Book of Common Prayer
69 1-2 Save me, O my God. The floods have risen. Deeper and deeper I sink in the mire; the waters rise around me. 3 I have wept until I am exhausted; my throat is dry and hoarse; my eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to act. 4 I cannot even count all those who hate me without cause. They are influential men, these who plot to kill me though I am innocent. They demand that I be punished for what I didn’t do.
5 O God, you know so well how stupid I am, and you know all my sins. 6 O Lord God of the armies of heaven, don’t let me be a stumbling block to those who trust in you. O God of Israel, don’t let me cause them to be confused, 7 though I am mocked and cursed and shamed for your sake. 8 Even my own brothers pretend they don’t know me! 9 My zeal for God and his work[a] burns hot within me. And because I advocate your cause, your enemies insult me even as they insult you. 10 How they scoff and mock me when I mourn and fast before the Lord! 11 How they talk about me when I wear sackcloth to show my humiliation and sorrow for my sins! 12 I am the talk of the town and the song of the drunkards. 13 But I keep right on praying to you, Lord. For now is the time—you are bending down to hear! You are ready with a plentiful supply of love and kindness. Now answer my prayer and rescue me as you promised.[b] 14 Pull me out of this mire. Don’t let me sink in. Rescue me from those who hate me, and from these deep waters I am in.
15 Don’t let the floods overwhelm me or the ocean swallow me; save me from the pit that threatens me. 16 O Jehovah, answer my prayers, for your loving-kindness is wonderful; your mercy is so plentiful, so tender and so kind. 17 Don’t hide from me,[c] for I am in deep trouble. Quick! Come and save me. 18 Come, Lord, and rescue me. Ransom me from all my enemies. 19 You know how they talk about me, and how they so shamefully dishonor me. You see them all and know what each has said.
20 Their contempt has broken my heart; my spirit is heavy within me. If even one would show some pity, if even one would comfort me! 21 For food they gave me gall; for my awful thirst they offered vinegar. 22 Let their joys[d] turn to ashes and their peace disappear; 23 let darkness, blindness, and great feebleness be theirs. 24 Pour out your fury upon them; consume them with the fierceness of your anger. 25 Let their homes be desolate and abandoned. 26 For they persecute the one you have smitten and scoff at the pain of the one you have pierced. 27 Pile their sins high and do not overlook them. 28 Let these men be blotted from the list of the living;[e] do not give them the joys of life with the righteous.
29 But rescue me, O God, from my poverty and pain. 30 Then I will praise God with my singing! My thanks will be his praise— 31 that will please him more than sacrificing a bullock or an ox. 32 The humble shall see their God at work for them. No wonder they will be so glad! All who seek for God shall live in joy. 33 For Jehovah hears the cries of his needy ones and does not look the other way.
34 Praise him, all heaven and earth! Praise him, all the seas and everything in them! 35 For God will save Jerusalem;[f] he rebuilds the cities of Judah. His people shall live in them and not be dispossessed. 36 Their children shall inherit the land; all who love his name shall live there safely.
73 How good God is to Israel—to those whose hearts are pure. 2 But as for me, I came so close to the edge of the cliff! My feet were slipping and I was almost gone. 3 For I was envious of the prosperity of the proud and wicked. 4 Yes, all through life their road is smooth![a] They grow sleek and fat. 5 They aren’t always in trouble and plagued with problems like everyone else, 6 so their pride sparkles like a jeweled necklace, and their clothing is woven of cruelty! 7 These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! 8 They scoff at God and threaten his people. How proudly they speak! 9 They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut through the earth.
10 And so God’s people are dismayed and confused and drink it all in. 11 “Does God realize what is going on?” they ask. 12 “Look at these men of arrogance; they never have to lift a finger—theirs is a life of ease; and all the time their riches multiply.”
