Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 97[a]
Divine King and Universal Judge
1 The Lord is King;[b] let the earth exult;
let the distant isles rejoice.
2 [c]Clouds and darkness[d] surround him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire[e] precedes him,
consuming his enemies on every side.
4 His flashes of lightnwing illumine the world;
the earth sees this and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,[f]
and all the nations behold his glory.
7 All who worship images are put to shame,
those who boast of their worthless idols;
bow down before him, all you gods.[g]
8 Zion hears and rejoices,
and the cities[h] of Judah exult
because of your judgments, O Lord.
9 For you, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.
10 [i]Let those who love the Lord hate evil,
for he protects the souls of his faithful ones
and rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
11 [j]Light dawns for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name.
Psalm 99[a]
God, King of Justice and Holiness
1 The Lord is King;[b]
let the nations tremble.
He sits enthroned on the cherubim;
let the earth quake.
2 The Lord is great in Zion;
he is exalted above all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name:[c]
holy is he!
4 Mighty King, you love justice,
and you have established fairness;
in Jacob[d] you have brought about
what is just and right.
5 Exalt the Lord, our God,
and worship at his footstool;
holy is he![e]
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
and Samuel was among those who invoked his name;
they cried out to the Lord,
and he answered them.[f]
7 He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud;[g]
they obeyed his decrees and the law he gave them.
8 O Lord, our God,
you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but you punished their wrongdoings.[h]
9 Exalt the Lord, our God,
and worship at his holy mountain,
for the Lord, our God, is holy.[i]
Psalm 100[j]
Processional Entrance Hymn
1 A psalm of thanksgiving.[k]
Acclaim the Lord[l] with joy, all the earth;
2 serve the Lord[m] with gladness;
enter his presence with songs of joy.
3 Proclaim that the Lord is God.[n]
He made us and we are his possession;
we are his people, the flock he shepherds.
4 Offer thanksgiving as you enter his gates,[o]
sing hymns of praise as you approach his courts;
give thanks to him and bless his name,
5 for the Lord is good.
His kindness endures forever,
and his faithfulness is constant to all generations.[p]
Psalm 94[a]
God, Judge, and Avenger
1 O Lord, you are an avenging God;[b]
shine forth, O God of vengeance.
2 Rise up, O judge of the earth;
repay[c] the arrogant as they deserve.
3 O Lord, how long will the wicked,
how long will the wicked be triumphant?[d]
4 [e]Their mouths pour forth their arrogant words
as these evildoers never cease to boast.
5 They crush your people, O Lord,
and they oppress your heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the foreigner
and put the orphan to death.
7 They say, “The Lord does not see;
the God of Jacob[f] pays no attention.”
8 [g]Try to comprehend, you senseless people.
You fools, when will you gain some wisdom?[h]
9 Does the one who made the ear not hear?
Does the one who fashioned the eye not see?[i]
10 Does the one who guides the nations[j] not punish?
Does the one who instructs people lack knowledge?
11 The Lord is well aware of our thoughts[k]
and how foolish they are.
12 [l]Blessed[m] is the man you admonish, O Lord,
the man you teach by means of your law,
13 giving him respite in times of misfortune
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not abandon his people
or forsake his heritage.[n]
15 Judgment will again be based on righteousness,
and all the upright in heart[o] will uphold it.
16 [p]Who will stand up for me against the wicked?
Who will defend me against evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not come to my aid,
I would long ago have been consigned to the kingdom of silence.[q]
18 When I realized that my foot was slipping,
your kindness,[r] O Lord, raised me up.
19 When my anxious thoughts multiplied,
your comfort filled my soul with joy.[s]
20 [t]Can evil rulers have you as an ally,
those who make use of the law to oppress the helpless?[u]
21 They conspire against the righteous[v]
and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord has been my stronghold,[w]
my God, the rock in whom I find refuge.
23 He will repay the wicked for their iniquity
and destroy them for their evil deeds;
the Lord, our God, will destroy them.
Psalm 95[x]
A Call To Praise and Obey God
1 [y]Come, let us sing with jubilation to the Lord;
let us cry out to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with our songs.
3 [z]For the Lord is the great God,
the King who surpasses all other gods.[aa]
4 In his hands are the depths of the earth,
and the peaks of the mountains are his.
5 To him belongs the sea, for he created it,
and also the dry land[ab] that his hands have molded.
6 Come forth! Let us bow down to worship him;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.[ac]
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds,[ad]
the flock he protects.
If only you would listen to his voice today:
8 “Harden not your hearts as you did at Meribah,[ae]
as on the day of Massah in the wilderness.
