Book of Common Prayer
78 Hear my doctrine, O my people. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable. I will declare high sentences of old
3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children; but to the generation to come we will show the praise of the LORD, His power also, and His wonderful works that He has done.
5 How He established a testimony in Jacob and ordained a Law in Israel. Which He commanded our fathers that they should teach their children,
6 so that the posterity might know it and the children which should be born should stand up and declare it to their children.
7 So that they might set their hope on God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His Commandments.
8 So that they not be as their fathers (a disobedient and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set their heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God).
9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and shooting with the bow, turned back on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the Covenant of God, but refused to walk in His Law,
11 and forgot His acts and His wonderful works that He had shown them.
12 He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt (in the field of Zoan).
13 He divided the sea and led them through. He also made the waters to stand as a heap.
14 Also, in the daytime, He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.
15 He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink, as with the great depths.
16 He also brought floods out of the stony rock, making the waters descend like the rivers.
17 But, they still sinned against Him and provoked the Highest in the wilderness
18 and tempted God in their hearts, requiring food for their lust.
19 They also spoke against God, saying, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
20 “Behold, He struck the rock so that the water gushed out and the streams overflowed. Can He also give bread, or prepare flesh for His people?”
21 Therefore, the LORD heard and was angry, and the fire was kindled in Jacob; and wrath also came upon Israel
22 because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His help.
23 Still, He had commanded the clouds above, and had opened the doors of Heaven,
24 and had rained down manna upon them to eat and had given them of the wheat of Heaven.
25 Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food enough.
26 He caused the east wind to pass in the sky; and through His power He brought in the south wind.
27 He also rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the sea.
28 And He made it fall in the midst of their camp, all around their habitations.
29 So they ate and were well-filled; for He gave them their desire.
30 They were not turned from their lusts. The food was still in their mouths
31 when the wrath of God came upon them and slew the strongest of them and struck down the chosen men of Israel.
32 In spite of all this, they still sinned and did not believe His wondrous works.
33 Therefore, He ended their days in futility, and their years in dismay.
34 And when He slew them, they sought Him; and they returned and sought God earnestly.
35 And they remembered that God was their strength, and the Most High God their Redeemer.
36 But they flattered Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue.
37 For their heart was not upright with Him; nor were they faithful in His Covenant.
38 Yet, He, being merciful, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; but oftentimes called back His anger and did not stir up all His wrath.
39 For He remembered that they were flesh, a wind that passes and does not come again.
40 How often did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert?
41 Indeed, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
42 They remembered neither His hand nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy
43 nor Him Who set His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the field of Zoan.
44 Who turned their rivers into blood, and their floods, so that they could not drink.
45 He sent a swarm of flies among them which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them.
46 He also gave their fruits to the caterpillar, and their labor to the grasshopper.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their wild fig trees with the hailstone.
48 He also gave their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to the thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, indignation and wrath, and troubled them by sending out evil angels.
50 He made a path for His anger. He did not spare their soul from death but gave their life to the pestilence.
51 He struck all the firstborn in Egypt, even the beginning of their strength, in the tabernacles of Ham.
52 But, He made His people go out like sheep and led them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 Indeed, He carried them out safely, and they did not fear; and the sea covered their enemies.
54 And He brought them to the borders of His Sanctuary, to this Mountain which His right hand purchased.
55 He also cast out the heathen before them and caused them to fall to the lot of His inheritance; and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tabernacles.
56 Yet, they tempted and provoked the Most High God and did not keep His testimonies.
57 But they turned back and dealt falsely, like their fathers. They turned like a deceitful bow.
58 And they provoked Him to anger with their high places and moved Him to wrath with their graven images.
59 God heard this and was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;
60 so that He abandoned the habitation of Shiloh, the Tabernacle where He dwelt among men,
61 and delivered His power into captivity, and His beauty into the enemy’s hand.
62 And He gave up His people to the sword and was angry with His inheritance.
63 The fire devoured their chosen men, and their maids were not praised.
64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows did not lament.
65 But the LORD awakened, as one out of sleep, as a strong man who cries out after wine,
66 and drove His enemies backwards and put them to a perpetual shame.
67 Yet, He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 But He chose the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which He loved.
69 And He built His Sanctuary as a high palace, like the Earth, which He established forever.
70 He also chose David, His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.
71 Even from behind the ewes with young. He brought him to feed His people in Jacob, and His inheritance in Israel.
72 So, he fed them according to the simplicity of his heart and guided them by the discretion of his hands. A Psalm committed to Asaph
19 To whom he said, “Go in peace.” So, he departed from him, about half a day’s journey of ground.
20 And Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said, “Behold, my master has spared this Aramite, Naaman, not receiving those things from his hand that he brought. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and take something from him.”
21 So, Gehazi followed speedily after Naaman. And when Naaman saw him running after him, he dismounted the chariot to meet him, and said, “Is all well?”
22 And he answered, “All is well. My master has sent me, saying, “Behold, two young men have come to me from Mount Ephraim, of the children of the Prophets. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothes.”
23 And Naaman said, “Yes. Take two talents.” And he broke open some bundles and bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, and gave them to two of his servants, so that they might bear them before him.
24 And when he came to the tower, he took them out of their hands and laid them in the house and sent away the men. And they departed.
25 Then, he went in and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, “Where did you go, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant went nowhere.”
26 But he said to him, “Did not my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to take money, and to receive garments and olives and vineyards and sheep and oxen and menservants and maidservants?
27 “The leprosy, therefore, of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your seed, forever.” And he went out from his presence as a leper, white as snow.
5 It is heard certainly that there is sexual immorality among you - and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles - that one should have his father’s wife.
2 And you are puffed up, and moreover have not mourned, that the one who has done this deed might be taken from among you.
3 For indeed, I, as being absent in body, but present in spirit, have determined already, as though I were present, that the one who has thus done this thing,
4 when you are gathered together - and my spirit, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ - that such one, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore, purge the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old time, ‘You shall not commit adultery’.
28 “But I say to you that whoever looks on a woman, to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
29 “So if your right eye causes you to offend, pluck it out and cast it from you. For better it is for you that one of your members perish than that your whole body should be cast into Hell.
30 “Also if your right hand makes you offend, cut it off, and cast it from you. For better it is for you that one of your members perish than that your whole body should be cast into Hell.
31 “It has been said also, ‘Whoever shall divorce his wife, let him give her a bill of divorcement’.
32 “But I say to you, whoever shall divorce his wife (except for promiscuity) causes her to commit adultery. And whoever shall marry her who is divorced, commits adultery.
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old time, ‘You shall not swear false oaths, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord’.
34 “But I say to you do not swear at all, neither by Heaven (for it is the throne of God)
35 “nor by the Earth (for it is His footstool), nor by Jerusalem (for it is the city of the great King).
36 “Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.
37 “But let your communication be ‘Yes, yes. No, no.’ For whatever is more than these, comes from evil.
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