Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 55
For the worship leader. A contemplative song[a] of David accompanied by strings.
1 Hear me, O God.
Tune Your ear to my plea,
and do not turn Your face from my prayer.
2 Give me Your attention.
Answer these sighs of sorrow;
my troubles have made me restless—I groan from anxiety
3 All because of my enemy! Because his voice speaks against me,
his wickedness torments me!
He casts down misfortune upon me;
his anger flares; his grudges grow against me.
4 My heart seizes within my chest; I am in anguish!
I am terrified my life could end on any breath.
5 I shiver and shudder in fear;
I can’t stop because this horror is just too much.
6 I said, “If only my arms were wings like the dove’s!
I would fly away from here and find rest—
7 Yes, I would venture far
and weave a nest in the wilderness.
[pause][b]
8 “I would rush to take refuge
away from the violent storm and pounding winds.”
9 Throw them off, O Lord. Confuse their speech, and frustrate their plans,
for violence and contention are building within the city.
I can see it with my own eyes.
10 They plot day and night, scurrying the city walls like rats,
trouble and evil lurking everywhere.
11 In the heart of the city, destruction awaits.
Oppression and lies swarm the streets,
and they will not take leave; no, they will not go.
12 If it were just an enemy sneering at me,
I could take it.
If it were just someone who has always hated me, treating me like dirt,
I’d simply hide away.
13 But it is you! A man like me,
my old friend, my companion.
14 We enjoyed sweet conversation,
walking together in the house of God among the pressing crowds.
15 Let death sneak up on them,
swallow them alive into the pit of death.
Why? Because evil stirs in their homes; evil is all around them.
16 But I, I shall call upon God,
and by His word, the Eternal shall save me.
17 Evening, morning, and noon I will plead;
I will grumble and moan before Him
until He hears my voice.
18 And He will rescue my soul, untouched,
plucked safely from the battle,
despite the many who are warring against me.
19 God, enthroned from ancient times through eternity,
will hear my prayers and strike them down.
[pause]
For they have refused change;
they supply their every need and have no fear of God.
20 My friend has become a foe, breaking faith, tearing down peace.
He’s betrayed our covenant.
21 Oh, how his pleasant voice is smoother than butter,
while his heart is enchanted by war.
Oh, how his words are smoother than oil,
and yet each is a sword drawn in his hand.
22 Cast your troubles upon the Eternal;
His care is unceasing!
He will not allow
His righteous to be shaken.
23 But You, O God, You will drive them
into the lowest[c] pit—
Violent, lying people
won’t live beyond their middle years.
But I place my trust in You.
Psalm 138
A song of David.
1 To You, Lord, I give my whole heart, a heart filled with praise, for I am grateful;
before the gods, my heart sings praises to You and You alone.
2 I bow before You, looking to Your holy temple,
and praise Your name, for Your unfailing love and Your truth;
for You have placed Your name and Your word over all things and all times.
3 On the day I needed You, I called, and You responded
and infused my soul with strength.
4 May all the kings of the earth praise You, O Eternal One,
because they have heard the words You have spoken.
5 They will marvel at the Eternal’s ways, and they will sing,
for great is the glory of the Eternal.
6 Although He is greatest of all, He is attentive to the needy
and keeps His distance from the proud and pompous.
7 Whenever I walk into trouble,
You are there to bring me out.
You hold out Your hand
to protect me against the wrath of my enemies,
and hold me safely in Your right hand.
8 The Eternal will finish what He started in me.
Your faithful love, O Eternal One, lasts forever;
do not give up on what Your hands have made.
Psalm 139
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 O Eternal One, You have explored my heart and know exactly who I am;
2 You even know the small details like when I take a seat and when I stand up again.
Even when I am far away, You know what I’m thinking.
3 You observe my wanderings and my sleeping, my waking and my dreaming,
and You know everything I do in more detail than even I know.
4 You know what I’m going to say long before I say it.
It is true, Eternal One, that You know everything and everyone.
5 You have surrounded me on every side, behind me and before me,
and You have placed Your hand gently on my shoulder.
6 It is the most amazing feeling to know how deeply You know me, inside and out;
the realization of it is so great that I cannot comprehend it.
