Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 25
A song of David.
1 ALWAYS I will lift up my soul to You, Eternal One,
2 BECAUSE You are my God and I put my trust in You.
Do not let me be humiliated.
Do not let my enemies celebrate at my expense.
3 CERTAINLY none of the people who rely on You will be shamed,
but those who are unfaithful, who intentionally deceive,
they are the ones who will be disgraced.
4 DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One.
Teach me to understand so I can follow.
5 EASE me down the path of Your truth.
FEED me Your word
because You are the True God who has saved me.
I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You.
6 GRACIOUS Eternal One, remember Your compassion; rekindle Your concern and love,
which have always been part of Your actions toward those who are Yours.
7 Do not HOLD against me the sins I committed when I was young;
instead, deal with me according to Your mercy and love.
Then Your goodness may be demonstrated in all the world, Eternal One.
8 IMMENSELY good and honorable is the Eternal;
that’s why He teaches sinners the way.
9 With JUSTICE, He directs the humble in all that is right,
and He shows them His way.
10 KIND and true are all the ways of the Eternal
to the people who keep His covenant and His words.
11 O LORD, the Eternal, bring glory to Your name,
and forgive my sins because they are beyond number.
12 MAY anyone who fears the Eternal
be shown the path he should choose.
13 His soul will NOT only live in goodness,
but his children will inherit the land.
14 ONLY those who stand in awe of the Eternal will have intimacy with Him,
and He will reveal His covenant to them.
15 PERPETUALLY my focus takes me to the Eternal
because He will set me free from the traps laid for me.
16 QUIETLY turn Your eyes to me and be compassionate toward me
because I am lonely and persecuted.
17 RAPIDLY my heart beats as troubles build on the horizon.
Come relieve me from these threats.
18 SEE my troubles and my misery,
and forgive all my sins.
19 TAKE notice of my enemies.
See how there are so many of them
who hate me and would seek my violent destruction.
20 Watch over my soul,
and let me face shame and defeat
UNASHAMED because You are my refuge.
21 May honor and strong character keep me safe.
VIGILANTLY I wait for You, hoping, trusting.
22 Save Israel from all its troubles,
O True God.
Psalm 9[a]
For the worship leader. A song of David to the tune “Death of a Son.”[b]
In the Hebrew manuscripts, Psalms 9 and 10 work as a unit because together they form an acrostic poem, meaning each stanza begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This literary device has several functions. First, it provides a mnemonic device for easier memorization. Second, it is inherently beautiful; the rigid structure is a showcase for the author’s literary talents. Finally, it conveys the idea of completion by describing the reasons God is to be praised “from A to Z.” Psalm 9 offers David’s thanks and praise to God for defeating his enemies. Psalm 10, on the other hand, is a lament complaining that God is far off while the poor and helpless suffer.
1 All my heart will give thanks to You, Eternal One.
I will tell others about Your amazing works.
2 I will be glad and celebrate You!
I will praise You, O Most High!
3 When my adversaries turned and fled,
they fell and died right in front of You,
4 For You supported my just cause.
From Your throne, You have judged wisely.
5 You confronted the nations; You have destroyed the wicked.
You have erased their names from history.
6 The enemy is finished, their time is up;
their cities will lie in ruin forever;
all memory of them is gone.
7 Still the Eternal remains and will reign forever;
He has taken His place on His throne for judgment.
8 So He will judge the world rightly.
He shall execute that judgment equally on all people.
9 For the Eternal will be a shelter for those who know misery,
a refuge during troubling times.
10 Those who know Your name will rely on You,
for You, O Eternal One, have not abandoned those who search for You.
11 Praise Him who lives on Zion’s holy hill.
Tell the story of His great acts among the people!
12 For He remembers the victims of violence and avenges their blood;
He does not turn a deaf ear to the cry of the needy.
13 Be gracious to me, O Eternal One.
Notice the harm I have suffered because of my enemies,
You who carry me safely away from death’s door,
14 So that I may rehearse Your deeds, declare Your praise,
and rejoice in Your rescue
when I take my stand in the gates of Zion.
15 The nations have fallen into the pit they dug for others,
their own feet caught, snared by the net they hid.
16 The Eternal is well known, for He has taken action and secured justice;
He has trapped the wicked through the work of their own hands.
[pause with music][c]
17 The wicked are headed for death and the grave;
all the nations who forget the True God will share a similar fate.
18 For those in need shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor will never die.
19 Eternal One, arise! Do not allow mere mortals to win the day.
Judge the nations Yourself.
20 Put the fear of God in them, Eternal One!
Remind the nations they are mere men, not gods.
[pause][d]
Psalm 15
A song of David.
A recurring theme in the psalms is the dwelling place of God and its importance in worship. This Davidic psalm considers the moral qualities of the person who wishes to approach God.
1 Eternal One, who is invited to stay in Your dwelling?
Who is granted passage to Your holy mountain?
2 Here is the answer: The one who lives with integrity, does what is right,
and speaks honestly with truth from the heart.
