Book of Common Prayer

119 Happy are all who perfectly follow the laws of God. ² Happy are all who search for God and always do his will, ³ rejecting compromise with evil and walking only in his paths. ⁴ You have given us your laws to obey— ⁵ oh, how I want to follow them consistently. ⁶ Then I will not be disgraced, for I will have a clean record.

⁷ After you have corrected me,^[a] I will thank you by living as I should! ⁸ I will obey! Oh, don’t forsake me and let me slip back into sin again.^[b]

⁹ How can a young man stay pure? By reading your Word and following its rules. ¹⁰ I have tried my best to find you—don’t let me wander off from your instructions. ¹¹ I have thought much about your words and stored them in my heart so that they would hold me back from sin.

¹² Blessed Lord, teach me your rules. ¹³ I have recited your laws ¹⁴ and rejoiced in them more than in riches. ¹⁵ I will meditate upon them and give them my full respect. ¹⁶ I will delight in them and not forget them.

¹⁷ Bless me with life^[c] so that I can continue to obey you. ¹⁸ Open my eyes to see wonderful things in your Word. ¹⁹ I am but a pilgrim here on earth: how I need a map—and your commands are my chart and guide. ²⁰ I long for your instructions more than I can tell.

²¹ You rebuke those cursed proud ones who refuse your commands— ²² don’t let them scorn me for obeying you. ²³ For even princes sit and talk against me, but I will continue in your plans. ²⁴ Your laws are both my light and my counselors.

12 Lord! Help! Godly men are fast disappearing. Where in all the world can dependable men be found? ² Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left.

^3-4 But the Lord will not deal gently with people who act like that; he will destroy those proud liars who say, “We will lie to our heart’s content. Our lips are our own; who can stop us?”

⁵ The Lord replies, “I will arise and defend the oppressed, the poor, the needy. I will rescue them as they have longed for me to do.” ⁶ The Lord’s promise is sure. He speaks no careless word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined. ⁷ O Lord, we know that you will forever preserve your own from the reach of evil men, ⁸ although they prowl on every side and vileness is praised throughout the land.

13 How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever? How long will you look the other way when I am in need? ² How long must I be hiding daily anguish in my heart? How long shall my enemy have the upper hand?

³ Answer me, O Lord my God; give me light in my darkness lest I die. ⁴ Don’t let my enemies say, “We have conquered him!” Don’t let them gloat that I am down.

⁵ But I will always trust in you and in your mercy and shall rejoice in your salvation. ⁶ I will sing to the Lord because he has blessed me so richly.

14 That man is a fool who says to himself, “There is no God!” Anyone who talks like that is warped and evil and cannot really be a good person at all.

² The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who are wise, who want to please God. ³ But no, all have strayed away; all are rotten with sin. Not one is good, not one! ⁴ They eat my people like bread and wouldn’t think of praying! Don’t they really know any better?

⁵ Terror shall grip them, for God is with those who love him. ⁶ He is the refuge of the poor and humble when evildoers are oppressing them. ⁷ Oh, that the time of their rescue were already here, that God would come from Zion now to save his people. What gladness when the Lord has rescued Israel!

¹⁷ Then he went home and told Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions. ¹⁸ They asked the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret, so they would not die with the others. ¹⁹ And that night in a vision God told Daniel what the king had dreamed.

Then Daniel praised the God of heaven, ²⁰ saying, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for he alone has all wisdom and all power. ²¹ World events are under his control. He removes kings and sets others on their thrones. He gives wise men their wisdom and scholars their intelligence. ²² He reveals profound mysteries beyond man’s understanding. He knows all hidden things, for he is light, and darkness is no obstacle to him. ²³ I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers, for you have given me wisdom and glowing health, and now even this vision of the king’s dream and the understanding of what it means.”

²⁴ Then Daniel went in to see Arioch, who had been ordered to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said, “Don’t kill them. Take me to the king, and I will tell him what he wants to know.”

²⁵ Then Arioch hurried Daniel in to the king and said, “I’ve found one of the Jewish captives who will tell you your dream!”

²⁶ The king said to Daniel, “Is this true? Can you tell me what my dream was and what it means?”

²⁷ Daniel replied, “No wise man, astrologer, magician, or wizard can tell the king such things, ²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has told you in your dream what will happen in the future. This was your dream:

²⁹ “You dreamed of coming events. He who reveals secrets was speaking to you. ³⁰ (But remember, it’s not because I am wiser than any living person that I know this secret of your dream, for God showed it to me for your benefit.)

¹² I am writing these things to all of you, my little children, because your sins have been forgiven in the name of Jesus our Savior. ¹³ I am saying these things to you older men because you really know Christ, the one who has been alive from the beginning. And you young men, I am talking to you because you have won your battle with Satan. And I am writing to you younger boys and girls because you, too, have learned to know God our Father.

¹⁴ And so I say to you fathers who know the eternal God, and to you young men who are strong with God’s Word in your hearts, and have won your struggle against Satan: ¹⁵ Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; ¹⁶ for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever.

²⁰ “I am not praying for these alone but also for the future believers who will come to me because of the testimony of these. ²¹ My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.

²² “I have given them the glory you gave me—the glorious unity of being one, as we are— ²³ I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one—so that the world will know you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me. ²⁴ Father, I want them with me—these you’ve given me—so that they can see my glory. You gave me the glory because you loved me before the world began!

²⁵ “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. ²⁶ And I have revealed you to them and will keep on revealing you so that the mighty love you have for me may be in them, and I in them.”