Book of Common Prayer

To the Overcomer upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ O LORD our Lord, how great is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy praise above the heavens.

² Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou might still the enemy and the avenger.

³ ¶ When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

⁴ what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou dost visit him?

⁵ For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and beauty.

⁶ Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

⁷ all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

⁸ The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

⁹ O LORD our Lord, how great is thy name in all the earth!

A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods I will sing praises unto thee.

² I will worship the temple of thy holiness and praise thy name above thy mercy and thy truth; for thou hast made thy name to be magnificent and raised up thy spoken word above all things.

³ In the day when I called, thou didst answer me and strengthen me with strength in my soul.

⁴ All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hearken unto the spoken words from thy mouth.

⁵ Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD.

⁶ ¶ For the LORD, who is high and lifted up, looks upon the humble, but the proud he does not know.

⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸ The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; thy mercy, O LORD, endures for ever; forsake not the works of thine own hands.

3 ¶ Now the serpent was more astute than all the animals of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Has God indeed said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

² And the woman answered unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it; neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

⁴ Then the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵ For God knows that in the day ye eat of it then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

⁶ ¶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was desirable to the eyes, and a tree of covetousness to understand, she took of its fruit and ate and gave also unto her husband with her; and he ate.

⁷ And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves girdles.

⁸ And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

⁹ ¶ And the LORD God called unto the man and said unto him, Where art thou?

¹⁰ And he replied, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.

¹¹ ¶ And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee not to eat?

¹² And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.

¹³ Then the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.

¹⁴ ¶ And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all beasts and above every animal of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life;

¹⁵ and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed; that seed shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

¹² Therefore, in the manner which sin entered into the world by one man, and because of sin, death; and so death passed upon all men in the one in whom all sinned.

¹³ For until the law, sin was in the world; but the sin was not imputed, there being no law.

¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even in those that did not sin after the manner of the rebellion of Adam, who is a figure of him that was to come.

¹⁵ But not as the offense, so also is the gift. For if through the offense of that one many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man, Jesus the Christ, has abounded unto many.

¹⁶ Nor was it in the same manner as by one sin, likewise also the gift; for the judgment truly came of one sin unto condemnation, but grace came of many offenses unto justification.

¹⁷ For if by one offense, death reigned because of one man; much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of gifts and of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus the Christ.

¹⁸ Therefore, in the same manner that by the iniquity of one guilt came upon all men unto condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, grace came upon all men unto justification of life.

¹⁹ For as by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

²⁰ Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,

²¹ so that in the same manner as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.