Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 63

A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.

¹ O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.

² So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.

³ Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.

⁴ So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.

⁵ My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips

⁶ When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.

⁷ For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.

⁸ My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek and demand my life to ruin and destroy it shall [themselves be destroyed and] go into the lower parts of the earth [into the underworld of the dead].

¹⁰ They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a prey for foxes and jackals.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone who swears by Him [that is, who binds himself by God’s authority, acknowledging His supremacy, and devoting himself to His glory and service alone; every such one] shall glory, for the mouths of those who speak lies shall be stopped.

Psalm 98

A Psalm.

¹ O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have wrought salvation for Him.

² The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness has He openly shown in the sight of the nations.^(A)

³ He has [earnestly] remembered His mercy and loving-kindness, His truth and His faithfulness toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have witnessed the salvation of our God.^(B)

⁴ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy, yes, sing praises!

⁵ Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the voice of melody.

⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

⁷ Let the sea roar, and all that fills it, the world, and those who dwell in it!

⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands; together let the hills sing for joy

⁹ Before the Lord, for He is coming to judge [and rule] the earth; with righteousness will He judge [and rule] the world, and the peoples with equity.

Psalm 103

[A Psalm] of David.

¹ Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul; and all that is [deepest] within me, bless His holy name!

² Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits—

³ Who forgives [every one of] all your iniquities, Who heals [each one of] all your diseases,

⁴ Who redeems your life from the pit and corruption, Who beautifies, dignifies, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercy;

⁵ Who satisfies your mouth [your necessity and desire at your personal age and situation] with good so that your youth, renewed, is like the eagle’s [strong, overcoming, soaring]!^(A)

⁶ The Lord executes righteousness and justice [not for me only, but] for all who are oppressed.

⁷ He made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.

⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and loving-kindness.^(B)

⁹ He will not always chide or be contending, neither will He keep His anger forever or hold a grudge.

¹⁰ He has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great are His mercy and loving-kindness toward those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him.

¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ As a father loves and pities his children, so the Lord loves and pities those who fear Him [with reverence, worship, and awe].

¹⁴ For He knows our frame, He [earnestly] remembers and imprints [on His heart] that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

¹⁶ For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.

¹⁷ But the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord are from everlasting to everlasting upon those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him, and His righteousness is to children’s children—^(C)

¹⁸ To such as keep His covenant [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it] and to those who [earnestly] remember His commandments to do them [imprinting them on their hearts].

¹⁹ The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all.

²⁰ Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.

²¹ Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, all you His hosts, you His ministers who do His pleasure.

²² Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion; bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul!

8 All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be watchful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

² And you shall [earnestly] remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your [mind and] heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

³ And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

⁴ Your clothing did not become old upon you nor did your feet swell these forty years.

⁵ Know also in your [minds and] hearts that, as a man disciplines and instructs his son, so the Lord your God disciplines and instructs you.

⁶ So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and [reverently] fear Him.^(A)

⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;

⁸ A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey;

⁹ A land in which you shall eat food without shortage and lack nothing in it; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good land which He has given you.

¹⁷ For Christ (the Messiah) sent me out not to baptize but [to evangelize by] preaching the glad tidings (the Gospel), and that not with verbal eloquence, lest the cross of Christ should be deprived of force and emptied of its power and rendered vain (fruitless, void of value, and of no effect).

¹⁸ For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.

¹⁹ For it is written, I will baffle and render useless and destroy the learning of the learned and the philosophy of the philosophers and the cleverness of the clever and the discernment of the discerning; I will frustrate and nullify [them] and bring [them] to nothing.^(A)

²⁰ Where is the wise man (the philosopher)? Where is the scribe (the scholar)? Where is the investigator (the logician, the debater) of this present time and age? Has not God shown up the nonsense and the folly of this world’s wisdom?

²¹ For when the world with all its earthly wisdom failed to perceive and recognize and know God by means of its own philosophy, God in His wisdom was pleased through the foolishness of preaching [salvation, procured by Christ and to be had through Him], to save those who believed (who clung to and trusted in and relied on Him).

²² For while Jews [demandingly] ask for signs and miracles and Greeks pursue philosophy and wisdom,

²³ We preach Christ (the Messiah) crucified, [preaching which] to the Jews is a scandal and an offensive stumbling block [that springs a snare or trap], and to the Gentiles it is absurd and utterly unphilosophical nonsense.

²⁴ But to those who are called, whether Jew or Greek (Gentile), Christ [is] the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.

²⁵ [This is] because the foolish thing [that has its source in] God is wiser than men, and the weak thing [that springs] from God is stronger than men.

²⁶ For [simply] consider your own call, brethren; not many [of you were considered to be] wise according to human estimates and standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth.

²⁷ [No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.

²⁸ And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are,

²⁹ So that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God.

³⁰ But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Wisdom from God, [revealed to us a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as] our Righteousness [thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God], and our Consecration [making us pure and holy], and our Redemption [providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin].

³¹ So then, as it is written, Let him who boasts and proudly rejoices and glories, boast and proudly rejoice and glory in the Lord.^(B)

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were observing a fast; and [some people] came and asked Jesus, Why are John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fasting, but Your disciples are not doing so?

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, Can the wedding guests fast (abstain from food and drink) while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.

²⁰ But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and they will fast in that day.

²¹ No one sews a patch of unshrunken (new) goods on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and the rent (tear) becomes bigger and worse [than it was before].

²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the bottles destroyed; but new wine is to be put in new (fresh) wineskins.