Book of Common Prayer
33 He turns rivers into a desert,
springs of water into thirsty ground,
34 a fruitful land into a salty waste,
because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
35 He turns a desert into pools of water,
a parched land into springs of water.
36 And there he lets the hungry dwell,
and they establish a city to live in;
37 they sow fields, and plant vineyards,
and get a fruitful yield.
38 By his blessing they multiply greatly;
and he does not let their cattle decrease.
39 When they are diminished and brought low
through oppression, trouble, and sorrow,
40 he pours contempt upon princes
and makes them wander in trackless wastes;
41 but he raises up the needy out of affliction,
and makes their families like flocks.
42 The upright see it and are glad;
and all wickedness stops its mouth.
43 Whoever is wise, let him give heed to these things;
let men consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
Praise and Prayer for Victory
A Song. A Psalm of David.
108 My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
Awake, my soul!
2 Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
3 I will give thanks to thee, O Lord, among the peoples,
I will sing praises to thee among the nations.
4 For thy steadfast love is great above the heavens,
thy faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!
Let thy glory be over all the earth!
6 That thy beloved may be delivered,
give help by thy right hand, and answer me!
7 God has promised in his sanctuary:[a]
“With exultation I will divide up Shechem,
and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine; Manas′seh is mine;
E′phraim is my helmet;
Judah my scepter.
9 Moab is my washbasin;
upon Edom I cast my shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
10 Who will bring me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
11 Hast thou not rejected us, O God?
Thou dost not go forth, O God, with our armies.
12 O grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the help of man!
13 With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
The Greatness and Goodness of God
33 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
2 Praise the Lord with the lyre,
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
3 Sing to him a new song,
play skilfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
4 For the word of the Lord is upright;
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord,
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood forth.
10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 The counsel of the Lord stands for ever,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!
13 The Lord looks down from heaven,
he sees all the sons of men;
14 from where he sits enthroned he looks forth
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.
16 A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.
18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death,
and keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and shield.
21 Yea, our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let thy steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in thee.
21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:
“She despises you, she scorns you—
the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
the daughter of Jerusalem.
22 “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and haughtily lifted your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23 By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest retreat,
its densest forest.
24 I dug wells
and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
all the streams of Egypt.’
25 “Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,
26 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field,
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops;
blighted before it is grown?
27 “But I know your sitting down
and your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
28 Because you have raged against me
and your arrogance has come into my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
by which you came.
29 “And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same; then in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 30 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; 31 for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.
32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death
35 And that night the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians;[a] and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennach′erib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt at Nin′eveh.
Warnings from Israel’s History
10 I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same supernatural[a] food 4 and all drank the same supernatural[b] drink. For they drank from the supernatural[c] Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance.” 8 We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put the Lord[d] to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Would-Be Followers of Jesus
18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
Jesus Stills the Storm
23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him, saying, “Save, Lord; we are perishing.” 26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.