7 Can I go anywhere apart from Your Spirit?
Is there anywhere I can go to escape Your watchful presence?
8 If I go up into heaven, You are there.
If I make my bed in the realm of the dead, You are there.
9 If I ride on the wings of morning,
if I make my home in the most isolated part of the ocean,
10 Even then You will be there to guide me;
Your right hand will embrace me, for You are always there.
11 Even if I am afraid and think to myself, “There is no doubt that the darkness will swallow me,
the light around me will soon be turned to night,”
12 You can see in the dark, for it is not dark to Your eyes.
For You the night is just as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are the same to Your eyes.
13 For You shaped me, inside and out.
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath.
14 I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
You have approached even the smallest details with excellence;
Your works are wonderful;
I carry this knowledge deep within my soul.
15 You see all things; nothing about me was hidden from You
As I took shape in secret,
carefully crafted in the heart of the earth before I was born from its womb.
16 You see all things;
You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;
Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;
You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.
17 Your thoughts and plans are treasures to me, O God! I cherish each and every one of them!
How grand in scope! How many in number!
18 If I could count each one of them, they would be more than all the grains of sand on earth. Their number is inconceivable!
Even when I wake up, I am still near to You.
19 I wish You would destroy all the wicked, O God.
So keep away from me, those who are thirsty for blood!
20 For they say such horrible things about You,
and those who are against You abuse Your good name.
21 Is it not true that I hate all who hate You, Eternal One?
Is it not true that I despise all who come against You?
22 Deep hatred boils within me toward them;
I am Your friend, and they are my enemies.
23 Explore me, O God, and know the real me. Dig deeply and discover who I am.
Put me to the test and watch how I handle the strain.
18-20 So let what I’m saying sink deeply into your hearts and souls. Do whatever it takes to remember what I’m telling you: tie a reminder on your hand or put a reminder on your forehead where you’ll see it all the time, and on the doorpost where you cross the threshold or on the city gate.
Teach these things to your children. Talk about them when you’re sitting together in your home and when you’re walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning. 21 That way you and your children will be blessed with long life and abundant crops upon the ground the Eternal promised to your ancestors, for as long as there’s a sky above the earth.
Eventually people begin to take these instructions literally. They put abbreviated reminders of the law called mezuzot—scrolls of parchment inscribed with a prayer rolled into a decorative case—on their doorposts. They even wear tefillin—small leather boxes containing the same prayer—on their arms and foreheads with straps. Any discipline that reminds us effectively to live as God intends is helpful. But Moses’ goal here is not to create new rituals. It is to encourage God’s people to be intentional about learning and remembering God’s ways.
Moses: 22 If you carefully obey all these things I’m commanding you—if you really do love the Eternal your God and live as He wants you to and devote yourselves to Him— 23 then He will drive out all of these nations ahead of you. You’ll conquer nations that are bigger and stronger than you are. 24 Every place you walk will become yours: your territory will extend from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 25 No one will be able to resist you. The Eternal your God will make everyone throughout the whole land you’re going into terrified of you, just as He said He would.
26 Look, you’ve got two choices: you can be blessed, or you can be cursed. 27 If you obey His commands, which I’m giving you today, you’ll be blessed. 28 If you don’t obey His commands—if you leave the path I’m showing you today so you can worship other gods who are foreign to you, then you’ll be cursed.
5 Remember what I said earlier about the role of the high priest, even the ones chosen by human beings? The job of every high priest is reconciliation: approaching God on behalf of others and offering Him gifts and sacrifices to repair the damage caused by our sins against God and each other. 2 The high priest should have compassion for those who are ignorant of the faith and those who fall out of the faith because he also has wrestled with human weakness, 3 and so the priest must offer sacrifices both for his sins and for those of the people. 4 The office of high priest and the honor that goes along with it isn’t one that someone just takes. One must be set aside, called by God, just as God called Aaron, the brother of Moses.
5 In the same way, the Anointed One, our Liberating King, didn’t call Himself but was appointed to His priestly office by God, who said to Him,
You are My Son.
