder I exult! He has promised to give us all the land of Shechem and also Succoth Valley. 8 “Gilead is mine to give to you,” he says, “and Manasseh as well; the land of Ephraim is the helmet on my head. Judah is my scepter. 9 But Moab and Edom are despised;[a] and I will shout in triumph over the Philistines.”
10 Who but God can give me strength to conquer these fortified cities? Who else can lead me into Edom?
11 Lord, have you thrown us away? Have you deserted our army? 12 Oh, help us fight against our enemies, for men are useless allies. 13 But with the help of God we shall do mighty acts of valor. For he treads down our foes.
33 Let all the joys of the godly well up in praise to the Lord, for it is right to praise him. 2 Play joyous melodies of praise upon the lyre and on the harp. 3 Compose new songs of praise to him, accompanied skillfully on the harp; sing joyfully.
4 For all God’s words are right, and everything he does is worthy of our trust. 5 He loves whatever is just and good; the earth is filled with his tender love. 6 He merely spoke, and the heavens were formed and all the galaxies of stars. 7 He made the oceans, pouring them into his vast reservoirs.
8 Let everyone in all the world—men, women, and children—fear the Lord and stand in awe of him. 9 For when he but spoke, the world began! It appeared at his command! 10 And with a breath he can scatter the plans of all the nations who oppose him, 11 but his own plan stands forever. His intentions are the same for every generation.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen as his own. 13-15 The Lord gazes down upon mankind from heaven where he lives. He has made their hearts and closely watches everything they do.
16-17 The best-equipped army cannot save a king—for great strength is not enough to save anyone. A war horse is a poor risk for winning victories—it is strong, but it cannot save.
18-19 But the eyes of the Lord are watching over those who fear him, who rely upon his steady love. He will keep them from death even in times of famine! 20 We depend upon the Lord alone to save us. Only he can help us; he protects us like a shield. 21 No wonder we are happy in the Lord! For we are trusting him. We trust his holy name. 22 Yes, Lord, let your constant love surround us, for our hopes are in you alone.
21 And this is my reply to King Sennacherib: The virgin daughter of Zion isn’t afraid of you! The daughter of Jerusalem scorns and mocks at you. 22 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And toward whom have you felt so cocky? It is the Holy One of Israel!
23 “‘You have boasted, “My chariots have conquered the highest mountains, yes, the peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down the tallest cedars and choicest cypress trees and have conquered the farthest borders. 24 I have been refreshed at many conquered wells, and I destroyed the strength of Egypt just by walking by!”
25 “‘Why haven’t you realized long before this that it is I, the Lord, who lets you do these things? I decreed your conquest of all those fortified cities! 26 So of course the nations you conquered had no power against you! They were like grass shriveling beneath the hot sun, and like grain blighted before it is half grown. 27 I know everything about you. I know all your plans and where you are going next; and I also know the evil things you have said about me. 28 And because of your arrogance against me, I am going to put a hook in your nose and a bridle in your mouth and turn you back on the road by which you came. 29 And this is the proof that I will do as I have promised: This year my people will eat the volunteer wheat and use it as seed for next year’s crop; and in the third year they will have a bountiful harvest.
30 “‘O my people Judah, those of you who have escaped the ravages of the siege shall become a great nation again; you shall be rooted deeply in the soil and bear fruit for God. 31 A remnant of my people shall become strong in Jerusalem. The Lord is eager to cause this to happen.
32 “‘And my command concerning the king of Assyria is that he shall not enter this city. He shall not stand before it with a shield, nor build a ramp against its wall, nor even shoot an arrow into it. 33 He shall return by the road he came, 34 for I will defend and save this city for the sake of my own name and for the sake of my servant David.’”
35 That very night the Angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian troops, and dead bodies were seen all across the landscape in the morning.
36 Then King Sennacherib returned to Nineveh;
10 For we must never forget, dear brothers, what happened to our people in the wilderness long ago. God guided them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them; and he brought them all safely through the waters of the Red Sea. 2 This might be called their “baptism”—baptized both in sea and cloud!—as followers of Moses—their commitment to him as their leader. 3-4 And by a miracle God sent them food to eat and water to drink[a] there in the desert; they drank the water that Christ gave them. He was there with them as a mighty Rock of spiritual refreshment. 5 Yet after all this most of them did not obey God, and he destroyed them in the wilderness.
6 From this lesson we are warned that we must not desire evil things as they did, 7 nor worship idols as they did. (The Scriptures tell us, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to dance” in worship of the golden calf.)
8 Another lesson for us is what happened when some of them sinned with other men’s wives, and 23,000 fell dead in one day. 9 And don’t try the Lord’s patience—they did and died from snake bites. 10 And don’t murmur against God and his dealings with you as some of them did, for that is why God sent his Angel to destroy them.
11 All these things happened to them as examples—as object lessons to us—to warn us against doing the same things; they were written down so that we could read about them and learn from them in these last days as the world nears its end.
12 So be careful. If you are thinking, “Oh, I would never behave like that”—let this be a warning to you. For you too may fall into sin. 13 But remember this—the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.
18 When Jesus noticed how large the crowd was growing, he instructed his disciples to get ready to cross to the other side of the lake.
19 Just then[a] one of the Jewish religious teachers said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you no matter where you go!”
20 But Jesus said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but I, the Messiah,[b] have no home of my own—no place to lay my head.”
21 Another of his disciples said, “Sir, when my father is dead, then I will follow you.”[c]
22 But Jesus told him,
23 Then he got into a boat and started across the lake with his disciples. 24 Suddenly a terrible storm came up, with waves higher than the boat. But Jesus was asleep.
25 The disciples went to him and wakened him, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re sinking!”
26 But Jesus answered, “O you men of little faith! Why are you so frightened?” Then he stood up and rebuked the wind and waves, and the storm subsided and all was calm. 27 The disciples just sat there, awed! “Who is this,” they asked themselves, “that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.