Book of Common Prayer
97 Yahweh reigns!
Let the earth rejoice!
Let the multitude of islands be glad!
2 Clouds and darkness are around him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 A fire goes before him,
and burns up his adversaries on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the world.
The earth sees, and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax at the presence of Yahweh,
at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The heavens declare his righteousness.
All the peoples have seen his glory.
7 Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images,
who boast in their idols.
Worship him, all you gods![a]
8 Zion heard and was glad.
The daughters of Judah rejoiced
because of your judgments, Yahweh.
9 For you, Yahweh, are most high above all the earth.
You are exalted far above all gods.
10 You who love Yahweh, hate evil!
He preserves the souls of his saints.
He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.
11 Light is sown for the righteous,
and gladness for the upright in heart.
12 Be glad in Yahweh, you righteous people!
Give thanks to his holy Name.
99 Yahweh reigns! Let the peoples tremble.
He sits enthroned among the cherubim.
Let the earth be moved.
2 Yahweh is great in Zion.
He is high above all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name.
He is Holy!
4 The King’s strength also loves justice.
You establish equity.
You execute justice and righteousness in Jacob.
5 Exalt Yahweh our God.
Worship at his footstool.
He is Holy!
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
Samuel was among those who call on his name.
They called on Yahweh, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud.
They kept his testimonies,
the statute that he gave them.
8 You answered them, Yahweh our God.
You are a God who forgave them,
although you took vengeance for their doings.
9 Exalt Yahweh, our God.
Worship at his holy hill,
for Yahweh, our God, is holy!
A Psalm of thanksgiving.
100 Shout for joy to Yahweh, all you lands!
2 Serve Yahweh with gladness.
Come before his presence with singing.
3 Know that Yahweh, he is God.
It is he who has made us, and we are his.
We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, and bless his name.
5 For Yahweh is good.
His loving kindness endures forever,
his faithfulness to all generations.
94 Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs,
you God to whom vengeance belongs, shine out.
2 Rise up, you judge of the earth.
Pay back the proud what they deserve.
3 Yahweh, how long will the wicked,
how long will the wicked triumph?
4 They pour out arrogant words.
All the evildoers boast.
5 They break your people in pieces, Yahweh,
and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the alien,
and murder the fatherless.
7 They say, “Yah will not see,
neither will Jacob’s God consider.”
8 Consider, you senseless among the people;
you fools, when will you be wise?
9 He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear?
He who formed the eye, won’t he see?
10 He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish?
He who teaches man knows.
11 Yahweh knows the thoughts of man,
that they are futile.
12 Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah,
and teach out of your law,
13 that you may give him rest from the days of adversity,
until the pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For Yahweh won’t reject his people,
neither will he forsake his inheritance.
15 For judgment will return to righteousness.
All the upright in heart shall follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against the evildoers?
17 Unless Yahweh had been my help,
my soul would have soon lived in silence.
18 When I said, “My foot is slipping!”
Your loving kindness, Yahweh, held me up.
19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me,
your comforts delight my soul.
20 Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you,
which brings about mischief by statute?
21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous,
and condemn the innocent blood.
22 But Yahweh has been my high tower,
my God, the rock of my refuge.
23 He has brought on them their own iniquity,
and will cut them off in their own wickedness.
Yahweh, our God, will cut them off.
95 Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh.
Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving.
Let’s extol him with songs!
3 For Yahweh is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth.
The heights of the mountains are also his.
5 The sea is his, and he made it.
His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let’s worship and bow down.
Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,
7 for he is our God.
We are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep in his care.
Today, oh that you would hear his voice!
8 Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tempted me,
tested me, and saw my work.
10 Forty long years I was grieved with that generation,
and said, “They are a people who err in their heart.
They have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They won’t enter into my rest.”
29 Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. 2 He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done. 3 In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of Yahweh’s house and repaired them.
30 Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to Yahweh’s house at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to Yahweh, the God of Israel. 2 For the king had taken counsel with his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem to keep the Passover in the second month. 3 For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, and the people had not gathered themselves together to Jerusalem. 4 The thing was right in the eyes of the king and of all the assembly. 5 So they established a decree to make proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, that they should come to keep the Passover to Yahweh, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it in great numbers in the way it is written.
6 So the couriers went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, according to the commandment of the king, saying, “You children of Israel, turn again to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may return to the remnant of you that have escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7 Don’t be like your fathers and like your brothers, who trespassed against Yahweh, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation, as you see. 8 Now don’t be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to Yahweh, and enter into his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve Yahweh your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. 9 For if you turn again to Yahweh, your brothers and your children will find compassion with those who led them captive, and will come again into this land, because Yahweh your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you if you return to him.”
10 So the couriers passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun, but people ridiculed them and mocked them. 11 Nevertheless some men of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. 12 Also the hand of God came on Judah to give them one heart, to do the commandment of the king and of the princes by Yahweh’s word.
13 Many people assembled at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month, a very great assembly. 14 They arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and they took away all the altars for incense and threw them into the brook Kidron. 15 Then they killed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought burnt offerings into Yahweh’s house. 16 They stood in their place after their order, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood which they received of the hand of the Levites. 17 For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites were in charge of killing the Passovers for everyone who was not clean, to sanctify them to Yahweh. 18 For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover other than the way it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, “May the good Yahweh pardon everyone 19 who sets his heart to seek God, Yahweh, the God of his fathers, even if they aren’t clean according to the purification of the sanctuary.”
20 Yahweh listened to Hezekiah, and healed the people. 21 The children of Israel who were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness. The Levites and the priests praised Yahweh day by day, singing with loud instruments to Yahweh. 22 Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who had good understanding in the service of Yahweh. So they ate throughout the feast for the seven days, offering sacrifices of peace offerings and making confession to Yahweh, the God of their fathers.
23 The whole assembly took counsel to keep another seven days, and they kept another seven days with gladness. 24 For Hezekiah king of Judah gave to the assembly for offerings one thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the assembly a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep; and a great number of priests sanctified themselves. 25 All the assembly of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the assembly who came out of Israel, and the foreigners who came out of the land of Israel and who lived in Judah, rejoiced. 26 So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was nothing like this in Jerusalem. 27 Then the Levitical priests arose and blessed the people. Their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy habitation, even to heaven.
32 But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; 33 but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. 34 There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. 35 This I say for your own benefit, not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.
36 But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the flower of her age, and if need so requires, let him do what he desires. He doesn’t sin. Let them marry. 37 But he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no urgency, but has power over his own will, and has determined in his own heart to keep his own virgin, does well. 38 So then both he who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and he who doesn’t give her in marriage does better.
39 A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord. 40 But she is happier if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I also have God’s Spirit.
7 “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. 2 For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? 4 Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.
6 “Don’t give that which is holy to the dogs, neither throw your pearls before the pigs, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
7 “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or who is there among you who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 Therefore, whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
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