Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 95
1 Come, let us worship in song, a joyful offering to the Eternal.
Shout! Shout with joy to the rock of our liberation.
2 Come face-to-face with God, and give thanks;
with loud and joyful voices, praise Him in songs.
3 For the Eternal is a great God,
and a great King, supreme over all gods.
4 Within His control are the very depths of the earth;
the mountaintops too—they all belong to Him.
5 The sea belongs to Him, for He created it—scooped and filled it—
with His hands He made the dry land—every valley and mountain.
6 Come, let us worship Him. Everyone bow down;
kneel before the Eternal who made us.
7 For He is our God
and we are His people, the flock of His pasture,
His sheep protected and nurtured by His hand.
Today, if He speaks, hear His voice.
8 “Don’t harden your hearts the way they did in the bitter uprising at Meribah
or like that day they complained in the wilderness of Massah.
9 Your ancestors tested Me,
wanted Me to prove Myself though they had seen that nothing was too great for Me.
10 For 40 years I despised that grumbling generation
and said, ‘Their hearts are unfaithful;
they no longer walk in My ways; though I call, they do not listen to My voice.’
11 That is why in My anger I swore,
‘They will never enter into My rest.’”
Psalm 88
For the worship leader. A song of the sons of Korah accompanied by dance.[a] A contemplative song[b] of Heman the Ezrahite.
This individual lament was composed by someone afflicted with a grave illness, feeling lonely and abandoned by God. This song is reminiscent of Job’s sufferings.
1 O Eternal One! O True God my Savior!
I cry out to You all the time, under the sun and the moon.
2 Let my voice reach You!
Please listen to my prayers!
3 My soul is deeply troubled,
and my heart can’t bear the weight of this sorrow. I feel so close to death.
4 I’m like the poor and helpless who die alone,
left for dead, as good as the unknowable sea of souls lying under our feet,
5-6 Forsaken by Him and cut off from His hand,
abandoned among the dead who rest in their graves.
And You have sent me to be forgotten with them,
in the lowest pits of the earth,
in the darkest canyons of the ocean.
7 You crush me with Your anger.
You crash against me like the relentless, angry sea.
[pause][c]
8 Those whom I have known, who have been with me,
You have gathered like sheaves and cast to the four winds.
They can’t bear to look me in the eye, and they are horrified when they think of me.
I am in a trap and cannot be free.
9 My eyes grow dim, weakened by this sickness;
it is taking my strength from me.
Like a worn cloth, my hands are unfolded before You daily, O Eternal One.
10 Are You the miracle-worker for the dead?
Will they rise from the dark shadows to worship You again?
[pause]
11 Will Your great love be proclaimed in the grave
or Your faithfulness be remembered in whispers like mists throughout the place of ruin?[d]
12 Are Your wonders known in the dominion of darkness,
or is Your righteousness recognized in a land where all is forgotten?
13 But I am calling out to You, Eternal One.
My prayers rise before You with every new sun!
14 Why do You turn Your head
and brush me aside, O Eternal One?
Why are You avoiding me?
15 Since the days of my youth, I have been sick and close to death.
My helpless soul has suffered Your silent horrors;
now I am desperate.
16 Your rage spills over me like rivers of fire;
Your assaults have all but destroyed me.
17 They surround me like a flood, rising throughout the day,
closing in from every direction.
18 You have taken from me the one I love and my friend;
even the light of my acquaintances are darkness.
Psalm 91
1 He who takes refuge in the shelter of the Most High
will be safe in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 He will say to the Eternal, “My shelter, my mighty fortress,
my God, I place all my trust in You.”
3 For He will rescue you from the snares set by your enemies who entrap you
and from deadly plagues.
4 Like a bird protecting its young, God will cover you with His feathers,
will protect you under His great wings;
His faithfulness will form a shield around you, a rock-solid wall to protect you.
Psalm 91 is a beautiful psalm of trust in God. But how does God take care of all His people, all at the same time? Well, keep reading because Psalm 91 is one of just a few places in Scripture that describe what we might call “guardian angels” (Exodus 23:20; Psalm 43:3). Though rare, these passages teach that God is not alone in maintaining and protecting His creation and His people. He has made a host of heavenly messengers ready to do His bidding, and His bidding is often to guard His people throughout their lives and protect them—sometimes from dangers they are not even aware of.
