Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 20
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high [and defend you];
2 Send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh, and strengthen you from Zion;
3 Remember all your offerings and accept your burnt sacrifice. Selah [pause, and think of that]!
4 May He grant you according to your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.
5 We will [shout in] triumph at your salvation and victory, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.
6 Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.
7 Some trust in and boast of chariots and some of horses, but we will trust in and boast of the name of the Lord our God.
8 They are bowed down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.
9 O Lord, give victory; let the King answer us when we call.
Psalm 21
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 The king [David] shall joy in Your strength, O Lord; and in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
2 You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah [pause, and think of that]!
3 For You send blessings of good things to meet him; You set a crown of pure gold on his head.
4 He asked life of You, and You gave it to him—long life forever and evermore.
5 His glory is great because of Your aid; splendor and majesty You bestow upon him.
6 For You make him to be blessed and a blessing forever; You make him exceedingly glad with the joy of Your presence.(A)
7 For the king trusts, relies on, and is confident in the Lord, and through the mercy and steadfast love of the Most High he will never be moved.
8 Your hand shall find all Your enemies; Your right hand shall find all those who hate You.
9 You will make them as if in a blazing oven in the time of Your anger; the Lord will swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire will utterly consume them.
10 Their offspring You will destroy from the earth, and their sons from among the children of men.
11 For they planned evil against You; they conceived a mischievous plot which they are not able to perform.
12 For You will make them turn their backs; You will aim Your bow [of divine justice] at their faces.
13 Be exalted, Lord, in Your strength; we will sing and praise Your power.
Psalm 110
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord (God) says to my Lord (the Messiah), Sit at My right hand, until I make Your adversaries Your footstool.(A)
2 The Lord will send forth from Zion the scepter of Your strength; rule, then, in the midst of Your foes.(B)
3 Your people will offer themselves willingly in the day of Your power, in the beauty of holiness and in holy array out of the womb of the morning; to You [will spring forth] Your young men, who are as the dew.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not revoke or change it: You are a priest forever, after the manner and order of Melchizedek.(C)
5 The Lord at Your right hand will shatter kings in the day of His indignation.
6 He will execute judgment [in overwhelming punishment] upon the nations; He will fill the valleys with the dead bodies, He will crush the [chief] heads over lands many and far extended.(D)
7 He will drink of the brook by the way; therefore will He lift up His head [triumphantly].
Psalm 116
1 I love the Lord, because He has heard [and now hears] my voice and my supplications.
2 Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.
3 The cords and sorrows of death were around me, and the terrors of Sheol (the place of the dead) had laid hold of me; I suffered anguish and grief (trouble and sorrow).
4 Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech You, save my life and deliver me!
5 Gracious is the Lord, and [rigidly] righteous; yes, our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He helped and saved me.
7 Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.(A)
8 For You have delivered my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling and falling.
9 I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
10 I believed (trusted in, relied on, and clung to my God), and therefore have I spoken [even when I said], I am greatly afflicted.(B)
11 I said in my haste, All men are deceitful and liars.
12 What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? [How can I repay Him for all His bountiful dealings?]
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and deliverance and call on the name of the Lord.
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord, yes, in the presence of all His people.
15 Precious (important and no light matter) in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (His loving ones).
16 O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid; You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will pay my vows to the Lord, yes, in the presence of all His people,
19 In the courts of the Lord’s house—in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)
Psalm 117
1 O praise the Lord, all you nations! Praise Him, all you people!(C)
2 For His mercy and loving-kindness are great toward us, and the truth and faithfulness of the Lord endure forever. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)
22 These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He spoke not again [added no more]. He wrote them on two tables of stone and gave them to me [Moses].
23 And when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders;
24 And you said, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice out of the midst of the fire; we have this day seen that God speaks with man and man still lives.
25 Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die.
26 For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire, as we have, and lived?
27 Go near [Moses] and hear all that the Lord our God will say. And speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you; and we will hear and do it.
28 And the Lord heard your words when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, I have heard the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have said well all that they have spoken.
29 Oh, that they had such a [mind and] heart in them always [reverently] to fear Me and keep all My commandments, that it might go well with them and with their children forever!
30 Go and say to them, Return to your tents.
31 But you [Moses], stand here by Me, and I will tell you all the commandments and the statutes and the precepts which you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess.
32 Therefore you people shall be watchful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
33 You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land which you shall possess.
13 This is the third time that I am coming to you. By the testimony of two or three witnesses must any charge and every accusing statement be sustained and confirmed.(A)
2 I have already warned those who sinned formerly and all the rest also, and I warn them now again while I am absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come back, I will not spare [them],
3 Since you desire and seek [perceptible] proof of the Christ Who speaks in and through me. [For He] is not weak and feeble in dealing with you, but is a mighty power within you;
4 For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He goes on living by the power of God. And though we too are weak in Him [as He was humanly weak], yet in dealing with you [we shall show ourselves] alive and strong in [fellowship with] Him by the power of God.
5 Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [[a]not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected?
6 But I hope you will recognize and know that we are not disapproved on trial and rejected.
7 But I pray to God that you may do nothing wrong, not in order that we [[b]our teaching] may appear to be approved, but that you may continue doing right, [though] we may seem to have failed and be unapproved.
8 For we can do nothing against the Truth [[c]not serve any party or personal interest], but only for the Truth [[d]which is the Gospel].
9 For we are glad when we are weak ([e]unapproved) and you are really strong. And this we also pray for: your all-round strengthening and perfecting of soul.
10 So I write these things while I am absent from you, that when I come to you, I may not have to deal sharply in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me [to be employed, however] for building [you] up and not for tearing [you] down.
11 Finally, brethren, farewell (rejoice)! Be strengthened (perfected, completed, made what you ought to be); be encouraged and consoled and comforted; be of the same [agreeable] mind one with another; live in peace, and [then] the God of love [Who is the Source of affection, goodwill, love, and benevolence toward men] and the Author and Promoter of peace will be with you.
12 Greet one another with a consecrated kiss.
13 All the saints (the people of God here) salute you.
14 The grace (favor and spiritual blessing) of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the presence and fellowship (the communion and sharing together, and participation) in the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen (so be it).
22 Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and driven out demons in Your name and done many mighty works in Your name?
23 And then I will say to them openly (publicly), I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].(A)
24 So everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them [obeying them] will be like a [a]sensible (prudent, practical, wise) man who built his house upon the rock.
25 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
26 And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a stupid (foolish) man who built his house upon the sand.
27 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great and complete was the fall of it.
28 When Jesus had finished these sayings [the Sermon on the Mount], the crowds were astonished and overwhelmed with bewildered wonder at His teaching,
29 For He was teaching as One Who had [and was] authority, and not as [did] the scribes.
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