Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer upon: The silent dove in a distant land, Michtam of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath.
1 ¶ Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up; he oppresses me fighting me daily.
2 My enemies would daily swallow me up, for they are many that fight against me, O thou most High.
3 When I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
5 Every day my life is filled with sorrow; all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps when they wait for my soul.
7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the peoples, O God.
8 ¶ Thou tellest my wanderings; put my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?
9 When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies be turned back; in this I know that God is for me.
10 In God I will praise his word; in the LORD I will praise his word.
11 In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me.
12 Thy promises are upon me, O God; I will render praises unto thee.
13 For thou hast delivered my life from death; thou hast kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.
To the Overcomer upon, Do not destroy, Michtam of David, when he fled from the presence of Saul in the cave.
1 ¶ Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in thee; and in the shadow of thy wings I will make my refuge until these calamities are overpast.
2 I will cry unto God most high, unto God that performs all things for me.
3 He shall send from the heavens and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
4 My soul is among lions, and I lie even among those that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.
5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me, into the midst of which they are fallen themselves. Selah.
7 ¶ My heart is ready, O God, my heart is willing; I will sing and give praise.
8 Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will arise early.
9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing unto thee among the nations.
10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
To the Overcomer upon, Do not destroy, Michtam of David.
1 ¶ Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of Adam?
2 Yea, in heart ye work iniquity; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stops her ear,
5 which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 ¶ Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth; break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
7 Let them melt away as waters which run continually; when he bends his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
8 As a snail which melts, let them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the fire of the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
10 The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is a God that judges in the earth.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer; preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
3 Who whet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words
4 That they may shoot in secret at the perfect; suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not.
5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter; they attempt to hide the snares; they say, Who shall see them?
6 They search out iniquities; they perfect and put into effect that which they have invented in the inward thought of each one of them and that which they have devised in their heart.
7 ¶ But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
8 So they shall make their own council and agreements to fall upon themselves; all that see them shall flee away.
9 And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall understand his doing.
10 The righteous shall be glad in the LORD and shall become secure in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory in him.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm and Song of David.
1 ¶ Praise doth rest in thee, O God, in Sion and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
2 O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
3 Words of iniquity overwhelmed me, but thou shalt purge away our rebellion.
4 Blessed is the man whom thou dost choose and cause to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house even of thy holy temple.
5 With tremendous things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our saving health, who art the hope of all the ends of the earth and of those that are afar off upon the sea:
6 ¶ Thou art he who doth establish the mountains by thy strength, being girded with valour:
7 He who stills the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves and the tumult of the Gentiles.
8 They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy wonders; thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.
9 Thou dost visit the earth, and when thou hast caused it to want, thou dost greatly enrich it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou dost prepare their grain, according to thy will.
10 Thou dost water its rows abundantly; thou dost settle its furrows; thou dost make it soft with showers of rain; thou dost bless its sprouting.
11 Thou dost crown the year with thy goodness, and thy clouds distill fatness.
12 They fall upon the habitations of the wilderness; and the hills gird themselves with happiness.
13 The plains clothe themselves with sheep, and the valleys cover themselves with grain; they give shouts of triumph, they even sing.
17 ¶ Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling and wrung them out.
18 There is no one to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any that takes her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up.
19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword. Who shall comfort thee?
20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.
21 Therefore now hear this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine:
22 Thus has thy Lord said, I AM thy God who pleads the cause of his people; Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:
23 But I will put it into the hand of those that afflict thee, which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street to those that went over.
4 ¶ Now I say That the heir, as long as he is a child differs in nothing from a slave, though he be lord of all,
2 but is under the hand of tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
3 Even so we, when we were children, were in slavery under the elements of the world,
4 but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father;
7 therefore, thou art no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
8 ¶ However then, when ye did not know God, ye did service unto those who by nature are not gods.
9 But now, having known God, or rather being known of God, how do ye turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, in which ye desire again to be in slavery?
10 Ye observe days and months and times and years.
11 I am afraid for you, lest I have bestowed labour upon you in vain.
24 ¶ And from there he arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entering into a house, desired that no man know of it; but he could not be hid.
25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him and came and fell at his feet;
26 the woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation, and she besought him that he would cast forth the demon out of her daughter.
27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and to cast it unto the dogs.
28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.
29 And he said unto her, For this word go; the demon has gone out of thy daughter.
30 And when she came to her house, she found that the demon had gone out, and the daughter lay upon the bed.
31 ¶ And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre, he came by Sidon unto the sea of Galilee through the midst of the borders of Decapolis.
32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.
33 And taking him aside from the multitude, he put his fingers into the man’s ears; and spitting, he touched the man’s tongue with the saliva;
34 and looking up to heaven, he cried out, and said, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.
35 And straightway his ears were opened, and that which bound his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.
36 And he charged them that they should tell no one; but the more he commanded them, so much more and more they published it
37 and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He has done all things well: he makes both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.
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