Book of Common Prayer
89 Forever and ever I will sing about the tender kindness of the Lord! Young and old shall hear about your blessings. 2 Your love and kindness are forever; your truth is as enduring as the heavens.
3-4 The Lord God says,[a] “I have made a solemn agreement with my chosen servant David. I have taken an oath to establish his descendants as kings forever on his throne, from now until eternity!”
5 All heaven shall praise your miracles, O Lord; myriads of angels[b] will praise you for your faithfulness. 6 For who in all of heaven can be compared with God? What mightiest angel[c] is anything like him? 7 The highest of angelic powers[d] stand in dread and awe of him. Who is as revered as he by those surrounding him? 8 O Jehovah, Commander of the heavenly armies, where is there any other Mighty One like you? Faithfulness is your very character.
9 You rule the oceans when their waves arise in fearful storms; you speak, and they lie still. 10 You have cut haughty Egypt[e] to pieces. Your enemies are scattered by your awesome power. 11 The heavens are yours, the world, everything—for you created them all. 12 You created north and south! Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon rejoice to be signed by your name as their maker! 13 Strong is your arm! Strong is your hand! Your right hand is lifted high in glorious strength.
14-15 Your throne is founded on two strong pillars—the one is Justice and the other Righteousness. Mercy and Truth walk before you as your attendants. Blessed are those who hear the joyful blast of the trumpet, for they shall walk in the light of your presence. 16 They rejoice all day long in your wonderful reputation and in your perfect righteousness. 17 You are their strength. What glory! Our power is based on your favor! 18 Yes, our protection is from the Lord himself and he, the Holy One of Israel, has given us our king.
19 In a vision you spoke to your prophet[f] and said, “I have chosen a splendid young man from the common people to be the king— 20 he is my servant David! I have anointed him with my holy oil. 21 I will steady him and make him strong. 22 His enemies shall not outwit him, nor shall the wicked overpower him. 23 I will beat down his adversaries before him and destroy those who hate him. 24 I will protect and bless him constantly and surround him with my love; he will be great because of me. 25 He will hold sway from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. 26 And he will cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and my Rock of Salvation.’
27 “I will treat him as my firstborn son and make him the mightiest king in all the earth. 28 I will love him forever and be kind to him always; my covenant with him will never end. 29 He will always have an heir; his throne will be as endless as the days of heaven. 30-32 If his children forsake my laws and don’t obey them, then I will punish them, 33 but I will never completely take away my loving-kindness from them, nor let my promise fail. 34 No, I will not break my covenant; I will not take back one word of what I said. 35-36 For I have sworn to David (and a holy God can never lie) that his dynasty will go on forever, and his throne will continue to the end of time.[g] 37 It shall be eternal as the moon, my faithful witness in the sky!”
38 Then why cast me off, rejected? Why be so angry with the one you chose as king? 39 Have you renounced your covenant with him? For you have thrown his crown in the dust. 40 You have broken down the walls protecting him and laid in ruins every fort defending him. 41 Everyone who comes along has robbed him while his neighbors mock. 42 You have strengthened his enemies against him and made them rejoice. 43 You have struck down his sword and refused to help him in battle. 44 You have ended his splendor and overturned his throne. 45 You have made him old before his time and publicly disgraced him.
46 O Jehovah, how long will this go on? Will you hide yourself from me forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? 47 Oh, remember how short you have made man’s lifespan. Is it an empty, futile life you give the sons of men? 48 No man can live forever. All will die. Who can rescue his life from the power of the grave?
49 Lord, where is the love you used to have for me? Where is your kindness that you promised to David with a faithful pledge? 50 Lord, see how all the people are despising me. 51 Your enemies joke about me, the one you anointed as their king.
52 And yet—blessed be the Lord forever! Amen and amen!
63 Who is this who comes from Edom, from the city of Bozrah, with his magnificent garments of crimson? Who is this in royal robes, marching in the greatness of his strength?
“It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation; I, the Lord, the one who is mighty to save!”
2 “Why are your clothes so red, as from treading out the grapes?”
3 “I have trodden the winepress alone. No one was there to help me. In my wrath I have trodden my enemies like grapes. In my fury I trampled my foes. It is their blood you see upon my clothes. 4 For the time has come for me to avenge my people, to redeem them from the hands of their oppressors. 5 I looked but no one came to help them; I was amazed and appalled. So I executed vengeance alone; unaided, I meted out judgment. 6 I crushed the heathen nations in my anger and made them stagger and fall to the ground.”
1 From: Paul, a missionary of Jesus Christ, sent out by the direct command of God our Savior and by Jesus Christ our Lord—our only hope.
2 To: Timothy.
Timothy, you are like a son to me in the things of the Lord. May God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord show you his kindness and mercy and give you great peace of heart and mind.
3-4 As I said when I left for Macedonia, please stay there in Ephesus and try to stop the men who are teaching such wrong doctrine. Put an end to their myths and fables, and their idea of being saved by finding favor with an endless chain of angels leading up to God—wild ideas that stir up questions and arguments instead of helping people accept God’s plan of faith. 5 What I am eager for is that all the Christians there will be filled with love that comes from pure hearts, and that their minds will be clean and their faith strong.
6 But these teachers have missed this whole idea and spend their time arguing and talking foolishness. 7 They want to become famous as teachers of the laws of Moses when they haven’t the slightest idea what those laws really show us. 8 Those laws are good when used as God intended. 9 But they were not made for us, whom God has saved; they are for sinners who hate God, have rebellious hearts, curse and swear, attack their fathers and mothers, and murder. 10-11 Yes, these laws are made to identify as sinners all who are immoral and impure: homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, and all others who do things that contradict the glorious Good News of our blessed God, whose messenger I am.
12 How thankful I am to Christ Jesus our Lord for choosing me as one of his messengers, and giving me the strength to be faithful to him, 13 even though I used to scoff at the name of Christ. I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could. But God had mercy on me because I didn’t know what I was doing, for I didn’t know Christ at that time. 14 Oh, how kind our Lord was, for he showed me how to trust him and become full of the love of Christ Jesus.
15 How true it is, and how I long that everyone should know it, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I was the greatest of them all. 16 But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as an example to show everyone how patient he is with even the worst sinners, so that others will realize that they, too, can have everlasting life. 17 Glory and honor to God forever and ever. He is the King of the ages, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God, and full of wisdom. Amen.
11 As they neared Bethphage and Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem and came to the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples on ahead.
2 “Go into that village over there,” he told them, “and just as you enter you will see a colt tied up that has never been ridden. Untie him and bring him here. 3 And if anyone asks you what you are doing, just say, ‘Our Master needs him and will return him soon.’”
4-5 Off went the two men and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside a house. As they were untying it, some who were standing there demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?”
6 So they said what Jesus had told them to, and then the men agreed.
7 So the colt was brought to Jesus, and the disciples threw their cloaks across its back for him to ride on. 8 Then many in the crowd spread out their coats along the road before him, while others threw down leafy branches from the fields.
9 He was in the center of the procession with crowds ahead and behind, and all of them shouting, “Hail to the King!” “Praise God for him who comes in the name of the Lord!” . . . 10 “Praise God for the return of our father David’s kingdom. . . . ” “Hail to the King of the universe!”
11 And so he entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple. He looked around carefully at everything and then left—for now it was late in the afternoon—and went out to Bethany with the twelve disciples.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.