13 Have I been wasting my time? Why take the trouble to be pure? 14 All I get out of it is trouble and woe—every day and all day long! 15 If I had really said that, I would have been a traitor to your people. 16 Yet it is so hard to explain it—this prosperity of those who hate the Lord. 17 Then one day I went into God’s sanctuary to meditate and thought about the future of these evil men. 18 What a slippery path they are on—suddenly God will send them sliding over the edge of the cliff and down to their destruction: 19 an instant end to all their happiness, an eternity of terror. 20 Their present life is only a dream! They will awaken to the truth as one awakens from a dream of things that never really were!
21 When I saw this, what turmoil filled my heart! 22 I saw myself so stupid and so ignorant; I must seem like an animal to you, O God. 23 But even so, you love me! You are holding my right hand! 24 You will keep on guiding me all my life with your wisdom and counsel, and afterwards receive me into the glories of heaven![b] 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire no one on earth as much as you! 26 My health fails; my spirits droop, yet God remains! He is the strength of my heart; he is mine forever!
27 But those refusing to worship God will perish, for he destroys those serving other gods.
28 But as for me, I get as close to him as I can! I have chosen him, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful ways he rescues me.
9 Young man, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it! Do all you want to; take in everything, but realize that you must account to God for everything you do. 10 So banish grief and pain, but remember that youth, with a whole life before it, can make serious mistakes.
12 Don’t let the excitement of being young cause you to forget about your Creator. Honor him in your youth before the evil years come—when you’ll no longer enjoy living. 2 It will be too late then to try to remember him when the sun and light and moon and stars are dim to your old eyes, and there is no silver lining left among your clouds. 3 For there will come a time when your limbs will tremble with age, your strong legs will become weak, and your teeth will be too few to do their work, and there will be blindness too. 4 Then let your lips be tightly closed while eating when your teeth are gone! And you will waken at dawn with the first note of the birds; but you yourself will be deaf and tuneless, with quavering voice. 5 You will be afraid of heights and of falling—a white-haired, withered old man, dragging himself along: without sexual desire, standing at death’s door, and nearing his everlasting home as the mourners go along the streets.
6 Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young—before the silver cord of life snaps and the gold bowl is broken; before the pitcher is broken at the fountain and the wheel is broken at the cistern; 7 then the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. 8 All is futile, says the Preacher; utterly futile.
9 But then, because the Preacher was wise, he went on teaching the people all he knew; and he collected proverbs and classified them. 10 For the Preacher was not only a wise man but a good teacher; he not only taught what he knew to the people, but taught them in an interesting manner. 11 The wise man’s words are like goads that spur to action. They nail down important truths. Students are wise who master what their teachers tell them.
12 But, my son, be warned: there is no end of opinions ready to be expressed. Studying them can go on forever and become very exhausting!
13 Here is my final conclusion: fear God and obey his commandments, for this is the entire duty of man. 14 For God will judge us for everything we do, including every hidden thing, good or bad.
25 If we are living now by the Holy Spirit’s power, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Then we won’t need to look for honors and popularity, which lead to jealousy and hard feelings.
6 Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong. 2 Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command. 3 If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody.
4 Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else. 5 Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own. For none of us is perfect!
6 Those who are taught the Word of God should help their teachers by paying them.
7 Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows! 8 If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives him. 9 And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up. 10 That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.
21 From then on Jesus began to speak plainly to his disciples about going to Jerusalem, and what would happen to him there—that he would suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders,[a] that he would be killed, and that three days later he would be raised to life again.
22 But Peter took him aside to remonstrate with him. “Heaven forbid, sir,” he said. “This is not going to happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned on Peter and said, “Get away from me, you Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are thinking merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s.”
24 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For anyone who keeps his life for himself shall lose it; and anyone who loses his life for me shall find it again. 26 What profit is there if you gain the whole world—and lose eternal life? What can be compared with the value of eternal life? 27 For I, the Son of Mankind, shall come with my angels in the glory of my Father and judge each person according to his deeds. 28 And some of you standing right here now will certainly live to see me coming in my Kingdom.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.