Old/New Testament
A prayer for help[a]
10 Must you stand so far away, Lord?
Why do you hide when there is trouble?
2 Wicked people are cruel to poor people.
They use their evil ideas
to take hold of weak people.
3 Not only do wicked people boast
because they get the things that they want.
They also praise robbers,
and they curse the Lord.
4 Wicked people are too proud to worry about God.
They think, ‘God will not give me any trouble.’
5 Often the wicked person seems to have success.
He does not respect your commands, God.
He laughs at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, ‘There will be no trouble for me.
Nothing bad will ever happen to me or to my children.’
7 Plenty of lies come from his mouth,
and he curses people.
The bad words that he speaks are very cruel,
and they hurt people.
8 He hides near the villages,
so that he can jump out and catch people.
He watches in secret to find a weak person that he can kill.
He murders people who have done nothing wrong.
9 Quietly, he hides like a lion among some bushes.
He waits there to catch a poor, weak person.
Like a hunter, he catches poor people in his net.
10 He stamps on the people that he catches,
and he knocks them down to the ground.
The weak person falls down,
because the wicked person is too strong.
11 The wicked person says to himself,
‘God will give me no trouble!
He does not even see what I do.’
12 Rise up, Lord!
Do something, God,
and knock down the wicked person!
Do not forget to help weak people.
13 Why do wicked people insult God?
They say to themselves,
‘God will not give me any trouble.’
14 Surely, God, you see what is happening.
You see how wicked people bring pain and trouble.
You decide what to do about it.
The weak person trusts that you will help him.
You take care of children who have no father.
15 Take hold of the arm of the wicked, evil man!
Break it and take away his strength!
Punish him for the bad things that he has done,
so that he has to stop.
16 The Lord will rule as king for ever!
The nations who do not serve him
will not remain in his land.
17 You, Lord, hear the prayers
of people who are suffering.
When they ask you to help them,
you make them feel strong.
18 You stand beside those who have no father,
and those who are poor and weak.
As a result, they will no longer be afraid.
No human on the earth can frighten them.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
Trust the Lord to keep you safe
11 I have run to the Lord to keep me safe.
So do not say this to me:
‘Fly away like a bird to the hills![b]
2 See what the wicked people are doing!
They are preparing their bows and arrows.
They are hiding in dark places,
to shoot their arrows at good, honest people.
3 When the law no longer has authority,
righteous people can do nothing!’
4 The Lord is in his holy temple.
He rules from his throne in heaven.
He carefully watches what people are doing.
He knows about each person.
5 The Lord watches both good people and wicked people.
Good people please him,
but he hates wicked people and cruel people.
6 He will send hot coal and sulphur
to fall like rain on wicked people.
A dangerous wind will be the punishment that they deserve.
7 The Lord always does what is right.
He loves people to do good things.
Those who do what is right will know that God loves them.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
A prayer for help
12 Lord, please help me!
All the good people have gone away!
No kind or faithful people remain.
2 Everybody tells lies to one another.
When they say nice things,
they do it to deceive their friends.
3 Lord, please shut their mouths!
When they deceive people or they boast,
stop them doing that!
4 They say:
‘Nobody can tell us what to do!
We will say what we like to get what we want!’
5 But the Lord says:
‘Now I will do something!
I know the cruel things that wicked people do to poor people.
When weak people cry with pain, I hear them.
So I will make them safe,
as they want me to do for them.’
6 The Lord's promises are true.
We can trust them,
because they are pure.
They are as pure as silver
that people have put in a hot fire seven times.[c]
7 Yes Lord, you will take care of the poor people.
You will always keep each one of them safe
from all those evil people.
8 But if people praise evil things,
then wicked people will boast more and more.
Paul speaks in Ephesus about Jesus
19 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul travelled through the region of Asia. He arrived in Ephesus and he found some believers there. 2 Paul asked them, ‘When you believed the message about Jesus, did you receive God's Holy Spirit?’
The believers answered, ‘We did not even know that there is a Holy Spirit.’
3 So Paul asked them, ‘When someone baptized you, what kind of baptism was that?’
‘We received the baptism that John spoke about,’ they answered.
4 Then Paul said, ‘John baptized people who knew that they had done wrong things. They wanted to stop doing these things. But John also said to the people, “You must believe in the man who will come soon.” This person is Jesus.’ 5 When the believers in Ephesus understood this, Paul baptized them. This showed that they now believed in the Lord Jesus. 6 Then Paul put his hands on each believer's head. When he did this, the Holy Spirit came down on them. They spoke in different languages and they spoke messages from God. 7 There were about 12 men there.
8 For three months, Paul went to the Jewish meeting place in Ephesus on their day of rest. He was not afraid to speak to the people there. He talked strongly with them about the kingdom of God. 9 But some of them did not accept what Paul said. They refused to believe the message about Jesus. Some of them said bad things against the Way of the Lord Jesus and many people in the group heard this. So Paul stopped speaking to people in that meeting place. He left there and he took with him the other believers. Every day he talked with people in another place. It was a large room, where a man called Tyrannus usually taught people. 10 Paul taught the people there for two years. During that time, all the people who lived in Asia region heard the message about the Lord Jesus. This included Jews and Gentiles.
The sons of Sceva tell bad spirits to leave people
11 God was helping Paul to do special miracles. 12 Because of this, people were taking pieces of cloth and clothes that Paul gave to them. Paul had used these things, and people took them to those who were ill. After they touched these cloths, the sick people would become well again. Bad spirits also left them.
13 There were some Jewish men who travelled about to different places. They caused bad spirits to leave people. Some of them wanted to use the name of the Lord Jesus when they did this. These Jews said to the bad spirits, ‘We tell you to come out of these people. We say this with the authority of Jesus, the man that Paul teaches people about.’
14 Sceva was a leader of the Jewish priests in that place. He had seven sons who were telling bad spirits to come out of people. They used the name of Jesus when they did this. 15 But one day the bad spirit in a man said to them, ‘I know who Jesus is. I also know about Paul. But I do not know who you are.’ 16 The man who had the bad spirit in him then jumped up. He fought with the seven sons and he was too strong for them. He hurt them badly and he tore their clothes off. So the sons ran away from the man's house. Their bodies were bleeding and they wore no clothes.
17 All the Jews and Gentiles who lived in Ephesus heard about this. They became very afraid. Now they respected the name of the Lord Jesus very much. They knew that he was very powerful. 18 Many of the believers agreed that they had done wicked things. They told other believers about this. 19 Some of them had used magic to do powerful things. These people brought all their special books and they burned them in a fire. Everybody saw what they did. The books had cost a lot of money. The value of all the books was 50,000 silver coins. 20 As a result of this, more and more people heard the good news about the Lord Jesus. The message was powerful and people's lives changed.
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