Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 95
1 O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights and strength of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication].
7 For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice,(A)
8 Harden not your hearts as at Meribah and as at Massah in the day of temptation in the wilderness,(B)
9 When your fathers tried My patience and tested Me, proved Me, and saw My work [of judgment].
10 Forty years long was I grieved and disgusted with that generation, and I said, It is a people that do err in their hearts, and they do not approve, acknowledge, or regard My ways.
11 Wherefore I swore in My wrath that they would not enter My rest [the land of promise].(C)
Psalm 40
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 I waited patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings.
3 And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord.(A)
4 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who makes the Lord his refuge and trust, and turns not to the proud or to followers of false gods.
5 Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.
6 Sacrifice and offering You do not desire, nor have You delight in them; You have given me the capacity to hear and obey [Your law, a more valuable service than] burnt offerings and sin offerings [which] You do not require.
7 Then said I, Behold, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me;
8 I delight to do Your will, O my God; yes, Your law is within my heart.(B)
9 I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great assembly [tidings of uprightness and right standing with God]. Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as You know, O Lord.
10 I have not concealed Your righteousness within my heart; I have proclaimed Your faithfulness and Your salvation. I have not hid away Your steadfast love and Your truth from the great assembly.(C)
11 Withhold not Your tender mercy from me, O Lord; let Your loving-kindness and Your truth continually preserve me!
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken such hold on me that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed me and forsaken me.
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me!
14 Let them be put to shame and confounded together who seek and require my life to destroy it; let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor who wish me evil and delight in my hurt!
15 Let them be desolate by reason of their shame who say to me, Aha, aha!
16 Let all those that seek and require You rejoice and be glad in You; let such as love Your salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified!
17 [As for me] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord takes thought and plans for me. You are my Help and my Deliverer. O my God, do not tarry!(D)
Psalm 54
To the Chief Musician; with stringed instruments. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, David is hiding among us.
1 Save me, O God, by Your name; judge and vindicate me by Your mighty strength and power.
2 Hear my pleading and my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers and insolent men are rising up against me, and violent men and ruthless ones seek and demand my life; they do not set God before them. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
4 Behold, God is my helper and ally; the Lord is my upholder and is with them who uphold my life.
5 He will pay back evil to my enemies; in Your faithfulness [Lord] put an end to them.
6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks and praise Your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 For He has delivered me out of every trouble, and my eye has looked [in triumph] on my enemies.
Psalm 51
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David; when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had sinned with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin!
3 For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me.
4 Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment.(A)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].(B)
6 Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
16 For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.(C)
17 My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.
18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then will You delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, justice, and right, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then bullocks will be offered upon Your altar.
12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but [reverently] to fear the Lord your God, [that is] to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being,
13 To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?
14 Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth also, with all that is in it and on it.
15 Yet the Lord had a delight in loving your fathers, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.
16 So circumcise the foreskin of your [minds and] hearts; be no longer stubborn and hardened.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe.
18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger or temporary resident and gives him food and clothing.
19 Therefore love the stranger and sojourner, for you were strangers and sojourners in the land of Egypt.
20 You shall [reverently] fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and by His name and presence you shall swear.
21 He is your praise; He is your God, Who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen.
22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude.
11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].
12 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the [a]breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.
13 And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.
14 Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him].
15 For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.
16 Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].
22 After this, Jesus and His disciples went into the land (the countryside) of Judea, where He remained with them, and baptized.
23 But John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, for there was an abundance of water there, and the people kept coming and being baptized.
24 For John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25 Therefore there arose a controversy between some of John’s disciples and a Jew in regard to purification.
26 So they came to John and reported to him, Rabbi, the Man Who was with you on the other side of the Jordan [[a]at the Jordan crossing]—and to Whom you yourself have borne testimony—notice, here He is baptizing too, and everybody is flocking to Him!
27 John answered, A man can receive nothing [he can claim nothing, he can [b]take unto himself nothing] except as it has been granted to him from heaven. [A man must be content to receive the gift which is given him from heaven; there is no other source.]
28 You yourselves are my witnesses [you personally bear me out] that I stated, I am not the Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), but I have [only] been sent before Him [in advance of Him, to be His appointed forerunner, His messenger, His announcer].(A)
29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the groomsman who stands by and listens to him rejoices greatly and heartily on account of the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my pleasure and joy, and it is now complete.(B)
30 He must increase, but I must decrease. [He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.](C)
31 He Who comes from above (heaven) is [far] above all [others]; he who comes from the earth belongs to the earth, and talks the language of earth [his words are from an earthly standpoint]. He Who comes from heaven is [far] above all others [far superior to all others in prominence and in excellence].
32 It is to what He has [actually] seen and heard that He bears testimony, and yet no one accepts His testimony [no one receives His evidence as true].
33 Whoever receives His testimony has set his seal of approval to this: God is true. [That man has definitely certified, acknowledged, declared once and for all, and is himself assured that it is divine truth that God cannot lie].
34 For since He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God [proclaims God’s own message], God does not give Him His Spirit sparingly or by measure, but boundless is the gift God makes of His Spirit!(D)
35 The Father loves the Son and has given (entrusted, committed) everything into His hand.(E)
36 And he who believes in (has faith in, clings to, relies on) the Son has (now possesses) eternal life. But whoever disobeys (is unbelieving toward, refuses to trust in, disregards, is not subject to) the Son will never see (experience) life, but [instead] the wrath of God abides on him. [God’s displeasure remains on him; His indignation hangs over him continually.](F)
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