Book of Common Prayer
37 Never envy the wicked! 2 Soon they fade away like grass and disappear. 3 Trust in the Lord instead. Be kind and good to others; then you will live safely here in the land and prosper, feeding in safety.
4 Be delighted with the Lord. Then he will give you all your heart’s desires. 5 Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him to help you do it, and he will. 6 Your innocence will be clear to everyone. He will vindicate you with the blazing light of justice shining down as from the noonday sun.
7 Rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him to act. Don’t be envious of evil men who prosper.
8 Stop your anger! Turn off your wrath. Don’t fret and worry—it only leads to harm. 9 For the wicked shall be destroyed, but those who trust the Lord shall be given every blessing. 10 Only a little while and the wicked shall disappear. You will look for them in vain. 11 But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing and shall have wonderful peace.
12-13 The Lord is laughing at those who plot against the godly, for he knows their judgment day is coming. 14 Evil men take aim to slay the poor; they are ready to butcher those who do right. 15 But their swords will be plunged into their own hearts, and all their weapons will be broken.
16 It is better to have little and be godly than to own an evil man’s wealth; 17 for the strength of evil men shall be broken, but the Lord takes care of those he has forgiven.[a]
18 Day by day the Lord observes the good deeds done by godly men,[b] and gives them eternal rewards. 19 He cares for them when times are hard; even in famine, they will have enough. 20 But evil men shall perish. These enemies of God will wither like grass and disappear like smoke. 21 Evil men borrow and “cannot pay it back”! But the good man returns what he owes with some extra besides. 22 Those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall die.
23 The steps of good men are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. 24 If they fall, it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with his hand.
25 I have been young and now I am old. And in all my years I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves him; nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry. 26 Instead, the godly are able to be generous with their gifts and loans to others, and their children are a blessing.
27 So if you want an eternal home, leave your evil, low-down ways and live good lives. 28 For the Lord loves justice and fairness; he will never abandon his people. They will be kept safe forever; but all who love wickedness shall perish.
29 The godly shall be firmly planted in the land and live there forever. 30-31 The godly man is a good counselor because he is just and fair and knows right from wrong.
32 Evil men spy on the godly, waiting for an excuse to accuse them and then demanding their death. 33 But the Lord will not let these evil men succeed, nor let the godly be condemned when they are brought before the judge.
34 Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act! Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and in due season he will honor you with every blessing,[c] and you will see the wicked destroyed. 35-36 I myself have seen it happen: a proud and evil man, towering like a cedar of Lebanon, but when I looked again, he was gone! I searched but could not find him! 37 But the good man—what a different story! For the good man—the blameless, the upright, the man of peace—he has a wonderful future ahead of him. For him there is a happy ending. 38 But evil men shall be destroyed, and their posterity shall be cut off.
39 The Lord saves the godly! He is their salvation and their refuge when trouble comes. 40 Because they trust in him, he helps them and delivers them from the plots of evil men.
32 “In all history, going back to the time when God created man upon the earth, search from one end of the heavens to the other to see if you can find anything like this: 33 An entire nation heard the voice of God speaking to it from fire, as you did, and lived! 34 Where else will you ever find another example of God’s removing a nation from its slavery by sending terrible plagues, mighty miracles, war, and terror? Yet that is what the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, right before your very eyes. 35 He did these things so you would realize that Jehovah is God, and that there is no one else like him. 36 He let you hear his voice instructing you from heaven, and he let you see his great pillar of fire upon the earth; you even heard his words from the center of the fire.
37 “It was because he loved your ancestors and chose to bless their descendants that he personally brought you out from Egypt with a great display of power. 38 He drove away other nations greater by far than you and gave you their land as an inheritance, as it is today. 39 This is your wonderful thought for the day: Jehovah is God both in heaven and down here upon the earth; and there is no God other than him! 40 You must obey these laws that I will tell you today, so that all will be well with you and your children, and so that you will live forever in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
3 Are we beginning to be like those false teachers of yours who must tell you all about themselves and bring long letters of recommendation with them? I think you hardly need someone’s letter to tell you about us, do you? And we don’t need a recommendation from you, either! 2 The only letter I need is you yourselves! By looking at the good change in your hearts, everyone can see that we have done a good work among you. 3 They can see that you are a letter from Christ, written by us. It is not a letter written with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not one carved on stone, but in human hearts.
4 We dare to say these good things about ourselves only because of our great trust in God through Christ, that he will help us to be true to what we say, 5 and not because we think we can do anything of lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success comes from God. 6 He is the one who has helped us tell others about his new agreement to save them. We do not tell them that they must obey every law of God or die; but we tell them there is life for them from the Holy Spirit. The old way, trying to be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, ends in death; in the new way, the Holy Spirit gives them life.
7 Yet that old system of law that led to death began with such glory that people could not bear to look at Moses’ face. For as he gave them God’s law to obey, his face shone out with the very glory of God—though the brightness was already fading away. 8 Shall we not expect far greater glory in these days when the Holy Spirit is giving life? 9 If the plan that leads to doom was glorious, much more glorious is the plan that makes men right with God. 10 In fact, that first glory as it shone from Moses’ face is worth nothing at all in comparison with the overwhelming glory of the new agreement. 11 So if the old system that faded into nothing was full of heavenly glory, the glory of God’s new plan for our salvation is certainly far greater, for it is eternal.
12 Since we know that this new glory will never go away, we can preach with great boldness, 13 and not as Moses did, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelis could not see the glory fade away.
14 Not only Moses’ face was veiled, but his people’s minds and understanding were veiled and blinded too. Even now when the Scripture is read it seems as though Jewish hearts and minds are covered by a thick veil, because they cannot see and understand the real meaning of the Scriptures. For this veil of misunderstanding can be removed only by believing in Christ. 15 Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings their hearts are blind and they think that obeying the Ten Commandments is the way to be saved.
16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord from his sins, then the veil is taken away. 17 The Lord is the Spirit who gives them life, and where he is there is freedom from trying to be saved by keeping the laws of God.[a] 18 But we Christians have no veil over our faces; we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him.
16 Jesus now told this story to his disciples: “A rich man hired an accountant to handle his affairs, but soon a rumor went around that the accountant was thoroughly dishonest.
2 “So his employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about your stealing from me? Get your report in order, for you are to be dismissed.’
3 “The accountant thought to himself, ‘Now what? I’m through here, and I haven’t the strength to go out and dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. 4 I know just the thing! And then I’ll have plenty of friends to take care of me when I leave!’
5-6 “So he invited each one who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ ‘My debt is 850 gallons of olive oil,’ the man replied. ‘Yes, here is the contract you signed,’ the accountant told him. ‘Tear it up and write another one for half that much!’
7 “‘And how much do you owe him?’ he asked the next man. ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the accountant said, ‘take your note and replace it with one for only 800 bushels!’
8 “The rich man had to admire the rascal for being so shrewd.[a] And it is true that the citizens of this world are more clever in dishonesty than the godly are. 9
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.