Book of Common Prayer
Michtam of David.
1 ¶ Preserve me, O God: for in thee I have put my trust.
2 I said unto the LORD, Thou art my goodness: I have no goodness apart from thee;
3 to the saints that are in the earth and to the excellent: all my delight is towards them.
4 The sorrows of those that hasten after another god shall be multiplied; their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
5 The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; thou dost maintain my lot.
6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7 I will bless the LORD, who gives me counsel: my kidneys also instruct me in the night seasons.
8 ¶ I have set the LORD always before me: because when he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices: my flesh also shall rest secure.
10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thy Merciful One to see corruption.
11 Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
A Prayer of David.
1 ¶ Hear righteousness, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that does not go out of feigned lips.
2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold uprightness.
3 Thou hast proved my heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast refined me and hast found no iniquity; that which I thought did not pass through my mouth.
4 Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have observed the ways of the violent.
5 Sustain my steps in thy ways that my footsteps not slip.
6 I have called upon thee, because thou dost hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me and hear my speech.
7 Show thy mercy to be marvellous, O Saviour of those who put their trust in thee, from those that rise up against thy right hand.
8 ¶ Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me with the shadow of thy wings,
9 from the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
10 They are closed in with their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly.
11 They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes upon throwing us down to the earth
12 like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
13 Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, with thy sword;
14 from men, with thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, who have their portion in this life and whose belly thou dost fill with thy provision: they satisfy their sons and leave the rest to their family.
15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.
To the Overcomer upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my cry?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest in the midst of the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee and were delivered: they trusted in thee and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the people.
7 All those that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 Turn him over to the LORD, let him deliver him, let him save him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou hast made me wait upon thee since I was upon my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
11 ¶ Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round about.
13 They opened their mouth upon me as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may count all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the unicorns.
22 ¶ I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.
23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24 For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the poor in spirit; neither has he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard.
25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation; I will pay my vows before those that fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied: those that seek him shall praise the LORD; your heart shall live for ever.
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the LORD; and all the families of the Gentiles shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the LORD’s, and he shall have dominion over the Gentiles.
29 All those that are fat upon earth shall eat and worship; all those that go down to the dust shall bow before him; and no one can keep his own soul alive.
30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31 They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he has done this.
5 ¶ And Moses called all Israel and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and rights which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them and keep them, to do them.
2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
3 Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, all of us who are here alive this day.
4 The LORD spoke with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire
5 (I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to show you the word of the LORD, for ye were afraid by reason of the fire and did not climb the mount), saying,
6 ¶ I AM thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery.
7 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
8 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image or any likeness of any thing that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the waters beneath the earth.
9 Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them, for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons unto the third and fourth generation of those that hate me
10 and showing mercy unto thousands, to those that love me and keep my commandments.
11 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him innocent that takes his name in vain.
12 Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God has commanded thee.
13 Six days thou shalt labour and do all thy work,
14 but the seventh day is the sabbath unto the LORD thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter nor thy manslave nor thy maidslave nor thine ox nor thine ass nor any animal of thine nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, that thy manslave and thy maidslave may rest as well as thou.
15 And remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt and that the LORD thy God brought thee out of there with a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore, the LORD thy God has commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.
16 Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God has commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God gives thee.
17 Thou shalt not murder.
18 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
19 Thou shalt not steal.
20 Thou shalt not give false testimony against thy neighbour.
21 Thou shalt not desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field or his manslave or his maidslave, his ox or his ass or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
22 These words the LORD spoke unto all your congregation in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice, and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone and delivered them unto me.
11 ¶ I have been a fool, glorying; ye have compelled me; for I ought to have been commended of you, for in nothing am I behind the grandiose apostles, though I am nothing.
12 Truly the signs of the apostle were worked out among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and power.
13 For what is it in which ye were inferior to the other congregations {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} except in that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.
14 Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not your things, but you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
15 And I will very gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.
16 But be it so, I did not burden you; nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.
17 Did I make a gain of you by any of those whom I sent unto you?
18 I besought Titus and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus defraud you? Did we not walk in the same Spirit and in the same steps?
19 Again, do ye think that we excuse ourselves unto you? We speak before God in Christ, but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.
20 For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I desire and that I shall be found unto you such as ye desire not, lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, rumours, tumults,
21 lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I would have to mourn over many who have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
13 Enter ye in at the narrow gate, for the way that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and those who follow it are many;
14 because narrow is the gate, and confined is the way which leads unto life, and there are few that find it.
15 ¶ Keep yourselves also from the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
20 So that by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens.
Copyright © 2013, 2020 by Ransom Press International