Book of Common Prayer

David wrote this song for the music leader.

God has helped me^[a]

David wrote this special song for the music leader. He must use stringed instruments. It was when the men of Ziph went to Saul and they said, ‘David is hiding with us.’

God keeps me safe^[a]

David wrote this psalm for the music leader.

It was when the prophet Nathan came to him, after David had sex with Bathsheba.

Please forgive me, Lord^[a]

Then God will punish Assyria

⁵ It will be very bad for Assyria! I will use its army to punish my people, because I am angry with them. Assyria will be like a stick that I use to beat my people. That is how I will show them my anger.

⁶ I send Assyria's army against a nation that does not serve God. I command them to attack the people with whom I am angry. I tell them to take that nation's valuable things for themselves. I tell them to walk all over them, as if they were walking on dirt in the streets.

⁷ But Assyria's ruler has other ideas. He does not understand that he is my weapon. He wants his army to destroy many nations, so that they have no power. ⁸ He boasts, ‘All my army's officers are like kings! ⁹ We destroyed Calno as we destroyed Carchemish. We destroyed Hamath as well as Arpad. We destroyed Samaria as well as Damascus.

¹⁰ The idols of those cities were greater than those in Jerusalem or Samaria. But we won against them all! ¹¹ So I will destroy Jerusalem and its idols, in the same way that I did to Samaria and its idols.’

¹² The Lord God will come to punish Mount Zion and Jerusalem. But when he has done that, he says, ‘Now I will punish the king of Assyria. He boasts in his mind and his eyes show how proud he is.’

¹³ The king of Assyria says this:

¹⁵ The Lord says this:

¹⁶ So the Lord, the Almighty Lord, will punish Assyria's soldiers. They are now fat and healthy, but they will become thin! It will be like a fire that burns them, with all their proud strength. ¹⁷ The holy God, who is the Light of Israel, will become like a fire. Assyria's soldiers will be like weeds and thorn bushes and the fire will destroy them in one day.

¹⁸ The Lord will completely destroy Assyria's great forests and its good fields. It will seem like a bad disease is taking away their life. ¹⁹ Only a few trees will remain in the forests. Even a child will be able to count them!

¹⁷ These false teachers promise good things that will never happen. They are like a dry well that has no water. They are like clouds in a storm which the wind blows away so that no rain comes. God will certainly send them to the darkest place in hell. He has kept that place ready for them.

¹⁸ The messages that these teachers speak seem very important. But their words really mean nothing. In that way, they lead people away from God. Some people have not been believers for very long. They have only just become free from the wrong things that people do. But the false teachers tell these people to do bad things that will make them happy. ¹⁹ The false teachers tell these believers to do whatever they want to do. They promise that this will make them really free. But the false teachers themselves are not free. Instead, they are like slaves. They cannot stop doing the bad things that will destroy them. We know that if something has power over a person, then that person is its slave.

²⁰ People like that learned about our Lord Jesus Christ, who saves us. As a result, they had stopped doing the bad things that belong to this world. They had become free from the power of those things. But now they have started to do those bad things again. Those things have power over them and they cannot stop doing them. So now, these false teachers are worse than they were at the beginning, before they believed in the Lord Jesus.

²¹ It would have been better for them if they had never known God's good way. But they did understand about the right things that God wants us to do. And then they turned away from that way of life. They stopped obeying God's good rules, that people had taught them. ²² You know these true proverbs: ‘After a dog has been sick, it returns to eat it again.’^[a] Also: ‘After you wash a pig, it will quickly roll in the dirt again.’ These words describe how the false teachers live.

² At that time, John the Baptist was in prison. But people told him about all the things that Jesus the Messiah was doing. So John sent some of his own disciples to ask Jesus some questions.^{[a] 3} They said to him, ‘John the Baptist wants to know this: Are you the special person that God has promised to send to us? If not, should we still look for someone else?’

⁴ Jesus replied, ‘Go back to John. Tell him what you have been hearing. Also, tell him what you have been seeing. ⁵ Blind people can now see again. People who could not walk can now walk again. People who had a bad disease of the skin are now well again. Deaf people can now hear again. People who had died now live again. Poor people are hearing God's good news. ⁶ If anyone believes in me and does not turn away, he will be really happy.’

⁷ John's disciples went away again. Jesus spoke to the crowd about John. He said to them, ‘You went out to the wilderness. What did you go there to see? Was it a tall piece of grass which the wind was blowing this way and that? No, you did not go to see that. ⁸ Did you go to see a man who was wearing expensive clothes? No! People like that do not live in the wilderness. They live in kings' great houses. ⁹ So what did you go to see? Did you go to see a prophet sent by God? Yes! But I tell you, John was even more important than a prophet. ¹⁰ This is what someone wrote about him a long time ago in the Bible. God said:

¹¹ Jesus then said, ‘I tell you this: John the Baptist is greater than any person who has ever lived until now. But now, anyone who belongs in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. Even the least important of them is greater than he is.^{[c] 12} From the time that John the Baptist began to teach until now, the kingdom of heaven is becoming very strong. Strong people are trying very much to attack it. ¹³ All the prophets and the books of the Law spoke God's message until the time that John the Baptist came. ¹⁴ The prophets wrote about Elijah. They said he would come again, to prepare for the Messiah. They were writing about John, and you should believe their message. ¹⁵ You have ears, so listen well to what I say!’