Book of Common Prayer

119 In my trouble I cried to the Lord: and he heard me.

² O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips, and a deceitful tongue.

³ What shall be given to thee, or what shall be added to thee, to a deceitful tongue?

⁴ The sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals that lay waste.

⁵ Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! I have dwelt with the inhabitants of cedar:

⁶ My soul hath been long a sojourner.

⁷ With them that hated peace I was peaceable: when I spoke to them they fought against me without cause.

12 Unto the end, a psalm for David. How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me unto the end? how long dost thou turn away thy face from me?

² How long shall I take counsels in my soul, sorrow in my heart all the day?

³ How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

⁴ Consider, and hear me, O Lord my God. Enlighten my eyes that I never sleep in death:

⁵ Lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him. They that trouble me will rejoice when I am moved:

⁶ But I have trusted in thy mercy. My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation: I will sing to the Lord, who giveth me good things: yea I will sing to the name of the Lord the most high.

13 Unto the end, a psalm for David. The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God, They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways: there is none that doth good, no not one.

² The Lord hath looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there be any that understand and seek God.

³ They are all gone aside, they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with their tongues they acted deceitfully; the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and unhappiness in their ways: and the way of peace they have not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

⁴ Shall not all they know that work iniquity, who devour my people as they eat bread?

⁵ They have not called upon the Lord: there have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear.

⁶ For the Lord is in the just generation: you have confounded the counsel of the poor man, but the Lord is his hope.

⁷ Who shall give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? when the Lord shall have turned away the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.

14 A psalm of David. Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill?

² He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:

³ He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.

⁴ In his sight the malignant is brought to nothing: but he glorifieth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his neighbour, and deceiveth not;

⁵ He that hath not put out his money to usury, nor taken bribes against the innocent: He that doth these things shall not be moved for ever.

²⁵ If you shall beget sons and grandsons, and abide in the land, and being deceived, make to yourselves any similitude, committing evil before the Lord your God, to provoke him to wrath:

²⁶ I call this day heaven and earth to witness, that you shall quickly perish out of the land, which, when you have passed over the Jordan, you shall possess. You shall not dwell therein long, but the Lord will destroy you,

²⁷ And scatter you among all nations, and you shall remain a few among the nations, to which the Lord shall lead you.

²⁸ And there you shall serve gods, that were framed with men's hands: wood and stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

²⁹ And when thou shalt seek there the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him: yet so, if thou seek him with all thy heart, and all the affliction of thy soul.

³⁰ After all the things aforesaid shall and thee, in the latter time thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice.

³¹ Because the Lord thy God is a merciful God: he will not leave thee, nor altogether destroy thee, nor forget the covenant, by which he swore to thy fathers.

²¹ I speak according to dishonour, as if we had been weak in this part. Wherein if any man dare (I speak foolishly), I dare also.

²² They are Hebrews: so am I. They are Israelites: so am I. They are the seed of Abraham: so am I.

²³ They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise): I am more; in many more labours, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.

²⁴ Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one.

²⁵ Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea.

²⁶ In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren.

²⁷ In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

²⁸ Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches.

²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?

³⁰ If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity.

³¹ The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knoweth that I lie not.

³² At Damascus, the governor of the nation under Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to apprehend me.

³³ And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and so escaped his hands.

²⁴ No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

²⁵ Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?

²⁶ Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?

²⁷ And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?

²⁸ And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin.

²⁹ But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.

³⁰ And if the grass of the field, which is to day, and to morrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?

³¹ Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?

³² For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.

³³ Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.

³⁴ Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.