Book of Common Prayer
God the King
93 The Lord is king.
He is clothed with majesty and strength.
The earth is set firmly in place
and cannot be moved.
2 Your throne, O Lord, has been firm from the beginning,
and you existed before time began.
3 The ocean depths raise their voice, O Lord;
they raise their voice and roar.
4 The Lord rules supreme in heaven,
greater than the roar of the ocean,
more powerful than the waves of the sea.
5 Your laws are eternal, Lord,
and your Temple is holy indeed,
forever and ever.
God the Supreme King(A)
96 Sing a new song to the Lord!
Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Sing to the Lord, and praise him!
Proclaim every day the good news that he has saved us.
3 Proclaim his glory to the nations,
his mighty deeds to all peoples.
4 The Lord is great and is to be highly praised;
he is to be honored more than all the gods.
5 The gods of all other nations are only idols,
but the Lord created the heavens.
6 Glory and majesty surround him;
power and beauty fill his Temple.
7 (B)Praise the Lord, all people on earth;
praise his glory and might.
8 Praise the Lord's glorious name;
bring an offering and come into his Temple.
9 Bow down before the Holy One when he appears;[a]
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say to all the nations, “The Lord is king!
The earth is set firmly in place and cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with justice.”
11 Be glad, earth and sky!
Roar, sea, and every creature in you;
12 be glad, fields, and everything in you!
The trees in the woods will shout for joy
13 when the Lord comes to rule the earth.
He will rule the peoples of the world
with justice and fairness.
(A)In Praise of God's Goodness[a]
34 I will always thank the Lord;
I will never stop praising him.
2 I will praise him for what he has done;
may all who are oppressed listen and be glad!
3 Proclaim with me the Lord's greatness;
let us praise his name together!
4 I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me;
he freed me from all my fears.
5 The oppressed look to him and are glad;
they will never be disappointed.
6 The helpless call to him, and he answers;
he saves them from all their troubles.
7 His angel guards those who honor the Lord
and rescues them from danger.
8 (B)Find out for yourself how good the Lord is.
Happy are those who find safety with him.
9 Honor the Lord, all his people;
those who obey him have all they need.
10 Even lions go hungry for lack of food,
but those who obey the Lord lack nothing good.
11 Come, my young friends, and listen to me,
and I will teach you to honor the Lord.
12 (C)Would you like to enjoy life?
Do you want long life and happiness?
13 Then keep from speaking evil
and from telling lies.
14 Turn away from evil and do good;
strive for peace with all your heart.
15 The Lord watches over the righteous
and listens to their cries;
16 but he opposes those who do evil,
so that when they die, they are soon forgotten.
17 The righteous call to the Lord, and he listens;
he rescues them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to those who are discouraged;
he saves those who have lost all hope.
19 Good people suffer many troubles,
but the Lord saves them from them all;
20 (D)the Lord preserves them completely;
not one of their bones is broken.
21 Evil will kill the wicked;
those who hate the righteous will be punished.
22 The Lord will save his people;
those who go to him for protection will be spared.
The Seventh Year(A)
25 (B)The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and commanded him 2 to give the following regulations to the people of Israel. When you enter the land that the Lord is giving you, you shall honor the Lord by not cultivating the land every seventh year. 3 You shall plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and gather your crops for six years. 4 But the seventh year is to be a year of complete rest for the land, a year dedicated to the Lord. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not even harvest the grain that grows by itself without being planted, and do not gather the grapes from your unpruned vines; it is a year of complete rest for the land. 6 Although the land has not been cultivated during that year, it will provide food for you, your slaves, your hired men, the foreigners living with you, 7 your domestic animals, and the wild animals in your fields. Everything that it produces may be eaten.
The Year of Restoration
8 Count seven times seven years, a total of forty-nine years. 9 Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, send someone to blow a trumpet throughout the whole land. 10 In this way you shall set the fiftieth year apart and proclaim freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to the original owner or the descendants, and any who have been sold as slaves shall return to their families. 11 You shall not plant your fields or harvest the grain that grows by itself or gather the grapes in your unpruned vineyards. 12 The whole year shall be sacred for you; you shall eat only what the fields produce of themselves.
13 In this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to its original owner. 14 So when you sell land to an Israelite or buy land, do not deal unfairly. 15 The price is to be set according to the number of years the land can produce crops before the next Year of Restoration. 16 If there are many years, the price shall be higher, but if there are only a few years, the price shall be lower, because what is being sold is the number of crops the land can produce. 17 Do not cheat an Israelite, but obey the Lord your God.
Faith and Wisdom
2 (A)My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, 3 for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. 4 Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 (B)But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. 6 But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind. 7-8 If you are like that, unable to make up your mind and undecided in all you do, you must not think that you will receive anything from the Lord.
16 Do not be deceived, my dear friends! 17 Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. 18 By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 A man in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide with me the property our father left us.”
14 Jesus answered him, “Friend, who gave me the right to judge or to divide the property between you two?” 15 And he went on to say to them all, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.”
16 Then Jesus told them this parable: “There was once a rich man who had land which bore good crops. 17 He began to think to himself, ‘I don't have a place to keep all my crops. What can I do? 18 This is what I will do,’ he told himself; ‘I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I will store the grain and all my other goods. 19 (A)Then I will say to myself, Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?’”
21 And Jesus concluded, “This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves but are not rich in God's sight.”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.