Book of Common Prayer
20 In your day of trouble, may the Lord be with you! May the God of Jacob keep you from all harm. 2 May he send you aid from his sanctuary in Zion. 3 May he remember with pleasure the gifts you have given him, your sacrifices and burnt offerings. 4 May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans. 5 May there be shouts of joy when we hear the news of your victory, flags flying with praise to God for all that he has done for you. May he answer all your prayers!
6 “God save the king”—I know he does! He hears me from highest heaven and sends great victories. 7 Some nations boast of armies and of weaponry, but our boast is in the Lord our God. 8 Those nations will collapse and perish; we will arise to stand firm and sure!
9 Give victory to our king, O Lord; oh, hear our prayer.
21 How the king rejoices in your strength, O Lord! How he exults in your salvation. 2 For you have given him his heart’s desire, everything he asks you for!
3 You welcomed him to the throne with success and prosperity. You set a royal crown of solid gold upon his head. 4 He asked for a long, good life, and you have granted his request; the days of his life stretch on and on forever. 5 You have given him fame and honor. You have clothed him with splendor and majesty. 6 You have endowed him with eternal happiness. You have given him the unquenchable joy of your presence. 7 And because the king trusts in the Lord, he will never stumble, never fall; for he depends upon the steadfast love of the God who is above all gods.
8 Your hand, O Lord, will find your enemies, all who hate you. 9-10 When you appear, they will be destroyed in the fierce fire of your presence. The Lord will destroy them and their children. 11 For these men plot against you, Lord, but they cannot possibly succeed. 12 They will turn and flee when they see your arrows aimed straight at them.
13 Accept our praise, O Lord, for all your glorious power. We will write songs to celebrate your mighty acts!
110 Jehovah said to my Lord the Messiah,[a] “Rule as my regent—I will subdue your enemies and make them bow low before you.”
2 Jehovah has established your throne[b] in Jerusalem to rule over your enemies. 3 In that day of your power your people shall come to you willingly, dressed in holy altar robes.[c] And your strength shall be renewed day by day like morning dew. 4 Jehovah has taken oath and will not rescind his vow that you are a priest forever like[d] Melchizedek. 5 God stands beside you to protect you. He will strike down many kings in the day of his anger. 6 He will punish the nations and fill them with their dead. He will crush many heads. 7 But he himself shall be refreshed from springs along the way.
116 I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them. 2 Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I breathe!
3 Death stared me in the face—I was frightened and sad. 4 Then I cried, “Lord, save me!” 5 How kind he is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! 6 The Lord protects the simple and the childlike; I was facing death, and then he saved me. 7 Now I can relax. For the Lord has done this wonderful miracle for me. 8 He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. 9 I shall live! Yes, in his presence—here on earth!
10-11 In my discouragement I thought, “They are lying when they say I will recover.”[a] 12 But now what can I offer Jehovah for all he has done for me? 13 I will bring him an offering of wine[b] and praise his name for saving me. 14 I will publicly bring him the sacrifice I vowed I would. 15 His loved ones are very precious to him, and he does not lightly let them die.[c]
16 O Lord, you have freed me from my bonds, and I will serve you forever. 17 I will worship you and offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving. 18-19 Here in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem, before all the people, I will pay everything I vowed to the Lord. Praise the Lord.
117 Praise the Lord, all nations everywhere. Praise him, all the peoples of the earth. 2 For he loves us very dearly, and his truth endures. Praise the Lord.
43 But now the Lord who created you, O Israel, says: Don’t be afraid, for I have ransomed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. 2 When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you. 3 For I am the Lord your God, your Savior, the Holy One of Israel. I gave Egypt and Ethiopia and Seba to Cyrus[a] in exchange for your freedom, as your ransom. 4 Others died that you might live; I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me and honored, and I love you.
5 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. I will gather you from east and west, 6 from north and south. I will bring my sons and daughters back to Israel from the farthest corners of the earth. 7 All who claim me as their God will come, for I have made them for my glory; I created them. 8 Bring them back to me—blind as they are and deaf when I call (although they see and hear!).
9 Gather the nations together! Which of all their idols ever has foretold such things? Which can predict a single day ahead? Where are the witnesses of anything they said? If there are no witnesses, then they must confess that only God can prophesy.
10 But I have witnesses, O Israel, says the Lord! You are my witnesses and my servants, chosen to know and to believe me and to understand that I alone am God. There is no other God; there never was and never will be. 11 I am the Lord, and there is no other Savior. 12 Whenever you have thrown away your idols, I have shown you my power. With one word I have saved you. You have seen me do it; you are my witnesses that it is true. 13 From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can oppose what I do.
14-15 When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God—some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth— 16 that out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; 18-19 and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.
20 Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. 21 May he be given glory forever and ever through endless ages because of his master plan of salvation for the Church through Jesus Christ.
23 Another time, on a Sabbath day as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields, the disciples were breaking off heads of wheat and eating the grain.[a]
24 Some of the Jewish religious leaders said to Jesus, “They shouldn’t be doing that! It’s against our laws to work by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.”
25-26 But Jesus replied, “Didn’t you ever hear about the time King David and his companions were hungry, and he went into the house of God—Abiathar was high priest then—and they ate the special bread[b] only priests were allowed to eat? That was against the law too. 27 But the Sabbath was made to benefit man, and not man to benefit the Sabbath. 28 And I, the Messiah,[c] have authority even to decide what men can do on Sabbath days!”
3 While in Capernaum Jesus went over to the synagogue again, and noticed a man there with a deformed hand.
2 Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched him closely. Would he heal the man’s hand? If he did, they planned to arrest him!
3 Jesus asked the man to come and stand in front of the congregation. 4 Then turning to his enemies he asked, “Is it all right to do kind deeds on Sabbath days? Or is this a day for doing harm? Is it a day to save lives or to destroy them?” But they wouldn’t answer him. 5 Looking around at them angrily, for he was deeply disturbed by their indifference to human need, he said to the man, “Reach out your hand.” He did, and instantly his hand was healed!
6 At once the Pharisees[d] went away and met with the Herodians to discuss plans for killing Jesus.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.