Book of Common Prayer
For the choir director; according to shoshannim; [a] a maskil by Korah’s descendants; a love song.
45 My heart is overflowing with good news.
I will direct my song to the king.
My tongue is a pen for a skillful writer.
2 You are the most handsome of Adam’s descendants.
Grace is poured on your lips.
That is why God has blessed you forever.
3 O warrior, strap your sword to your side
with your splendor and majesty.
4 Ride on victoriously in your majesty
for the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness.
Let your right hand teach you awe-inspiring things.
5 Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies.
Nations fall beneath you.
6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
The scepter in your kingdom is a scepter for justice.
7 You have loved what is right and hated what is wrong.
That is why God, your God, has anointed you,
rather than your companions, with the oil of joy.
8 All your robes are ⌞fragrant⌟ with myrrh, aloes, and cassia.
From ivory palaces the music of stringed instruments delights you.
9 The daughters of kings are among your noble ladies.
The queen takes her place at your right hand
and wears gold from Ophir.
10 Listen, daughter! Look closely!
Turn your ear ⌞toward me⌟.
Forget your people, and forget your father’s house.
11 The king longs for your beauty.
He is your Lord.
Worship him.
12 The people of Tyre, the richest people,
want to win your favor with a gift.
13 The daughter of the king is glorious inside ⌞the palace⌟.
Her dress is embroidered with gold.
14 Wearing a colorful gown, she is brought to the king.
Her bridesmaids follow her.
They will be brought to you.
15 With joy and delight they are brought in.
They enter the palace of the king.
16 Your sons will take the place of your father.
You will make them princes over the whole earth.
17 I will cause your name to be remembered throughout every generation.
That is why the nations will give thanks to you forever and ever.
For the choir director; a psalm by Korah’s descendants.
47 Clap your hands, all you people.
Shout to God with a loud, joyful song.
2 We must fear the Lord, the Most High.
He is the great king of the whole earth.
3 He brings people under our authority
and ⌞puts⌟ nations under our feet.
4 He chooses our inheritance for us,
the pride of Jacob, whom he loved. Selah
5 God has gone up with a joyful shout.
The Lord has gone up with the sound of a ram’s horn.
6 Make music to praise God.
Play music for him!
Make music to praise our king.
Play music for him!
7 God is the king of the whole earth.
Make your best music for him!
8 God rules the nations.
He sits upon his holy throne.
9 The influential people from the nations gather together
as the people of the God of Abraham.
The rulers of the earth belong to God.
He rules everything.
A song; a psalm by Korah’s descendants.
48 The Lord is great.
He should be highly praised.
His holy mountain is in the city of our God.
2 Its beautiful peak is the joy of the whole earth.
Mount Zion is on the northern ridge.
It is the city of the great king.
3 God is in its palaces.
He has proved that he is a stronghold.
4 The kings have gathered.
They marched together.
5 ⌞When⌟ they saw ⌞Mount Zion⌟,
they were astonished.
They were terrified and ran away in fear.
6 Trembling seized them
like the trembling that a woman experiences during labor.
7 With the east wind you smash the ships of Tarshish.
8 The things we had only heard about, we have now seen
in the city of the Lord of Armies,
in the city of our God.
God makes Zion stand firm forever. Selah
9 Inside your temple we carefully reflect on your mercy, O God.
10 Like your name, O God,
your praise ⌞reaches⌟ to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
11 Let Mount Zion be glad
and the cities of Judah rejoice
because of your judgments.
12 Walk around Zion.
Go around it.
Count its towers.
13 Examine its embankments.
Walk through its palaces.
Then you can tell the next generation,
14 “This God is our God forever and ever.
He will lead us beyond death.”
4 When the Lord your God expels these people in front of you, don’t say to yourselves, “Because we’ve been living right, the Lord brought us here to take possession of this land.” No, it’s because these nations are so wicked that the Lord is forcing them out of your way. 5 It’s not because you’ve been living right or because you’re so honest that you’re entering to take possession of their land. It’s because these people are so wicked that the Lord your God is forcing them out of your way. It’s also because the Lord wants to confirm the promise he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 So understand this: It’s not because you’ve been living right that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess. You are impossible to deal with!
7 Never forget how you made the Lord your God angry in the desert. You’ve rebelled against the Lord from the day you left Egypt until you came here. 8 Even at Mount Horeb you made the Lord so angry that he wanted to destroy you. 9 When I went up on the mountain to get the stone tablets, the tablets of the promise that the Lord made to you, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. 10 Then the Lord gave me the two stone tablets inscribed by God himself. On them were written all the words that the Lord spoke to you from the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly.
11 At the end of the 40 days and 40 nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets with his promise on them. 12 He told me, “Leave right away. Your people whom you brought out of Egypt have ruined ⌞everything⌟. They’ve quickly turned from the way I commanded them to live. They’ve made an idol for themselves.”
Christ Is Superior to Moses
3 Brothers and sisters, you are holy partners in a heavenly calling. So look carefully at Jesus, the apostle and chief priest about whom we make our declaration of faith. 2 Jesus is faithful to God, who appointed him, in the same way that Moses was faithful when he served in God’s house. 3 Jesus deserves more praise than Moses in the same way that the builder of a house is praised more than the house. 4 After all, every house has a builder, but the builder of everything is God.
5 Moses was a faithful servant in God’s household. He told ⌞the people⌟ what God would say in the future. 6 But Christ is a faithful son in charge of God’s household. We are his household if we continue to have courage and to be proud of the confidence we have.
7 As the Holy Spirit says,
“If you hear God speak today, don’t be stubborn.
8 Don’t be stubborn like those who rebelled
and tested me in the desert.
9 That is where your ancestors tested me,
10 although they had seen what I had done for 40 years.
That is why I was angry with those people. So I said,
‘Their hearts continue to stray,
and they have not learned my ways.’
11 So I angrily took a solemn oath
that they would never enter my place of rest.”
Jesus Throws Merchants and Moneychangers out of the Temple Courtyard
13 The Jewish Passover was near, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 He found those who were selling cattle, sheep, and pigeons in the temple courtyard. He also found moneychangers sitting there. 15 He made a whip from small ropes and threw everyone with their sheep and cattle out of the temple courtyard. He dumped the moneychangers’ coins and knocked over their tables.
16 He told those who sold pigeons, “Pick up this stuff, and get it out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
17 His disciples remembered that Scripture said, “Devotion for your house will consume me.”
18 The Jews reacted by asking Jesus, “What miracle can you show us to justify what you’re doing?”
19 Jesus replied, “Tear down this temple, and I’ll rebuild it in three days.”
20 The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple. Do you really think you’re going to rebuild it in three days?”
21 But the temple Jesus spoke about was his own body. 22 After he came back to life, his disciples remembered that he had said this. So they believed the Scripture and this statement that Jesus had made.
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