Today I have become Your Father,[a]
6 and who also says elsewhere,
You are a priest forever—
in the honored order of Melchizedek.[b]
Jesus is the Great High Priest because He serves as the ultimate mediator between God and humanity. In this role He serves as both the priest and the sacrifice that atones for sins once and for all. But we are still called to be priests for each other. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Whenever you share a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name or pray for someone, you’re a priest. You’re communicating the grace of God. There are times that we need a priest, too, right? If we are to be like Him, we must allow someone else to be a priest for us. There are problems so great and pains so deep and sins so intractable that we need a person of flesh and blood to join us in carrying our concerns to God.
7 When Jesus was on the earth, a man of flesh and blood, He offered up prayers and pleas, groans and tears to the One who could save Him from death. He was heard because He approached God with reverence. 8 Although He was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. 9 And once He was perfected through that suffering He became the way of eternal salvation for all those who hear and follow Him, 10 for God appointed Him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
4 The picture was becoming clear to the Pharisees that Jesus had gained a following much larger than that of John the Baptist, the wandering prophet. Now He could see that the Pharisees were beginning to plot against Him. 2 This was because His disciples were busy ritually cleansing many new disciples through baptism,[a] 3 He chose to leave Judea where most Pharisees lived and return to a safer location in Galilee. 4 This was a trip that would take them through Samaria.
For Jews in Israel, Samaria is a place to be avoided. Before Solomon’s death 1,000 years earlier, the regions of Samaria and Judea were part of a united Israel. After the rebellion that divided the kingdom, Samaria became a hotbed of idol worship. The northern kings made alliances that corrupted the people by introducing foreign customs and strange gods. They even had the nerve to build a temple to the True God on Mt. Gerizim to rival the one in Jerusalem. By the time the twelve are traveling with Jesus, it has long been evident that the Samaritans have lost their way. By marrying outsiders, they have polluted the land. Israel’s Jews consider them to be half-breeds—mongrels—and the Jews know to watch out for them or else be bitten by temptation.
5-8 In a small Samaritan town known as Sychar, Jesus and His entourage stopped to rest at the historic well that Jacob gave his son Joseph. It was about noon when Jesus found a spot to sit close to the well while the disciples ventured off to find provisions. From His vantage, He watched as a Samaritan woman approached to draw some water. Unexpectedly He spoke to her.
Jesus: Would you draw water, and give Me a drink?
Woman: 9 I cannot believe that You, a Jew, would associate with me, a Samaritan woman; much less ask me to give You a drink.
Jews, you see, have no dealings with Samaritans.
Also, a man never approaches a woman like this in public. Jesus is breaking accepted social barriers with this confrontation.
Jesus: 10 You don’t know the gift of God or who is asking you for a drink of this water from Jacob’s well. Because if you did, you would have asked Him for something greater; and He would have given you the living water.
Woman: 11 Sir, You sit by this deep well a thirsty man without a bucket in sight. Where does this living water come from? 12 Are You claiming superiority to our father Jacob who labored long and hard to dig and maintain this well so that he could share clean water with his sons, grandchildren, and cattle?
Jesus: 13 Drink this water, and your thirst is quenched only for a moment. You must return to this well again and again. 14 I offer water that will become a wellspring within you that gives life throughout eternity. You will never be thirsty again.
Woman: 15 Please, Sir, give me some of this water, so I’ll never be thirsty and never again have to make the trip to this well.
Jesus: 16 Then bring your husband to Me.
Woman: 17-18 I do not have a husband.
Jesus: Technically you are telling the truth. But you have had five husbands and are currently living with a man you are not married to.
Woman: 19 Sir, it is obvious to me that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped here on this mountain, but Your people say that Jerusalem is the only place for all to worship. Which is it?
Jesus: 21-24 Woman, I tell you that neither is so. Believe this: a new day is coming—in fact, it’s already here—when the importance will not be placed on the time and place of worship but on the truthful hearts of worshipers. You worship what you don’t know while we worship what we do know, for God’s salvation is coming through the Jews. The Father is spirit, and He is seeking followers whose worship is sourced in truth and deeply spiritual as well. Regardless of whether you are in Jerusalem or on this mountain, if you do not seek the Father, then you do not worship.
Woman: 25 These mysteries will be made clear by He who is promised, the Anointed One.
Jesus: 26 The Anointed is speaking to you. I am the One you have been looking for.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.