3 The one who doesn’t speak evil against others
or wrong his neighbor,
or slander his friends.
4 The one who loathes the loathsome,
honors those who fear the Eternal,
And keeps all promises no matter the cost.
5 The one who does not lend money with gain in mind
and cannot be bought to harm an innocent name.
If you live this way, you will not be shaken and will live together with the Lord.
Prophets find God’s message in every word and turn of phrase. Lo-debar and Karnaim were two cities recaptured by Jeroboam II, king of Israel, after a foreign ruler had annexed them as part of his kingdom (2 Kings 10:32–36). When Jeroboam won back the region, the people celebrated (2 Kings 14:23–29); but Jeroboam was out of step with God, so the joy was short-lived. That’s where the names of the two cities become interesting. In Hebrew Lo-debar means “no thing”; Karnaim means “horns,” and horns are a symbol of strength. In a bit of sarcasm, the prophet quips that those who celebrate the retaking of Lo-debar are celebrating “nothing,” while those who claim the victory at Karnaim have only their horn, their own strength, to thank. God will have none of it.
7 This is what the Eternal Lord showed me: He brought a swarm of locusts when the crops had begun to sprout in late spring (after the king’s portion of the hay had been cut). 2 When I saw the locusts devour everything green in the land that belonged to the farmers, I spoke.
Amos: O Eternal Lord, please forgive us!
How will Jacob’s descendants survive this?
The nation is so small.
3 The Eternal relented and showed mercy.
Eternal One: What you have seen will not be.
4 Then the Eternal Lord showed me this: He called for a rain of fire, and it devoured the deep abyss and began to devour the land itself.
5 Amos: O Eternal Lord, please no! Not this!
How will Jacob’s descendants survive this?
The nation is so small.
6 And the Eternal again relented and showed mercy.
Eternal One: This will not happen either.
7 Then He showed me this: The Lord was standing by a wall built with a plumb line, and in His hand was a plumb line.
Eternal One: 8 What do you see, Amos?
Amos: A plumb line.
Eternal One: Watch what I’m about to do! I am going to put a plumb line
up against My people Israel to see what is straight and true,
And I will not look the other way any longer.
9 The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
and the religious shrines of Israel reduced to ruin,
And with sword in hand, I will bring down the house of Jeroboam the king.
Prologue
1 This is the revelation of Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King: an account of visions and a heavenly journey. God granted this to Him so He would show His followers the realities that are already breaking into the world and soon will be fulfilled. Through His heavenly messenger, He revealed to His servant John signs and insight into these mysteries. 2 John, in turn, gave witness to the word of God and to the glorious truth revealed about Jesus, the Anointed One, the Chosen Ruler, by carefully describing everything he saw.
3 Blessings come to those who read and proclaim these words aloud; blessings come to those who listen closely and put the prophetic words recorded here into practice. The finale is approaching.
4 I, John, to the seven churches in Asia:
May you experience God’s favor and rest in the peace that comes from the One who is, the One who was, and the One who is coming; from the seven Spirits, the Perfect Spirit, constantly before God’s throne; 5 and from Jesus the Anointed, the Witness who is true and faithful, the first to emerge from death’s cold womb, the chosen Ruler over all the kings and rulers of the earth.
To the One who loves us and liberated us from the grip of our evil deeds through His very own blood 6 and who established us to be His kingdom and priests for God, His Father. May glory and power be His throughout all the ages. Amen.
7 Look! He is coming with the clouds, in glory.
He will capture every eye,
Even of those who pierced Him through.
All the nations of the earth will be pierced with grief when He appears.
Yes, may all this be done according to His plan. Amen.
Lord God: 8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, [the very beginning and the very end,][a] the One who is, the One who was, and the One who is coming: the All Powerful.
23 That same day, a band of Sadducees—a sect of Jewish aristocrats who, among other things, did not expect a resurrection or anticipate any sort of future life at all—put their own question to Jesus.
Sadducees: 24 Teacher, the law of Moses teaches that if a married man dies with no children, then his brother must marry the widow and father children in his brother’s name. 25 Now we knew a family of seven brothers. The eldest brother married and died, and since he had no children, the next brother married his widow. 26 And shortly thereafter, that second brother died and the next until there were seven marriages with the same woman. 27 Eventually the wife died. 28 So now, Teacher, whose wife will she be at the resurrection? Will she have seven husbands, since they were each married to her?
According to Deuteronomy 25:5–6, a family member is supposed to marry a relative’s widow to carry on the deceased’s family name. Each man in this story dies, having fathered no children; that poor widow keeps marrying these brothers, and they keep dying. So in heaven, who is the husband?
Jesus: 29 You know neither God’s Scriptures nor God’s power—and so your assumptions are all wrong. 30 At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the messengers of heaven.
In heaven all will be devoting themselves to praise. It will not be a simple continuation of life on earth.
31 A key to this resurrected life can be found in the words of Moses, which you do claim to read: 32 “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”[a] Our God is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living.
33 And again the crowd was amazed. They were astonished at His teaching.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.