5 You will not dread the terrors that haunt the night
or enemy arrows that fly in the day
6 Or the plagues that lurk in darkness
or the disasters that wreak havoc at noon.
7 A thousand may fall on your left,
ten thousand may die on your right,
but these horrors won’t come near you.
8 Only your eyes will witness
the punishment that awaits the evil,
but you will not suffer because of it.
9 For you made the Eternal [your][a] refuge,
the Most High your only home.
10 No evil will come to you;
plagues will be turned away at your door.
11 He will command His heavenly messengers to guard you,
to keep you safe in every way.
12 They will hold you up in their hands
so that you will not crash, or fall, or even graze your foot on a stone.[b]
13 You will walk on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the lion and the serpent underfoot.
14 “Because he clings to Me in love,
I will rescue him from harm;
I will set him above danger.
Because he has known Me by name,
15 He will call on Me, and I will answer.
I’ll be with him through hard times;
I’ll rescue him and grant him honor.
16 I’ll reward him with many good years on this earth
and let him witness My salvation.”
Psalm 92
A song for the Sabbath Day.
Psalm 92 gives thanks to God for His salvation. The superscription provides the only reference to the Sabbath in the Book of Psalms.
1 How good it is to give thanks to the Eternal
and to praise Your name with song, O Most High;
2 To speak of Your unfailing love in the morning
and rehearse Your faithfulness as night begins to fall.
3 How good it is to praise to the sound of strings—lute and harp—
the stirring melodies of the lyre.
4 Because You, O Eternal One, thrill me with the things You have done,
I will sing with joy in light of Your deeds.
5 Your works are marvelous, O Eternal One!
Your thoughts are unfathomable.
6 But a weak-minded man can’t understand this;
foolish people are unable to see
7 That evil men sprout like grass
and wicked men flourish,
only so that they will be doomed forever.
8 But You, O Eternal One, are above all, forever.
9 As for Your enemies, O Eternal One,
their fate is obvious:
those who hate You will not survive;
those who practice evil will be broken in pieces.
10 But You have made me strong as a wild ox,
anointed me with the refreshing oil of Your blessing.
11 And I have seen with my own eyes my enemies defeated;
I have heard with my own ears my attackers cut down.
12 Those who are devoted to God will flourish like budding date-palm trees;
they will grow strong and tall like cedars in Lebanon.
13 Those planted in the house of the Eternal
will thrive in the courts of our God.
14 They will bear fruit into old age;
even in winter, they will be green and full of sap
15 To display that the Eternal is righteous.
He is my rock, and there is no shadow of evil in Him.
11 The word of the Eternal came to Jeremiah.
Eternal One: 2 Tell the people of Judah, and specifically those who live in Jerusalem, to hear the terms of our covenant. 3 Tell them this is what the Eternal, the God of Israel, has to say: “Cursed is anyone who ignores the terms of this covenant. 4 All of this was laid out for your ancestors long ago when I first delivered them from slavery, rescued them from the fire of Egypt. I told them, ‘Hear My voice, and do all that I command you. This way you will be My people, and I will be your God.’ 5 I wanted nothing more than to keep My promise and to bless your ancestors with a land flowing with milk and honey—the land of promise on which you stand today.”
Jeremiah: Yes, O Eternal One! Let it be.
Eternal One (to Jeremiah): 6 Now it is time to announce My message in the villages of Judah and on the streets of My city, Jerusalem. I want them to hear this: “Listen to the words of this covenant, and start doing what it says. 7 I sternly warned your ancestors when I rescued them from Egypt, and I’ve repeated that warning many times, even today, saying, ‘Listen to My voice, and do as I say.’ 8 But they didn’t listen, and they didn’t obey Me. Instead, they deliberately chased their own dark desires, ignoring Me at every turn. So I enforced the terms of our covenant, including the curses that came from refusing to do that which I had commanded them.”
14 Don’t pray for these people, Jeremiah. Don’t bother making any pleas for them, for that time has passed. I will not listen when they call out to Me in their time of trouble.
15 What right does My beloved have coming into My temple, having done such vile things with so many? Do you really think that animal sacrifice is going to make this all go away? Will you then be able to rejoice? 16 The Eternal once proclaimed you a lush olive tree, full of beautiful fruit. But all that has changed. With the roar of a violent storm, He will now strike that tree—leaving it battered, broken, and burned. 17 Now the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, has decreed disaster against you, the same tree He planted—all because of the evil done by the people of Israel and Judah, all because they provoked Me by worshiping and sacrificing to Baal.
