Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 45
To the Chief Musician; [set to the tune of] “Lilies” [probably a popular air. A Psalm] of the sons of Korah. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem. A song of love.
1 My heart overflows with a [a]goodly theme; I address my psalm to a King. My tongue is like the pen of a ready writer.
2 You are fairer than the children of men; graciousness is poured upon Your lips; therefore God has blessed You forever.
3 Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O mighty One, in Your glory and Your majesty!
4 And in Your majesty ride on triumphantly for the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God); and let Your right hand guide You to tremendous things.
5 Your arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under You; Your darts pierce the hearts of the King’s enemies.
6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
7 You love righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with God and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.(A)
8 Your garments are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia; stringed instruments make You glad.
9 Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10 Hear, O daughter, consider, submit, and consent to my instruction: forget also your own people and your father’s house;
11 So will the King desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, be submissive and reverence and honor Him.
12 And, O daughter of Tyre, the richest of the people shall entreat your favor with a gift.
13 The King’s daughter in the inner part [of the palace] is all glorious; her clothing is inwrought with gold.(B)
14 She shall be brought to the King in raiment of needlework; with the virgins, her companions that follow her, she shall be brought to You.
15 With gladness and rejoicing will they be brought; they will enter into the King’s palace.
16 Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, whom You will make princes in all the land.
17 I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore shall the people praise and give You thanks forever and ever.
Psalm 47
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 O clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph and songs of joy!
2 For the Lord Most High excites terror, awe, and dread; He is a great King over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our inheritance for us, the glory and pride of Jacob, whom He loves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!(A)
5 God has ascended amid shouting, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
7 For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises in a skillful psalm and with understanding.
8 God reigns over the nations; God sits upon His holy throne.
9 The princes and nobles of the peoples are gathered together, a [united] people for the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.
Psalm 48
A song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain,
2 Fair and beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth—[a]Mount Zion [the City of David], to the northern side [Mount Moriah and the temple], the [whole] city of the Great King!(B)
3 God has made Himself known in her palaces as a Refuge (a High Tower and a Stronghold).
4 For, behold, the kings assembled, they came onward and they passed away together.
5 They looked, they were amazed; they were stricken with terror and took to flight [affrighted and dismayed].
6 Trembling took hold of them there, and pain as of a woman in childbirth.
7 With the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
9 We have thought of Your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of Your temple.
10 As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness (rightness and justice).
11 Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your [righteous] judgments!
12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her, number her towers (her lofty and noble deeds of past days),
13 Consider well her ramparts, go through her palaces and citadels, that you may tell the next generation [and cease recalling disappointments].
14 For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide [even] until death.
23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri began his reign of twelve years over Israel. He reigned six years in Tirzah.
24 Omri bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver. He built a city on the hill and fortified it, and called it Samaria (Shomeron), after the owner of the hill, Shemer.
25 But Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord, even worse than all who were before him.
26 He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, by which he made Israel sin, to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger with their idols.
27 The rest of the acts of Omri, and his might that he showed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
28 So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. Ahab his son reigned in his stead.
29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri began his reign of twenty-two years over Israel in Samaria.
30 And Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all before him.
31 As if it had been a light thing for Ahab to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took for a wife Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and served Baal and worshiped him.
32 He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria.
33 And Ahab made an Asherah [idolatrous symbol of the goddess Asherah]. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.
34 In his days, Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of the life of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Joshua son of Nun.(A)
12 Now I want you to know and continue to rest assured, brethren, that what [has happened] to me [this imprisonment] has actually only served to advance and give a renewed impetus to the [spreading of the] good news (the Gospel).
13 So much is this a fact that throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest [here] my imprisonment has become generally known to be in Christ [that I am a prisoner in His service and for Him].
14 And [also] most of the brethren have derived fresh confidence in the Lord because of my chains and are much more bold to speak and publish fearlessly the Word of God [acting with more freedom and indifference to the consequences].
15 Some, it is true, [actually] preach Christ (the Messiah) [for no better reason than] out of envy and rivalry (party spirit), but others are doing so out of a loyal spirit and goodwill.
16 [a]The latter [proclaim Christ] out of love, because they recognize and know that I am [providentially] put here for the defense of the good news (the Gospel).
