Book of Common Prayer
ZAIN.
49 ¶ Remember the word unto thy slave, in which thou hast caused me to wait.
50 ¶ This is my comfort in my affliction; for thy spoken word has caused me to live.
51 ¶ The proud have had me greatly in derision; yet I have not deviated from thy law.
52 ¶ I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD, and have consoled myself.
53 ¶ Horror has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.
54 ¶ Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
55 ¶ I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law.
56 This I had, because I kept thy precepts.
CHETH.
57 ¶ My portion, O LORD, I have said, will be to keep thy words.
58 ¶ I intreated thy presence with my whole heart; be merciful unto me according to thy word.
59 ¶ I considered my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.
60 I made haste and did not delay to keep thy commandments.
61 ¶ The company of the wicked have robbed me, but I have not forgotten thy law.
62 ¶ At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of the judgments of thy righteousness.
63 ¶ I am a companion of all those that fear thee and of those that keep thy precepts.
64 ¶ The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy and teaches me thy statutes.
TETH.
65 ¶ Thou hast dealt well with thy slave, O LORD, according unto thy word,
66 which teaches me discernment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments.
67 ¶ Before I was humbled, I went into error, but now I keep thy spoken word.
68 ¶ Thou art good and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
69 ¶ The proud have forged a lie against me, but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
70 Their heart became fat like grease, but I delight in thy law.
71 ¶ It was good for me that I have been humbled, that I might learn thy statutes.
72 ¶ The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.
To the Overcomer: A Psalm for the sons of Korah.
1 ¶ Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world:
2 Both low and high, rich and poor, together.
3 My mouth shall speak wisdom; and the meditation of my heart intelligence.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable; I will declare my enigma upon the harp.
5 Why should I fear in the days of adversity when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6 ¶ Those that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
7 none of them can by any means ransom his brother, nor give God an atonement for him;
8 (for the redemption of their soul is of great price, and they shall never pay it)
9 that he should still live for ever and not see corruption.
10 For he sees that all the wise men die, likewise the fool and the ignorant perish and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inward thought is that their houses are eternal and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man will not abide forever in honour; he is like the beasts that are cut off.
13 This their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.
14 Like sheep they are laid in Sheol; death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and their beauty shall be consumed in the grave from their dwelling.
15 ¶ Surely God will ransom my soul from the hand of Sheol when he shall take me. Selah.
16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
17 for in his death he shall carry nothing away; nor shall his glory descend after him.
18 Though while he lives, his life shall be blessed: and men will praise thee when thou art prosperous.
19 He shall enter into the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light forever.
20 Man that is in honour that does not understand is like the beasts that are cut off.
To the Overcomer upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They have corrupted themselves and have done abominable iniquity; there is no one that does good.
2 God looked down from heaven upon the sons of Adam to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
3 Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy; there is no one that does good, no, not one.
4 Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread; they have not called upon God.
5 They were there in great fear where no fear was; for God has scattered the bones of him that encamps against thee: thou hast put them to shame because God has despised them.
6 Oh that the saving health of Israel were come out of Zion! When God brings back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
13 Furthermore, the LORD spoke unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.
14 Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
15 So I turned and came down from the mount with the two tables of the covenant in my two hands and the mount burned with fire,
16 and I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God and had made yourselves a molten calf; ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.
17 Then I took the two tables and cast them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sins in which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also.
20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him, and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.
21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire and stamped it and ground it very small even until it was as small as dust, and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unfaithfulness, to depart from the living God.
13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;
15 while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For some of those that came out of Egypt with Moses, when they had heard, did provoke; howbeit not all.
17 But with whom was he indignant forty years? Was it not with those that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom he swore that they should not enter into his rest, but to those that disobeyed?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of their unbelief.
23 ¶ Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, seeing the signs which he did.
24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them because he knew all men
25 and needed not that any man should give testimony, for he knew what was in man.
3 ¶ There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a prince of the Jews;
2 the same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that thou doest unless God is with him.
3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a person be born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again from above.
8 The wind blows where it desires, and thou hearest the sound of it, but canst not tell from where it comes or where it goes; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can this be done?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a teacher of Israel and knowest not this?
11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee that we speak what we know and testify that which we have seen, and ye do not receive our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things and ye do not believe, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?
13 And no one has ascended up to the heaven but he that came down from the heaven, even the Son of man, who is in the heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up,
15 that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
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