Book of Common Prayer
God takes care of his people[a]
105 Thank the Lord!
Make his name famous!
Tell people in all the nations
what he has done.
2 Sing songs and make music
to praise him!
Tell people about the miracles that he has done.
3 Boast about his holy name.[b]
Everybody who wants to worship the Lord
should be very happy!
4 Ask the Lord to help you.
Ask him to give you strength.
Always try to be near him
and worship him.
5 Remember the great things that he has done.
Remember his miracles,
and the commands that he has spoken.[c]
6 Remember that you are descendants of God's servant, Abraham.
You are Jacob's descendants,
and God has chosen you to be his people.
7 He is the Lord, our God.
He rules the whole earth with justice.
8 He will always remember the covenant
that he made with us.
He made that promise to continue for ever.
9 That is the promise that he made to Abraham,
and that he also made to Isaac.
10 He repeated it to Jacob as a law.
It was a covenant with Israel's people
that would continue for ever.[d]
11 He promised Jacob,
‘I will give to you the land of Canaan.
It will belong to you,
and to your descendants.’
12 At one time, God's people were only a few.
They lived in Canaan as strangers.
13 They travelled among different nations
and different kingdoms.
14 But the Lord did not let anyone hurt them.
He punished kings to keep his people safe.
15 He said, ‘Do not even touch the people that I have chosen to be mine.
Do not hurt my prophets.’
16 The Lord sent a famine to the land of Canaan,
so that his people had no food left to eat.
17 But he sent Joseph to Egypt
before they went there to get food.[e]
Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave.
18 In Egypt the chains on his feet hurt him.
He had a heavy piece of iron round his neck.
19 He remained a slave
until what he said would happen really happened.
Then the Lord showed that Joseph was right.
20 The powerful king of Egypt sent someone
to let Joseph go free out of prison.
21 The king made Joseph master of his palace.
Joseph took care of everything that belonged to the king.
22 The king gave him authority over his officers.
He could teach the king's leaders,
so that they would know what to do.
23 Then Jacob's family came into Egypt.
They lived as strangers in the land of Ham's descendants.[f]
24 The Lord gave to his people many children.
They became more powerful than their enemies.
25 So the Egyptians began to hate God's people.
They did cruel things to the Lord's people.
26 The Lord sent his servant Moses
to help his people in Egypt.
He also chose Aaron to help them.
27 Moses and Aaron did many miracles in Egypt,
where Ham's descendants lived.
They showed the Lord's great power to the Egyptians.
28 God made all the land become dark.
But the Egyptians did not obey God's command.
29 God caused their rivers to become blood,
and he killed their fish.
30 Frogs covered all their land.
They even went into the bedrooms of the palace!
31 The Lord commanded flies and gnats
to cover the whole country.
32 He sent hail with the rain,
and there was lightning everywhere.
33 He destroyed their vines and fig trees.
He knocked down the trees everywhere in their country.
34 He commanded many locusts to come.
There were too many locusts to count!
35 They ate all the plants in their land,
and all the crops in their fields.
36 Then the Lord killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt.
He killed the oldest son in each family.
37 So the Lord led his people out from Egypt.
They took with them valuable silver and gold things.
Nobody among the Israelite people was too weak to go.
38 The Egyptians were happy when they went,
because they were afraid of the Israelites.[g]
39 The Lord made a cloud to cover them
and a fire to give them light at night.
40 When they asked him for food,
he gave them quails to eat.
He fed them with bread from the sky.
41 He broke a rock,
so that water poured out from it.
It ran as a river through the dry places.
42 Yes, the Lord remembered the holy promise
that he had made to his servant, Abraham.
43 So he led his people out from Egypt,
and they were very happy!
They were the people that he had chosen for himself,
and they shouted with joy!
44 The Lord gave to them
the land of other nations.
They enjoyed the good things
that other people had worked to get.
45 Then God's people could obey his commands
and his laws.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
The priests teach wrong things
2 The Lord Almighty says this to the priests:
2 ‘Listen carefully to what I say to you. You must respect my name properly. If not, I will punish you. I will no longer bless you but I will curse you. I am already doing that because you do not respect my name as you should.
3 I will punish your descendants. When you offer an animal as a sacrifice at your festivals, I will cover your faces with its dirty bits. Then they will throw you away with all the other dirty bits. Those are the bits that I cannot accept as clean.’[a]
4 The Lord Almighty says, ‘When I punish you like that, you will know that I have warned you. Then the covenant that I made with Levi and his descendants, the priests, can continue.[b] 5 I promised to give them a good life with many blessings. Levi received what I promised to him. He served me and he respected me, as a priest should do. 6 He taught my true message. He did not teach people anything that was bad. He lived in a good and honest way as he served me. He helped many people to stop doing wrong things.
7 Priests should help people to know the truth about God. People should ask the priests to teach them, because the Lord Almighty has chosen priests to speak his message. 8 But you priests do not serve me in the right way. What you teach causes many people to do wrong things. In that way, you have spoiled the covenant that I made with Levi.’
