Book of Common Prayer
ALEPH.
1 ¶ Blessed are those who walk in the perfect way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are those that keep his testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart.
3 For those who do no iniquity walk in his ways.
4 ¶ Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were ordered to keep thy statutes!
6 Then I shall not be ashamed, when I have insight unto all thy commandments.
7 ¶ I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
8 I will keep thy statutes; O do not utterly forsake me.
BETH.
9 ¶ With what shall a young man cleanse his way? when he shall keep thy word.
10 ¶ With my whole heart I have sought thee; O let me not err from thy commandments.
11 ¶ Thy spoken word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
12 ¶ Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
13 ¶ With my lips I have declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as above all riches.
15 I will meditate in thy precepts and consider thy ways.
16 I will delight myself in thy statutes; I will not forget thy words.
GIMEL.
17 ¶ Deal bountifully with thy slave that I may live and keep thy word.
18 ¶ Open my eyes, and I shall behold the wonders of thy law.
19 ¶ I am a stranger in the earth; hide not thy commandments from me.
20 ¶ My soul is broken from desiring thy judgments at all times.
21 ¶ Thou hast reprehended the proud; cursed are those who err from thy commandments.
22 ¶ Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies.
23 ¶ Princes also sat and spoke against me as thy slave spoke according to thy statutes.
24 ¶ For thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.
To the Overcomer upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Help, LORD; for the merciful man ceases, for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
2 Each one speaks vanity with his neighbour: they speak with flattering lips and with a double heart.
3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things:
4 Who have said, With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5 For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, saith the LORD; I will set in safety the one whom the wicked one has ensnared.
6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
8 The wicked press in on every side when the vilest men are exalted.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
6 I will sing unto the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is no one that does good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is no one that does good, no, not one.
4 ¶ The workers of iniquity certainly know this; those who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD.
5 There they were in great fear: for God is with the nation of the righteous.
6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor because the LORD is his hope.
7 Oh that the saving health of Israel were come out of Zion! When the LORD turns back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
25 When thou shalt beget children and grandchildren and ye shall have remained long in the land and shall corrupt yourselves and make a graven image or the likeness of any thing and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger,
26 I put heaven and earth as witnesses today that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land unto which ye pass the Jordan to inherit it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it without being utterly destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the peoples, and ye shall be left few in number among the Gentiles, unto whom the LORD shall take you.
28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from there, thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
30 When thou art in trouble and all these things are come upon thee, if in the latter days thou shalt turn to the LORD thy God and shalt hear his voice
31 (for the LORD thy God is a merciful God), he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he swore unto them.
21 I speak as concerning the reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit in that in which another is bold, (I speak foolishly), I am bold also.
22 ¶ Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more, in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often.
24 Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes less one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; three times I suffered shipwreck, night and day I have been in the deep;
26 in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by those of my nation, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 in labour and travail, in many watches, in hunger and thirst, in many fasts, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, my daily combat is the welfare of all the congregations. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}
29 Who is sick, and I am not sick? who stumbles, and I burn not?
30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern my weakness.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for evermore, knows that I do not lie.
32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me;
33 and through a window in a basket I was let down by the wall and escaped his hands.
24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and riches.
25 ¶ Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin;
29 and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed?
32 (For the Gentiles seek after all these things.) For your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the affliction thereof.
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