Book of Common Prayer
41 (0) For the leader. A psalm of David:
2 (1) How blessed are those who care for the poor!
When calamity comes, Adonai will save them.
3 (2) Adonai will preserve them, keep them alive,
and make them happy in the land.
You will not hand them over
to the whims of their enemies.
4 (3) Adonai sustains them on their sickbed;
when they lie ill, you make them recover.
5 (4) I said, “Adonai, have pity on me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
6 (5) My enemies say the worst about me:
“When will he die and his name disappear?”
7 (6) When they come to see me they speak insincerely,
their hearts meanwhile gathering falsehoods;
then they go out and spread bad reports.
8 (7) All who hate me whisper together against me,
imagining the worst about me.
9 (8) “A fatal disease has attached itself to him;
now that he lies ill, he will never get up.”
10 (9) Even my close friend, on whom I relied,
who shared my table, has turned against me.
11 (10) But you, Adonai, have pity on me,
put me on my feet, so I can pay them back.
12 (11) I will know you are pleased with me
if my enemy doesn’t defeat me.
13 (12) You uphold me because of my innocence
you establish me in your presence forever.
14 (13) Blessed be Adonai the God of Isra’el
from eternity past to eternity future.
Amen. Amen.
52 (0) For the leader. A maskil of David, 2 when Do’eg from Edom came and told Sha’ul, “David has arrived at the house of Achimelekh”:
3 (1) Why do you boast of your evil, you tyrant,
when God’s mercy is present every day?
4 (2) Your tongue, as sharp as a razor,
plots destruction and works deception.
5 (3) You love evil more than good,
lies rather than speaking uprightly. (Selah)
6 (4) You love all words that eat people up,
you deceitful tongue!
7 (5) This is why God will strike you down,
seize you, pluck you from your tent
and uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)
8 (6) The righteous will see and be awestruck;
they will jeer at him, saying,
9 (7) “This fellow would not make God his refuge,
but trusted in his own great wealth,
relying on his evil plots.”
10 (8) But I am like a leafy olive tree
in the house of God;
I put my trust in the grace of God
forever and ever.
11 (9) I will praise you forever for what you have done,
and I will put my hope in your name;
for this is what is good
in the presence of your faithful.
44 (0) For the leader. By the descendants of Korach. A maskil:
2 (1) God, we heard it with our ears;
our fathers told us about it —
a deed which you did in their days,
back in days of old.
3 (2) With your hand you drove out nations
to plant them in [the land],
you crushed peoples
to make room for them.
4 (3) For not by their own swords
did they conquer the land,
nor did their own arm
give them victory;
rather, it was your right hand,
your arm and the light of your face;
because you favored them.
5 (4) God, you are my king;
command complete victory for Ya‘akov.
6 (5) Through you we pushed away our foes,
through your name we trampled down our assailants.
7 (6) For I don’t rely on my bow,
nor can my sword give me victory.
8 (7) No, you saved us from our adversaries;
you put to shame those who hate us.
9 (8) We will boast in our God all day
and give thanks to your name forever. (Selah)
10 (9) Yet now you have thrust us aside and disgraced us;
you don’t march out with our armies.
11 (10) You make us retreat from the adversary,
and those who hate us plunder us at will.
12 (11) You have handed us over like sheep to be eaten
and scattered us among the nations.
13 (12) You sell your people for a pittance,
you don’t even profit on the sale.
14 (13) You make us an object for our neighbors to mock,
one of scorn and derision to those around us.
15 (14) You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples jeer at us, shaking their heads.
16 (15) All day long my disgrace is on my mind,
and shame has covered my face
17 (16) at the sound of those who revile and insult,
at the sight of the enemy bent on revenge.
18 (17) Though all this came on us, we did not forget you;
we have not been false to your covenant;
19 (18) Our hearts have not turned back,
and our steps did not turn away from your path,
20 (19) though you pressed us into a lair of jackals
and covered us with death-dark gloom.
21 (20) If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
22 (21) wouldn’t God have discovered this,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
23 (22) For your sake we are put to death all day long,
we are considered sheep to be slaughtered.
24 (23) Wake up, Adonai! Why are you asleep?
Rouse yourself! Don’t thrust us off forever.
25 (24) Why are you turning your face away,
forgetting our pain and misery?
26 (25) For we are lying flat in the dust,
our bodies cling to the ground.
27 (26) Get up, and come to help us!
For the sake of your grace, redeem us!
13 Just then, as Yarov‘am was standing by the altar to burn incense, a man of God came out of Y’hudah, directed to Beit-El by a word from Adonai. 2 And by the word from Adonai he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar, here is what Adonai says: ‘A son will be born to the house of David; his name will be Yoshiyahu; and on you he will sacrifice the cohanim of the high places who burn incense on you! They will burn human bones on you!’” 3 That same day he also gave a sign: “Here is the sign which Adonai has decreed:
“‘The altar will be split apart;
the ashes on it will be scattered about.’”
4 When the king heard what the man of God said, how he denounced the altar in Beit-El, Yarov‘am took his hand away from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But his hand, the one he had stretched out against him, shriveled up; so that he could not draw it back to himself. 5 Also the altar was split apart, and the ashes scattered from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of Adonai. 6 The king then responded to the man of God. “Ask now the favor of Adonai your God,” he said, “and pray for me, that my hand will be restored to me.” The man of God prayed to Adonai, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it had been before. 7 The king then said to the man of God, “Come home with me, and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward. 8 But the man of God replied to the king, “Even if you give me half your household, I will not accept your hospitality; nor will I eat food or drink water in this place. 9 For this is the order I received through the word of Adonai: ‘Don’t eat food or drink water, and don’t return by the road you took when you came.’” 10 So he went another way and did not return by the road by which he had come to Beit-El.
1 From: Sha’ul and Timothy, slaves of the Messiah Yeshua
To: All God’s people united with the Messiah Yeshua and living in Philippi, along with the congregation leaders and shammashim:
2 Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
3 I thank my God every time I think of you. 4 Whenever I pray for all of you I always pray with joy, 5 because you have shared in proclaiming the Good News from the very first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this: that the One who began a good work among you will keep it growing until it is completed on the Day of the Messiah Yeshua. 7 It is right for me to think this way about you all, because I have you on my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and establishing the Good News, you are all sharing with me in this privileged work. 8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the deep affection of the Messiah Yeshua.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may more and more overflow in fullness of knowledge and depth of discernment, 10 so that you will be able to determine what is best and thus be pure and without blame for the Day of the Messiah, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Yeshua the Messiah — to the glory and praise of God.
40 There were women looking on from a distance; among them were Miryam from Magdala, Miryam the mother of the younger Ya‘akov and of Yosi, and Shlomit. 41 These women had followed him and helped him when he was in the Galil. And many other women were there who had come up with him to Yerushalayim.
42 Since it was Preparation Day (that is, the day before a Shabbat), as evening approached, 43 Yosef of Ramatayim, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who himself was also looking forward to the Kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Yeshua’s body. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead, so he summoned the officer and asked him if he had been dead awhile. 45 After he had gotten confirmation from the officer that Yeshua was dead, he granted Yosef the corpse. 46 Yosef purchased a linen sheet; and after taking Yeshua down, he wrapped him in the linen sheet, laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. 47 Miryam of Magdala and Miryam the mother of Yosi saw where he had been laid.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.