9 It was there that your ancestors sought to tempt me;
they put me to the test
even though they had witnessed my works.[af]
10 “For forty years[ag] I loathed that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, in my anger I swore,
‘They will never enter my rest.’ ”[ah]
Chapter 14
1 Joab, the son of Zeruiah, ascertained that the king, in his heart, longed for Absalom, 2 so he sent to Tekoa and had a wise woman brought from there. He said to her: “Pretend to be a mourner. Dress yourself in mourning garments and do not anoint yourself with oil. Simply pretend to be a woman who has been grieving for the dead for many days. 3 Then go to the king and speak to him as I instruct you.” After that, Joab told her what she was to say.
4 When the woman of Tekoa approached the king, she fell prostrate to the ground in homage and said: “Please help me, O king.” 5 The king asked: “What can I do for you?” She replied: “As you can see I am a widow. My husband is dead. 6 Your servant had two sons, and they fought with one another in the field. There was no one around to separate them, and one of them struck the other and killed him.
7 “Now the entire family has risen against your servant and demanded: ‘Give up the man who killed his brother, so that we can put him to death to atone for the life of the brother whom he killed. Thus we shall get rid of the heir as well.’ Should they do this, they will extinguish my one remaining ember and leave my husband neither name nor posterity on the face of the earth.” 8 The king said to the woman: “Return home. I myself shall issue orders on your behalf.”
9 Then the woman of Tekoa said to the king: “My lord, let the guilt be on me and on my father’s house. The king and his throne will be without guilt.” 10 The king replied: “If anyone says something further that is threatening to you, have him brought to me, and he will never trouble you again.” 11 [a]Then she said: “May the king keep the Lord, your God, in mind so that the avenger of blood will be prevented from killing any further and my son will not be destroyed.” The king swore: “As surely as the Lord lives, not one hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”
12 The woman continued further; “Please permit your servant to speak a further word to my lord the king.” He replied: “Speak.” 13 She said: “In pronouncing this verdict, has not the king condemned himself by devising something like this against the people of God, since you have refused to bring back your banished son? 14 We all must die. We are like water that is spilled on the ground and cannot be gathered up again. However, God does not take away a life. Rather, he devises ways that will enable us to avoid being estranged forever from him.
15 “I have dared to speak in this way to your majesty because the people have intimidated me. I thought: ‘Perhaps if I can speak to the king, he will grant the request of his servant. 16 He will surely listen to me and deliver his servant from the hands of those who seek to cut off both me and my son from God’s inheritance.’ 17 And I further thought: ‘Perhaps the word of my lord the king will restore my peace of mind, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning between good and evil.’ May the Lord, your God, be with you.”
18 Then in reply the king said to the woman: “Do not be evasive in replying to the question I will now ask you.” The woman answered: “Let my lord the king present his question.” 19 Then the king asked: “Is not the hand of Joab behind you in all this?” The woman asserted: “As you live, my lord the king, no one can avoid being completely truthful in responding to what you ask. Yes, it was your servant Joab who instructed me and taught your servant all the things she was to say. 20 Your servant Joab did this to present the situation in a different light. But my lord has the wisdom of an angel of God and is fully aware of everything that happens in the land.”
From Jerusalem to Rome[a]
Chapter 21
Last Journey to Jerusalem[b]
Arrival at Tyre. 1 When we[c] had finally torn ourselves away from them and set sail, we traveled directly to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. 2 There, we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, so we went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus, we passed by it on our left and sailed to Syria, landing at Tyre where the ship was to unload her cargo.
4 We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them for seven days. Through the Spirit, they advised Paul to abandon his plans to move on to Jerusalem. 5 However, when our time with them was ended, we left and continued on our journey. All of them, including women and children, escorted us outside the city. Kneeling down on the beach, we prayed 6 and then bid farewell to one another. Afterward, we boarded the ship and they returned home.
Arrival at Ptolemais and Caesarea. 7 We finished our voyage from Tyre and arrived at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brethren and stayed with them for one day. 8 On the next day, we left and came to Caesarea, where we went to the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the Seven,[d] and stayed with him. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who possessed the gift of prophecy.
10 After we had been there for several days, a prophet named Agabus arrived from Judea. 11 He came up to us, took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit: ‘In this way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles.’ ”
12 When we heard this, we joined with the people who lived there in begging Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul replied, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 Since he would not be dissuaded, we finally gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”
Chapter 10
Marriage and Divorce.[a] 1 After departing from there, Jesus came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.[b] Again the crowds gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he began to teach them.
2 Some Pharisees came forward and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He replied, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and dismiss her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “It was because of the hardness of your hearts that he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the very beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, 8 and the two become one flesh.’ And so they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 When they were again in the house, the disciples once more questioned Jesus about this. 11 He said to them, “If a man divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery against her. 12 In the same way, if a wife divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
13 Jesus Receives Little Children.[c] People were bringing little children to him so that he might touch them, and the disciples sternly rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus became aware of this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not hinder them. For it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up into his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
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