Book of Common Prayer
God the Supreme Ruler
97 The Lord is king! Earth, be glad!
Rejoice, you islands of the seas!
2 Clouds and darkness surround him;
he rules with righteousness and justice.
3 Fire goes in front of him
and burns up his enemies around him.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees it and trembles.
5 The hills melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the nations see his glory.
7 Everyone who worships idols is put to shame;
all the gods bow down[a] before the Lord.
8 The people of Zion are glad,
and the cities of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments, O Lord.
9 Lord Almighty, you are ruler of all the earth;
you are much greater than all the gods.
10 The Lord loves those who hate evil;[b]
he protects the lives of his people;
he rescues them from the power of the wicked.
11 Light shines on the righteous,
and gladness on the good.
12 All you that are righteous be glad
because of what the Lord has done!
Remember what the holy God has done,
and give thanks to him.
God the Supreme King
99 (A)The Lord is king,
and the people tremble.
He sits on his throne above the winged creatures,
and the earth shakes.
2 The Lord is mighty in Zion;
he is supreme over all the nations.
3 Everyone will praise his great and majestic name.
Holy is he!
4 Mighty king,[a] you love what is right;
you have established justice in Israel;
you have brought righteousness and fairness.
5 Praise the Lord our God;
worship before his throne!
Holy is he!
6 Moses and Aaron were his priests,
and Samuel was one who prayed to him;
they called to the Lord, and he answered them.
7 (B)He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;
they obeyed the laws and commands that he gave them.
8 O Lord, our God, you answered your people;
you showed them that you are a God who forgives,
even though you punished them for their sins.
9 Praise the Lord our God,
and worship at his sacred hill![b]
The Lord our God is holy.
A Hymn of Praise[c]
100 Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Worship the Lord with joy;
come before him with happy songs!
3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, we are his flock.
4 Enter the Temple gates with thanksgiving;
go into its courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise him.
5 (C)The Lord is good;
his love is eternal
and his faithfulness lasts forever.
God the Judge of All
94 Lord, you are a God who punishes;
reveal your anger!
2 You are the judge of us all;
rise and give the proud what they deserve!
3 How much longer will the wicked be glad?
How much longer, Lord?
4 How much longer will criminals be proud
and boast about their crimes?
5 They crush your people, Lord;
they oppress those who belong to you.
6 They kill widows and orphans,
and murder the strangers who live in our land.
7 They say, “The Lord does not see us;
the God of Israel does not notice.”
8 My people, how can you be such stupid fools?
When will you ever learn?
9 God made our ears—can't he hear?
He made our eyes—can't he see?
10 He scolds the nations—won't he punish them?[a]
He is the teacher of us all—hasn't he any knowledge?
11 (A)The Lord knows what we think;
he knows how senseless our reasoning is.
12 Lord, how happy are those you instruct,
the ones to whom you teach your law!
13 You give them rest from days of trouble
until a pit is dug to trap the wicked.
14 The Lord will not abandon his people;
he will not desert those who belong to him.
15 Justice will again be found in the courts,
and all righteous people will support it.
16 Who stood up for me against the wicked?
Who took my side against the evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not helped me,
I would have gone quickly to the land of silence.[b]
18 I said, “I am falling”;
but your constant love, O Lord, held me up.
19 Whenever I am anxious and worried,
you comfort me and make me glad.
20 You have nothing to do with corrupt judges,
who make injustice legal,
21 who plot against good people
and sentence the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord defends me;
my God protects me.
23 He will punish them for their wickedness
and destroy them for their sins;
the Lord our God will destroy them.
A Song of Praise
95 Come, let us praise the Lord!
Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and sing joyful songs of praise.
3 For the Lord is a mighty God,
a mighty king over all the gods.
4 He rules over the whole earth,
from the deepest caves to the highest hills.
5 He rules over the sea, which he made;
the land also, which he himself formed.
6 Come, let us bow down and worship him;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 (B)He is our God;
we are the people he cares for,
the flock for which he provides.
Listen today to what he says:
8 (C)“Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day in the desert at Massah.
9 There they put me to the test and tried me,
although they had seen what I did for them.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with those people.
I said, ‘How disloyal they are!
They refuse to obey my commands.’
11 (D)I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘You will never enter the land
where I would have given you rest.’”
Joab Arranges for Absalom's Return
14 Joab knew that King David missed Absalom very much, 2 so he sent for a clever woman who lived in Tekoa. When she arrived, he said to her, “Pretend that you are in mourning; put on your mourning clothes, and don't comb your hair. Act like a woman who has been in mourning for a long time. 3 Then go to the king and say to him what I tell you to say.” Then Joab told her what to say.
4 The woman went to the king, bowed down to the ground in respect, and said, “Help me, Your Majesty!”
5 “What do you want?” he asked her.