17 [b]But the former preach Christ out of a party spirit, insincerely [out of no pure motive, but thinking to annoy me], supposing they are making my bondage more bitter and my chains more galling.
18 But what does it matter, so long as either way, whether in pretense [for personal ends] or in all honesty [for the furtherance of the Truth], Christ is being proclaimed? And in that I [now] rejoice, yes, and I shall rejoice [hereafter] also.
19 For I am well assured and indeed know that through your prayers and a [c]bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) this will turn out for my preservation (for the spiritual health and [d]welfare of my own soul) and avail toward the saving work of the Gospel.
20 This is in keeping with my own eager desire and persistent expectation and hope, that I shall not disgrace myself nor be put to shame in anything; but that with the utmost freedom of speech and unfailing courage, now as always heretofore, Christ (the Messiah) will be magnified and get glory and praise in this body of mine and be boldly exalted in my person, whether through (by) life or through (by) death.
21 For me to live is Christ [His life in me], and to die is gain [the gain of the glory of eternity].
22 If, however, it is to be life in the flesh and I am to live on here, that means fruitful service for me; so I can say nothing as to my personal preference [I cannot choose],
23 But I am hard pressed between the two. My yearning desire is to depart (to be free of this world, to set forth) and be with Christ, for that is far, far better;
24 But to remain in my body is more needful and essential for your sake.
25 Since I am convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and stay by you all, to promote your progress and joy in believing,
26 So that in me you may have abundant cause for exultation and glorying in Christ Jesus, through my coming to you again.
27 Only be sure as citizens so to conduct yourselves [that] your manner of life [will be] worthy of the good news (the Gospel) of Christ, so that whether I [do] come and see you or am absent, I may hear this of you: that you are standing firm in united spirit and purpose, striving side by side and contending with a single mind for the faith of the glad tidings (the Gospel).
28 And do not [for a moment] be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries, for such [constancy and fearlessness] will be a clear sign (proof and seal) to them of [their impending] destruction, but [a sure token and evidence] of your deliverance and salvation, and that from God.
29 For you have been granted [the privilege] for Christ’s sake not only to believe in (adhere to, rely on, and trust in) Him, but also to suffer in His behalf.
30 So you are engaged in the same conflict which you saw me [wage] and which you now hear to be mine [still].
16 And when the Sabbath was past [that is, after the sun had set], Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the mother] of James, and Salome purchased sweet-smelling spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body].
2 And very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb; [by then] the sun had risen.
3 And they said to one another, Who will roll back the stone for us out of [the groove across the floor at] the door of the tomb?
4 And when they looked up, they [distinctly] saw that the stone was already rolled back, for it was very large.
5 And going into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting [there] on the right [side], clothed in a [[a]long, stately, sweeping] robe of white, and they were utterly amazed and struck with terror.
6 And he said to them, Do not be amazed and terrified; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.(A)
7 But be going; tell the disciples and Peter, He goes before you into Galilee; you will see Him there, [just] as He told you.(B)
8 Then they went out [and] fled from the tomb, for trembling and bewilderment and consternation had seized them. And they said nothing about it to anyone, for they were held by alarm and fear.
9 [b]Now Jesus, having risen [[c]from death] early on the first day of the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had driven out seven demons.
10 She went and reported it to those who had been with Him, as they grieved and wept.
11 And when they heard that He was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe it.
12 After this, He appeared in a different form to two of them as they were walking [along the way] into the country.
13 And they returned [to Jerusalem] and told the others, but they did not believe them either.
14 Afterward He appeared to the Eleven [apostles themselves] as they reclined at table; and He reproved and reproached them for their unbelief (their lack of faith) and their hardness of heart, because they had refused to believe those who had seen Him and looked at Him attentively after He had risen [[d]from death].
15 And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every creature [of the whole [e]human race].
16 He who believes [who adheres to and trusts in and relies on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] and is baptized will be saved [[f]from the penalty of eternal death]; but he who does not believe [who does not adhere to and trust in and rely on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] will be condemned.
17 And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages;
18 They will pick up serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well.
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and He sat down at the right hand of God.(C)
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the message by the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied [it]. Amen (so be it).
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation