Book of Common Prayer

80 O Shepherd of Israel who leads Israel like a flock; O God enthroned above the Guardian Angels, bend down your ear and listen as I plead. Display your power and radiant glory. ² Let Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh see you rouse yourself and use your mighty power to rescue us.

³ Turn us again to yourself, O God. Look down on us in joy and love;^[a] only then shall we be saved.

⁴ O Jehovah, God of heaven’s armies, how long will you be angry and reject our prayers? ⁵ You have fed us with sorrow and tears ⁶ and have made us the scorn of the neighboring nations. They laugh among themselves.

⁷ Turn us again to yourself, O God of Hosts. Look down on us in joy and love;^[b] only then shall we be saved. ⁸ You brought us from Egypt as though we were a tender vine and drove away the heathen from your land and planted us. ⁹ You cleared the ground and tilled the soil, and we took root and filled the land. ¹⁰ The mountains were covered with our shadow; we were like the mighty cedar trees,^{[c] 11} covering the entire land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River. ¹² But now you have broken down our walls, leaving us without protection. ¹³ The boar from the forest roots around us, and the wild animals feed on us.

¹⁴ Come back, we beg of you, O God of the armies of heaven, and bless us. Look down from heaven and see our plight and care for this your vine! ¹⁵ Protect what you yourself have planted, this son you have raised for yourself. ¹⁶ For we are chopped and burned by our enemies. May they perish at your frown. ¹⁷ Strengthen the man you love,^[d] the son of your choice, ¹⁸ and we will never forsake you again. Revive us to trust in you.

¹⁹ Turn us again to yourself, O God of the armies of heaven. Look down on us, your face aglow with joy and love—only then shall we be saved.

77 I cry to the Lord; I call and call to him. Oh, that he would listen. ² I am in deep trouble and I need his help so much. All night long I pray, lifting my hands to heaven, pleading. There can be no joy for me until he acts. ³ I think of God and moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. ⁴ I cannot sleep until you act. I am too distressed even to pray!

⁵ I keep thinking of the good old days of the past, long since ended. ⁶ Then my nights were filled with joyous songs. I search my soul and meditate upon the difference now. ⁷ Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be favorable? ⁸ Is his loving-kindness gone forever? Has his promise failed? ⁹ Has he forgotten to be kind to one so undeserving? Has he slammed the door in anger on his love? ¹⁰ And I said: This is my fate, that the blessings of God have changed to hate.^{[a] 11} I recall the many miracles he did for me so long ago. ¹² Those wonderful deeds are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them.

¹³ O God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you? ¹⁴ You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.

¹⁵ You have redeemed us who are the sons of Jacob and of Joseph by your might. ¹⁶ When the Red Sea saw you, how it feared! It trembled to its depths! ¹⁷ The clouds poured down their rain, the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Your lightning flashed. ¹⁸ There was thunder in the whirlwind; the lightning lighted up the world! The earth trembled and shook.

¹⁹ Your road led by a pathway through the sea—a pathway no one knew was there! ²⁰ You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

79 O God, your land has been conquered by the heathen nations. Your Temple is defiled, and Jerusalem is a heap of ruins. ² The bodies of your people lie exposed—food for birds and animals. ³ The enemy has butchered the entire population of Jerusalem; blood has flowed like water. No one is left even to bury them. ⁴ The nations all around us scoff. They heap contempt on us.

⁵ O Jehovah, how long will you be angry with us? Forever? Will your jealousy burn till every hope is gone? ⁶ Pour out your wrath upon the godless nations—not on us—on kingdoms that refuse to pray, that will not call upon your name! ⁷ For they have destroyed your people Israel, invading every home. ⁸ Oh, do not hold us guilty for our former sins! Let your tenderhearted mercies meet our needs, for we are brought low to the dust. ⁹ Help us, God of our salvation! Help us for the honor of your name. Oh, save us and forgive our sins. ¹⁰ Why should the heathen nations be allowed to scoff, “Where is their God?” Publicly avenge this slaughter of your people! ¹¹ Listen to the sighing of the prisoners and those condemned to die. Demonstrate the greatness of your power by saving them. ¹² O Lord, take sevenfold vengeance on these nations scorning you.

¹³ Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever and forever, praising your greatness from generation to generation.

8 “You must obey all the commandments I give you today. If you do, you will not only live, you will multiply and will go in and take over the land promised to your fathers by the Lord. ² Do you remember how the Lord led you through the wilderness for all those forty years, humbling you and testing you to find out how you would respond, and whether or not you would really obey him? ³ Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to both you and your ancestors. He did it to help you realize that food isn’t everything, and that real life comes by obeying every command of God. ⁴ For all these forty years your clothes haven’t grown old, and your feet haven’t been blistered or swollen. ⁵ So you should realize that, as a man punishes his son, the Lord punishes you to help you.

⁶ “Obey the laws of the Lord your God. Walk in his ways and fear him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of brooks, pools, gushing springs, valleys, and hills; ⁸ it is a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey; ⁹ it is a land where food is plentiful, and nothing is lacking; it is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. ¹⁰ When you have eaten your fill, bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

1 From: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To: Jewish Christians scattered everywhere. Greetings!

² Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties and temptations? Then be happy, ³ for when the way is rough, your patience has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, and don’t try to squirm out of your problems. For when your patience is finally in full bloom, then you will be ready for anything, strong in character, full and complete.

⁵ If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you, for he is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him; he will not resent it. ⁶ But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind; ^7-8 and every decision you then make will be uncertain, as you turn first this way and then that. If you don’t ask with faith, don’t expect the Lord to give you any solid answer.

⁹ A Christian who doesn’t amount to much in this world should be glad, for he is great in the Lord’s sight. ^10-11 But a rich man should be glad that his riches mean nothing to the Lord, for he will soon be gone, like a flower that has lost its beauty and fades away, withered—killed by the scorching summer sun. So it is with rich men. They will soon die and leave behind all their busy activities.

¹² Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him. ¹³ And remember, when someone wants to do wrong it is never God who is tempting him, for God never wants to do wrong and never tempts anyone else to do it. ¹⁴ Temptation is the pull of man’s own evil thoughts and wishes. ¹⁵ These evil thoughts lead to evil actions and afterwards to the death penalty from God.

¹⁸ One day as he was alone, praying, with his disciples nearby, he came over and asked them, “Who are the people saying I am?”

¹⁹ “John the Baptist,” they told him, “or perhaps Elijah or one of the other ancient prophets risen from the dead.”

²⁰ Then he asked them, “Who do you think I am?”

Peter replied, “The Messiah—the Christ of God!”

²¹ He gave them strict orders not to speak of this to anyone. ²² “For I, the Messiah,^[a] must suffer much,” he said, “and be rejected by the Jewish leaders—the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the Law—and be killed; and three days later I will come back to life again!”

²³ Then he said to all, “Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences and carry his cross with him every day and keep close to me! ²⁴ Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it, but whoever insists on keeping his life will lose it; ²⁵ and what profit is there in gaining the whole world when it means forfeiting one’s self?

²⁶ “When I, the Messiah, come in my glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels, I will be ashamed then of all who are ashamed of me and of my words now. ²⁷ But this is the simple truth—some of you who are standing here right now will not die until you have seen the Kingdom of God.”