Book of Common Prayer
A Prayer Against the Enemies
A song. A psalm of Asaph.
83 God, do not keep quiet;
God, do not be silent or still.
2 Your enemies are making noises;
those who hate you are getting ready to attack.
3 They are making secret plans against your people;
they plot against those you love.
4 They say, “Come, let’s destroy them as a nation.
Then no one will ever remember the name ‘Israel.’”
5 They are united in their plan.
These have made an agreement against you:
6 the families of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
7 the people of Byblos, Ammon, Amalek,
Philistia, and Tyre.
8 Even Assyria has joined them
to help Ammon and Moab, the descendants of Lot. Selah
9 God, do to them what you did to Midian,
what you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River.
10 They died at Endor,
and their bodies rotted on the ground.
11 Do to their important leaders what you did to Oreb and Zeeb.
Do to their princes what you did to Zebah and Zalmunna.
12 They said, “Let’s take for ourselves
the pasturelands that belong to God.”
13 My God, make them like tumbleweed,
like chaff blown away by the wind.
14 Be like a fire that burns a forest
or like flames that blaze through the hills.
15 Chase them with your storm,
and frighten them with your wind.
16 Cover them with shame.
Then people will look for you, Lord.
17 Make them afraid and ashamed forever.
Disgrace them and destroy them.
18 Then they will know that you are the Lord,
that only you are God Most High over all the earth.
Wishing to Be Near God
For the director of music. A maskil of the sons of Korah.
42 As a deer thirsts for streams of water,
so I thirst for you, God.
2 I thirst for the living God.
When can I go to meet with him?
3 Day and night, my tears have been my food.
People are always saying,
“Where is your God?”
4 When I remember these things,
I speak with a broken heart.
I used to walk with the crowd
and lead them to God’s Temple
with songs of praise.
5 Why am I so sad?
Why am I so upset?
I should put my hope in God
and keep praising him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
I am very sad.
So I remember you where the Jordan River begins,
near the peaks of Hermon and Mount Mizar.
7 Troubles have come again and again, sounding like waterfalls.
Your waves are crashing all around me.
8 The Lord shows his true love every day.
At night I have a song,
and I pray to my living God.
9 I say to God, my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why am I sad
and troubled by my enemies?”
10 My enemies’ insults make me feel
as if my bones were broken.
They are always saying,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why am I so sad?
Why am I so upset?
I should put my hope in God
and keep praising him,
my Savior and my God.
A Prayer for Protection
43 God, defend me.
Argue my case against those who don’t follow you.
Save me from liars and those who do evil.
2 God, you are my strength.
Why have you rejected me?
Why am I sad
and troubled by my enemies?
3 Send me your light and truth
to guide me.
Let them lead me to your holy mountain,
to where you live.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God who is my joy and happiness.
I will praise you with a harp,
God, my God.
5 Why am I so sad?
Why am I so upset?
I should put my hope in God
and keep praising him,
my Savior and my God.
A Prayer for the Nation
For the director of music. A psalm of the sons of Korah.
85 Lord, you have been kind to your land;
you brought back the people of Jacob.
2 You forgave the guilt of the people
and covered all their sins. Selah
3 You stopped all your anger;
you turned back from your strong anger.
4 God our Savior, bring us back again.
Stop being angry with us.
5 Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you stay angry from now on?
6 Won’t you give us life again?
Your people would rejoice in you.
7 Lord, show us your love,
and save us.
8 I will listen to God the Lord.
He has ordered peace for those who worship him.
Don’t let them go back to foolishness.
9 God will soon save those who respect him,
and his glory will be seen in our land.
10 Love and truth belong to God’s people;
goodness and peace will be theirs.
11 On earth people will be loyal to God,
and God’s goodness will shine down from heaven.
12 The Lord will give his goodness,
and the land will give its crops.
13 Goodness will go before God
and prepare the way for him.
A Cry for Help
A prayer of David.
86 Lord, listen to me and answer me.
I am poor and helpless.
2 Protect me, because I worship you.
My God, save me, your servant who trusts in you.
3 Lord, have mercy on me,
because I have called to you all day.
4 Give happiness to me, your servant,
because I give my life to you, Lord.
5 Lord, you are kind and forgiving
and have great love for those who call to you.
6 Lord, hear my prayer,
and listen when I ask for mercy.
7 I call to you in times of trouble,
because you will answer me.
8 Lord, there is no god like you
and no works like yours.