That is what the Lord Almighty says.
9 ‘So I have caused all the people to insult you. They no longer respect you, because you do not obey my rules. When you teach my people, you are kind to some of them but you cheat others.’[c]
Judah's people do not obey God
10 You know that we all have one Father. It is God himself who made all of us. But now we turn against each other. We do not respect the covenant that God made with our ancestors.[d]
11 Judah's people have turned against God.[e] As a result, people have done disgusting things in Jerusalem and in all Israel.[f] You have spoiled the holy place, the temple that the Lord loves.[g] You have turned away from the Lord and you worship foreign gods. 12 I pray that the Lord will remove all people like that from among his people. Not one of them will continue to belong to the family of Jacob.[h] They will no longer be able to offer gifts to the Lord Almighty.
13 Also, you weep so much that your tears cover the Lord's altar! You cry because the Lord no longer accepts your gifts. He is not happy with the gifts that you offer to him.
14 You ask, ‘Why is the Lord not happy with our gifts?’ The Lord knows that you men have not done the right thing with your wives. When you married as a young man, you promised to take care of your wife always. But you have sent her away, when the law says that you must stay with her as your wife. 15 The Lord has joined you together, as a man with his wife. Your body and your spirit belong to him. Why did God put you together? He wanted you to have children who would belong to him. So think carefully about how you live. Do not leave the wife that you married when you were a young man.
16 The Lord God of Israel says this: ‘If a man sends his wife away from him, I hate that! He has been cruel to his wife when he should take care of her. So be very careful! Remember your promise to take care of your wife.’
That is what the Lord Almighty says.
Trust God every day
13 Some of you say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will stay there for a year. We will buy and sell things, and we will become rich.’ If you say things like that, listen to me. 14 You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a cloud which appears for a short time and then it quickly goes away. 15 So what you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord agrees and we are still alive, then we will do this or that.’ 16 But instead, you talk about what you have decided to do. You speak as if you have the power to make it happen. It is wrong to speak like that.
17 So you know the right thing that you ought to do. But if you know that and you do not do the right thing, then you have done a wrong thing.
Troubles for rich people
5 Now, listen to me, you rich people. Weep and cry aloud, because many troubles will soon happen to you. 2 Your money no longer has any value. Insects have eaten your beautiful clothes and they have spoiled them. 3 You have stored silver and gold coins to spend for yourselves. But dirt has spoiled those coins. That dirt will show that you are guilty. It will become like fire that is burning your bodies. In the last days of this world you have stored all this money for yourselves. 4 But you have not paid the workers in your fields the money that you should have paid them. You have cheated them. Now they are shouting against you. The Lord of great power has heard them when they cry to him for help. 5 During your life here on this earth, you have had all that you wanted. You have lived like kings. You have eaten as much food as you want. So now you are like fat animals that are ready for men to kill. 6 You say that a righteous person is guilty. You have even killed him and he could not stop you.
Jesus talks about the time when God will rule
20 Then some Pharisees asked Jesus a question. ‘When will the kingdom of God begin here?’
Jesus replied, ‘When God begins to rule here, people will not see it with their eyes. 21 Nobody will say, “Look everyone! God is ruling here,” or “Look! God is ruling over there.” No, it is not like that. God is already ruling in the lives of his people.’
22 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The time will come when you will very much want to see me, the Son of Man, return to the earth. But you will not see that day. 23 People may say to you, “Look, there he is!” or “Here he is!” But do not go out with them to look. 24 When lightning shines, it quickly makes the whole of the sky light from one side to the other. It will be like that on the day when the Son of Man returns.[a] 25 But before this happens, the people of today will refuse to accept me. And I will feel much pain.
26 Remember what happened when Noah was alive.[b] It will be like that at the time when the Son of Man returns to the earth. 27 In Noah's time, people were eating their meals every day. Men and women continued to marry. They continued to do all this until the day when Noah went into his boat. Then it rained for a long time and there was deep water everywhere. The water killed all the people.
28 The same kind of thing happened when Lot was alive.[c] People in the city of Sodom were eating their meals every day. They were buying and selling things. They were planting their seeds and they were building their houses. 29 But one day Lot went away from Sodom. On that same day, God caused it to rain fire and burning stones from the sky. This killed all the people in Sodom.
30 It will happen quickly like that, on the day when I, the Son of Man, show myself clearly. 31 On that day, a person who is up on the roof of his house must not go back down into the house. He must not get his things that are inside the house to take with him. In the same way, people that are working outside in their fields must not go back to their homes. 32 Remember what happened to Lot's wife.[d]
33 Whoever wants to keep his own life safe will lose it. But whoever gives his life to serve me will have true life. 34 I tell you this. At that time, two men will be sleeping in one bed. God will take one of them away but he will leave the other man behind. 35-36 Two women will be preparing food together in the same place. God will take one of them away but he will leave the other one behind.’
37 Jesus' disciples asked him, ‘Where will this happen?’ Jesus replied, ‘If a dead body is lying somewhere, vultures will come together in that place.’[e]
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