At this point in the prophecy, Jeremiah reveals a bit of his private struggles. Because he has faithfully delivered God’s messages to the nation, people from his hometown are scheming against him. They would like nothing better than to silence God’s mouthpiece . . . permanently. God, however, lets Jeremiah in on the plot. Wisely, Jeremiah puts his trust in God to protect and defend him.
18 Jeremiah: The Eternal revealed to me the plans of my enemies.
Then You showed me what they wanted to do.
19 I was like an unsuspecting lamb led to its slaughter.
I had no idea they were plotting against me. They were saying,
“Let’s cut down that lush olive tree and destroy all its beautiful fruit.[a]
Let’s cut him off from the land of the living.
Let’s make sure no one even remembers his name.”
20 But You, Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, You who judge fairly,
You know the heart and the mind.
Let me see Your vengeance exacted against them;
I am entrusting my cause, my future to You.
We arrive here, children of a common ancestor, Adam. As such, we have inherited his traits, physically and spiritually. Although our sin may be of a different sort than his, we sin no less than Adam. The proof of that is death. Adam opens the way for sin and death to pursue us and run rampant across the earth. But from the beginning, God has a plan to reverse the curse. At just the right moment in human history, Jesus arrives, a son of Adam and the Son of God. Through His faithful obedience to His Father, He challenges the twin powers of sin and death and defeats them. Sin no longer reigns unchecked. Death no longer has the last word.
6 How should we respond to all of this? Is it good to persist in a life of sin so that grace may multiply even more? 2 Absolutely not! How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives? 3 Did someone forget to tell you that when we were initiated into Jesus the Anointed through baptism’s ceremonial washing,[a] we entered into His death? 4 Therefore, we were buried with Him through this baptism into death so that just as God the Father, in all His glory, resurrected the Anointed One, we, too, might walk confidently out of the grave into a new life. 5 To put it another way: if we have been united with Him to share in a death like His, don’t you understand that we will also share in His resurrection? 6 We know this: whatever we used to be with our old sinful ways has been nailed to His cross. So our entire record of sin has been canceled, and we no longer have to bow down to sin’s power. 7 A dead man, you see, cannot be bound by sin. 8 But if we have died with the Anointed One, we believe that we shall also live together with Him. 9 So we stand firm in the conviction that death holds no power over God’s Anointed, because He was resurrected from the dead never to face death again. 10 When He died, He died to whatever power sin had, once and for all, and now He lives completely to God. 11 So here is how to picture yourself now that you have been initiated into Jesus the Anointed: you are dead to sin’s power and influence, but you are alive to God’s rule.
Jewish Believers: 33 We are Abraham’s children, and we have never been enslaved to anyone. How can You say to us, “You will be set free”?
Jesus: 34 I tell you the truth: everyone who commits sin surrenders his freedom to sin. He is a slave to sin’s power. 35 Even a household slave does not live in the home like a member of the family, but a son belongs there forever. 36 So think of it this way: if the Son comes to make you free, you will really be free.
Jesus notices that some of His opponents are listening, so He speaks louder and turns His remarks to them.
37 I know you are descendants of Abraham, but here you are plotting to murder Me because you do not welcome My voice into your lives. 38 As I speak, I am painting you a picture of what I have seen with My Father; here you are repeating the things you have seen from your father.
Jews: 39 Abraham is our father.
Jesus: If you are truly Abraham’s children, then act like Abraham! 40 From what I see you are trying to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth that comes from the Father. This is not something Abraham would do, 41 but you are doing what you have learned from your father.
Jews: We were not born from adulterous parents; we have one Father: God.
Jesus: 42 I come from the one True God, and I’m not here on My own. He sent Me on a mission. If God were your Father, you would know that and would love Me. 43 You don’t even understand what I’m saying. Do you? Why not? It is because You cannot stand to hear My voice. 44 You are just like your true father, the devil; and you spend your time pursuing the things your father loves. He started out as a killer, and he cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his character, he is a liar; everything he speaks originates in these lies because he is the father of lies. 45 So when I speak truth, you don’t believe Me. 46-47 If I speak the truth, why don’t you believe Me? If you belong to God’s family, then why can’t you hear God speak? The answer is clear; you are not in God’s family. I speak truth, and you don’t believe Me. Can any of you convict Me of sin?
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.