9 Lord, all the nations you have made
will come and worship you.
They will honor you.
10 You are great and you do miracles.
Only you are God.
11 Lord, teach me what you want me to do,
and I will live by your truth.
Teach me to respect you completely.
12 Lord, my God, I will praise you with all my heart,
and I will honor your name forever.
13 You have great love for me.
You have saved me from death.
14 God, proud people are attacking me;
a gang of cruel people is trying to kill me.
They do not respect you.
15 But, Lord, you are a God who shows mercy and is kind.
You don’t become angry quickly.
You have great love and faithfulness.
16 Turn to me and have mercy.
Give me, your servant, strength.
Save me, the son of your female servant.
17 Show me a sign of your goodness.
When my enemies look, they will be ashamed.
You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
11 “Tell them this message: ‘These gods did not make heaven and earth; they will be destroyed and disappear from heaven and earth.’”
12 God made the earth by his power.
He used his wisdom to build the world
and his understanding to stretch out the skies.
13 When he thunders, the waters in the skies roar.
He makes clouds rise in the sky all over the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.
14 People are so stupid and know so little.
Goldsmiths are made ashamed by their idols,
because those statues are only false gods.
They have no breath in them.
15 They are worth nothing; people make fun of them.
When they are judged, they will be destroyed.
16 But God, who is Jacob’s Portion, is not like the idols.
He made everything,
and he chose Israel to be his special people.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
Destruction Is Coming
17 Get everything you own and prepare to leave,
you people who are trapped by your enemies.
18 This is what the Lord says:
“At this time I will throw out the people who live in this land.
I will bring trouble to them
so that they may be captured.”
19 How terrible it will be for me because of my injury.
My wound cannot be healed.
Yet I told myself,
“This is my sickness; I must suffer through it.”
20 My tent is ruined,
and all its ropes are broken.
My children have gone away and left me.
No one is left to put up my tent again
or to set up a shelter for me.
21 The shepherds are stupid
and don’t ask the Lord for advice.
So they do not have success,
and all their flocks are scattered and lost.
22 Listen! The news is coming.
A loud noise comes from the north
to make the towns of Judah an empty desert
and a home for wild dogs!
Jeremiah’s Prayer
23 Lord, I know that our lives don’t really belong to us.
We can’t control our own lives.
24 Lord, correct me, but be fair.
Don’t punish me in your anger,
or you will destroy me.
Adam and Christ Compared
12 Sin came into the world because of what one man did, and with sin came death. This is why everyone must die—because everyone sinned. 13 Sin was in the world before the law of Moses, but sin is not counted against us as breaking a command when there is no law. 14 But from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, everyone had to die, even those who had not sinned by breaking a command, as Adam had.
Adam was like the One who was coming in the future. 15 But God’s free gift is not like Adam’s sin. Many people died because of the sin of that one man. But the grace from God was much greater; many people received God’s gift of life by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. 16 After Adam sinned once, he was judged guilty. But the gift of God is different. God’s free gift came after many sins, and it makes people right with God. 17 One man sinned, and so death ruled all people because of that one man. But now those people who accept God’s full grace and the great gift of being made right with him will surely have true life and rule through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 So as one sin of Adam brought the punishment of death to all people, one good act that Christ did makes all people right with God. And that brings true life for all. 19 One man disobeyed God, and many became sinners. In the same way, one man obeyed God, and many will be made right. 20 The law came to make sin worse. But when sin grew worse, God’s grace increased. 21 Sin once used death to rule us, but God gave people more of his grace so that grace could rule by making people right with him. And this brings life forever through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The People Misunderstand Jesus
21 Again, Jesus said to the people, “I will leave you, and you will look for me, but you will die in your sins. You cannot come where I am going.”
22 So the Jews asked, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he said, ‘You cannot come where I am going’?”
23 Jesus said, “You people are from here below, but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I don’t belong to this world. 24 So I told you that you would die in your sins. Yes, you will die in your sins if you don’t believe that I am he.”
25 They asked, “Then who are you?”
Jesus answered, “I am what I have told you from the beginning. 26 I have many things to say and decide about you. But I tell people only the things I have heard from the One who sent me, and he speaks the truth.”
27 The people did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I am he. You will know that these things I do are not by my own authority but that I say only what the Father has taught me. 29 The One who sent me is with me. I always do what is pleasing to him, so he has not left me alone.” 30 While Jesus was saying these things, many people believed in him.
Freedom from Sin
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, “If you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.