Book of Common Prayer
26 Dismiss all the charges against me, Lord, for I have tried to keep your laws and have trusted you without wavering. 2 Cross-examine me, O Lord, and see that this is so; test my motives and affections too. 3 For I have taken your loving-kindness and your truth as my ideals. 4 I do not have fellowship with tricky, two-faced men; they are false and hypocritical. 5 I hate the sinners’ hangouts and refuse to enter them. 6 I wash my hands to prove my innocence and come before your altar, 7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling about your miracles.
8 Lord, I love your home, this shrine where the brilliant, dazzling splendor of your presence lives.
9-10 Don’t treat me as a common sinner or murderer who plots against the innocent and demands bribes.
11 No, I am not like that, O Lord; I try to walk a straight and narrow path of doing what is right; therefore in mercy save me.
12 I publicly praise the Lord for keeping me from slipping and falling.
28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. 2 Lord, I lift my hands to heaven[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.
3 Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. 4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. 5 They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.
6 Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! 7 He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. 8 The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.
9 Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.
36 Sin lurks deep in the hearts of the wicked, forever urging them on to evil deeds. They have no fear of God to hold them back. 2 Instead, in their conceit, they think they can hide their evil deeds and not get caught. 3 Everything they say is crooked and deceitful; they are no longer wise and good. 4 They lie awake at night to hatch their evil plots instead of planning how to keep away from wrong.
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, is as great as all the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. 6 Your justice is as solid as God’s mountains. Your decisions are as full of wisdom as the oceans are with water. You are concerned[a] for men and animals alike. 7 How precious is your constant love, O God! All humanity takes refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 You feed them with blessings from your own table and let them drink from your rivers of delight.
9 For you are the Fountain of life; our light is from your light. 10 Pour out your unfailing love on those who know you! Never stop giving your blessings[b] to those who long to do your will.
11 Don’t let these proud men trample me. Don’t let their wicked hands push me around. 12 Look! They have fallen. They are thrown down and will not rise again.
39 I said to myself, I’m going to quit complaining! I’ll keep quiet, especially when the ungodly are around me. 2-3 But as I stood there silently the turmoil within me grew to the bursting point. The more I mused, the hotter the fires inside. Then at last I spoke and pled with God: 4 Lord, help me to realize how brief my time on earth will be. Help me to know that I am here for but a moment more. 5-6 My life is no longer than my hand! My whole lifetime is but a moment to you. Proud man! Frail as breath! A shadow! And all his busy rushing ends in nothing. He heaps up riches for someone else to spend. 7 And so, Lord, my only hope is in you.
8 Save me from being overpowered by my sins, for even fools will mock me then.
9 Lord, I am speechless before you. I will not open my mouth to speak one word of complaint, for my punishment is from you.[a]
10 Lord, don’t hit me anymore—I am exhausted beneath your hand. 11 When you punish a man for his sins, he is destroyed, for he is as fragile as a moth-infested cloth; yes, man is frail as breath.
12 Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry! Don’t sit back, unmindful of my tears. For I am your guest. I am a traveler passing through the earth, as all my fathers were.
13 Spare me, Lord! Let me recover and be filled with happiness again before my death.
10 But when Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, heard what Amos was saying, he rushed a message to Jeroboam, the king: “Amos is a traitor to our nation and is plotting your death. This is intolerable. It will lead to rebellion all across the land. 11 He says you will be killed and Israel will be sent far away into exile and slavery.”
12 Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos, “Get out of here, you prophet, you! Flee to the land of Judah and do your prophesying there! 13 Don’t bother us here with your visions, not here in the capital where the king’s chapel is!”
14 But Amos replied, “I am not really one of the prophets. I do not come from a family of prophets. I am just a herdsman and fruit picker. 15 But the Lord took me from caring for the flocks and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people Israel.’
16 “Now, therefore, listen to this message to you from the Lord. You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel.’ 17 The Lord’s reply is this: ‘Because of your interference, your wife will become a prostitute in this city, your sons and daughters will be killed, and your land divided up. You yourself will die in a heathen land, and the people of Israel will certainly become slaves in exile, far from their land.’”
9 It is I, your brother John, a fellow sufferer for the Lord’s sake, who am writing this letter to you. I, too, have shared the patience Jesus gives, and we shall share his Kingdom!
I was on the island of Patmos, exiled there for preaching the Word of God and for telling what I knew about Jesus Christ. 10 It was the Lord’s Day and I was worshiping, when suddenly I heard a loud voice behind me, a voice that sounded like a trumpet blast, 11 saying, “I am A and Z, the First and Last!” And then I heard him say, “Write down everything you see, and send your letter to the seven churches in Turkey:[a] to the church in Ephesus, the one in Smyrna, and those in Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
12 When I turned to see who was speaking, there behind me were seven candlesticks of gold. 13 And standing among them was one who looked like Jesus, who called himself the Son of Man,[b] wearing a long robe circled with a golden band across his chest. 14 His hair was white as wool or snow,[c] and his eyes penetrated like flames of fire. 15 His feet gleamed like burnished bronze, and his voice thundered like the waves against the shore. 16 He held seven stars in his right hand and a sharp, double-bladed sword in his mouth,[d] and his face shone like the power of the sun in unclouded brilliance.
34-35 but not the Pharisees! When they heard that he had routed the Sadducees with his reply, they thought up a fresh question of their own to ask him. One of them, a lawyer, spoke up: 36 “Sir, which is the most important command in the laws of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’ 38-39 This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: ‘Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.’ 40 All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them. Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others.”
41 Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, he asked them a question: 42 “What about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
43 “Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, call him ‘Lord’?” Jesus asked. “For David said,
44 ‘God said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.’
45 Since David called him ‘Lord,’ how can he be merely his son?”
46 They had no answer. And after that no one dared ask him any more questions.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.