“I am a poor widow, sir,” she answered. “My husband is dead. 6 Sir, I had two sons, and one day they got into a quarrel out in the fields, where there was no one to separate them, and one of them killed the other. 7 And now, sir, all my relatives have turned against me and are demanding that I hand my son over to them, so that they can kill him for murdering his brother. If they do this, I will be left without a son. They will destroy my last hope and leave my husband without a son to keep his name alive.”
8 “Go back home,” the king answered, “and I will take care of the matter.”
9 “Your Majesty,” she said, “whatever you do, my family and I will take the blame; you and the royal family are innocent.”
10 The king replied, “If anyone threatens you, bring him to me, and he will never bother you again.”
11 She said, “Your Majesty, please pray to the Lord your God, so that my relative who is responsible for avenging the death of my son will not commit a greater crime by killing my other son.”
“I promise by the living Lord,” David replied, “that your son will not be harmed in the least.”
12 “Please, Your Majesty, let me say just one more thing,” the woman said.
“All right,” he answered.
13 She said to him, “Why have you done such a wrong to God's people? You have not allowed your own son to return from exile, and so you have condemned yourself by what you have just said. 14 We will all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which can't be gathered again. Even God does not bring the dead back to life, but the king can at least find a way to bring a man back from exile.[a] 15 Now, Your Majesty, the reason I have come to speak to you is that the people threatened me, and so I said to myself that I would speak to you in the hope that you would do what I ask. 16 I thought you would listen to me and save me from the one who is trying to kill my son and me and so remove us from the land God gave his people. 17 (A)I said to myself that your promise, sir, would make me safe, because the king is like God's angel and can distinguish good from evil.[b] May the Lord your God be with you!”
18 The king answered, “I'm going to ask you a question, and you must tell me the whole truth.”
“Ask me anything, Your Majesty,” she answered.
19 “Did Joab put you up to this?” he asked her.
She answered, “I swear by all that is sacred, Your Majesty, that there is no way to avoid answering your question.[c] It was indeed your officer Joab who told me what to do and what to say. 20 But he did it in order to straighten out this whole matter. Your Majesty is as wise as the angel of God and knows everything that happens.”
Paul Goes to Jerusalem
21 We said good-bye to them and left. After sailing straight across, we came to Cos; the next day we reached Rhodes, and from there we went on to Patara. 2 There we found a ship that was going to Phoenicia, so we went aboard and sailed away. 3 We came to where we could see Cyprus, and then sailed south of it on to Syria. We went ashore at Tyre, where the ship was going to unload its cargo. 4 There we found some believers and stayed with them a week. By the power of the Spirit they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. 5 But when our time with them was over, we left and went on our way. All of them, together with their wives and children, went with us out of the city to the beach, where we all knelt and prayed. 6 Then we said good-bye to one another, and we went on board the ship while they went back home.
7 We continued our voyage, sailing from Tyre to Ptolemais, where we greeted the believers and stayed with them for a day. 8 (A)On the following day we left and arrived in Caesarea. There we stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven men who had been chosen as helpers in Jerusalem. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who proclaimed God's message. 10 (B)We had been there for several days when a prophet named Agabus arrived from Judea. 11 He came to us, took Paul's belt, tied up his own feet and hands with it, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: The owner of this belt will be tied up in this way by the Jews in Jerusalem, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles.”
12 When we heard this, we and the others there begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. 13 But he answered, “What are you doing, crying like this and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be tied up in Jerusalem but even to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus.”
14 We could not convince him, so we gave up and said, “May the Lord's will be done.”
Jesus Teaches about Divorce(A)
10 Then Jesus left that place, went to the province of Judea, and crossed the Jordan River. Crowds came flocking to him again, and he taught them, as he always did.
2 Some Pharisees came to him and tried to trap him. “Tell us,” they asked, “does our Law allow a man to divorce his wife?”
3 Jesus answered with a question, “What law did Moses give you?”
4 (B)Their answer was, “Moses gave permission for a man to write a divorce notice and send his wife away.”
5 Jesus said to them, “Moses wrote this law for you because you are so hard to teach. 6 (C)But in the beginning, at the time of creation, ‘God made them male and female,’ as the scripture says. 7 (D)‘And for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife,[a] 8 and the two will become one.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9 No human being must separate, then, what God has joined together.”
10 When they went back into the house, the disciples asked Jesus about this matter. 11 (E)He said to them, “A man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against his wife. 12 In the same way, a woman who divorces her husband and marries another man commits adultery.”
Jesus Blesses Little Children(F)
13 Some people brought children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples scolded the people. 14 When Jesus noticed this, he was angry and said to his disciples, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 (G)I assure you that whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” 16 Then he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on each of them, and blessed them.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.