Book of Common Prayer
A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ I will sing of mercy and judgment; unto thee, O LORD, will I sing.
2 When thou shalt come unto me, I will walk in the way of perfection and understand. I will walk in the midst of my house in the perfection of my heart.
3 I will set nothing of Belial before my eyes: I hate the work of those that betray; it shall not cleave to me.
4 A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will not know a wicked person.
5 Whosoever secretly slanders his neighbour, I will cut off; he that has a high look and a proud heart I will not suffer.
6 My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me; he that walks in the way of perfection, he shall serve me.
7 He that works deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that tells lies shall not tarry in my sight.
8 I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the LORD.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Do not hold thy peace, O God of my praise;
2 for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me; they have spoken of me with a lying tongue.
3 They compassed me about with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause.
4 They have responded to my love by becoming my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer.
5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 ¶ Set thou the wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few, and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he has, and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12 Let there be no one to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 Because he did not remember to show mercy but persecuted the man who is poor in spirit and destitute and broken in heart, that he might slay him.
17 As he loved the curse, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in the blessing, so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with the curse like as with his garment, and it entered into his bowels like water and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covers him and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
20 Let this be the reward from the LORD of those who spoke falsely against me and of those that speak evil against my soul.
21 ¶ And thou, O GOD the Lord, do unto me for thy name’s sake; because thy mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like the shadow when it declines; I am tossed up and down by the wind as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting, and my flesh fails for lack of fatness.
25 I have become a reproach unto them; when they looked upon me they shook their heads.
26 Help me, O LORD my God; O save me according to thy mercy,
27 that they may know that this is thy hand, that thou, O LORD, hast done it.
28 Let them curse, but bless thou; when they arise, let them be ashamed, but let thy slave rejoice.
29 Let those who speak evil against me falsely be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion as with a mantle.
30 I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.
AIN.
121 ¶ I have complied with judgment and righteousness; do not leave me to my oppressors.
122 Be surety for thy slave for good; do not let the proud do violence unto me.
123 ¶ Mine eyes fail for thy saving health and for the spoken word of thy righteousness.
124 ¶ Deal with thy slave according to thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes.
125 I am thy slave; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.
126 ¶ It is time for thee, O LORD, to act; for they have dissipated thy law.
127 ¶ Therefore I have loved thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold.
128 Therefore I have esteemed all thy precepts concerning all things to be right and I have hated every false way.
PE.
129 ¶ Thy testimonies are wonderful; therefore does my soul keep them.
130 ¶ The exposition of thy words gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple.
131 ¶ I opened my mouth and panted; for I longed for thy commandments.
132 ¶ Look thou upon me and be merciful unto me, as thou didst use to do unto those that love thy name.
133 ¶ Order my steps with thy word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
134 ¶ Ransom me from the violence of men, and I will keep thy precepts.
135 ¶ Make thy face to shine upon thy slave and teach me thy statutes.
136 ¶ Rivers of waters ran down my eyes because they did not keep thy law.
TZADDI.
137 ¶ Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.
138 Thou hast commanded righteousness, which consists of thy testimonies and thy truth.
139 ¶ My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten thy words.
140 ¶ Thy word is very pure; therefore thy slave loves it.
141 ¶ I am small and despised; yet I have not forgotten thy precepts.
142 ¶ Thy righteousness is eternal righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
143 ¶ Trouble and anguish found me; but thy commandments were my delights.
144 Thy testimonies are eternal righteousness; give me understanding, and I shall live.
9 ¶ And in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hosea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10 And at the end of three years, they took it; even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11 And the king of Assyria carried away Israel unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of the Medes:
12 because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the LORD their God, but had broken his covenant and all that Moses, the slave of the LORD, commanded and would not hear them nor do them.
13 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them.
14 And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent unto the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have sinned; return from me; that which thou puttest on me I will bear. Then the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah, king of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasury of the king’s house.
16 At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and from the hinges which Hezekiah, king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17 ¶ And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the washer’s field.
18 And they called the king, and Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the writer of chronicles went out to them.
19 And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which thou dost trust?
20 Thou sayest (but they are but vain words), I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?
21 Now, behold, thou dost trust upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt unto all that trust in him.
22 But if ye say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is he not the one whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?
23 Now therefore, I pray thee, give hostages unto my lord, the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou art able on thy part to set riders upon them.
24 How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s slaves, even though thou dost trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
25 Furthermore, Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
8 ¶ Now as concerning things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.
2 And if anyone thinks that they know anything, they know nothing yet as they ought to know.
3 But if anyone loves God, the same is known of him.
4 ¶ As concerning, therefore, the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
5 For though there are some that are called gods, whether in heaven or in the earth (as there are many gods and many lords),
6 but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
7 ¶ Howbeit there is not in everyone that knowledge, for some with conscience of the idol unto now, eat it as a thing offered unto an idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled.
8 But food does not make us more acceptable unto God; for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse.
9 But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours becomes a stumblingblock to those that are weak.
10 For if anyone sees thee who hast this knowledge sit at food in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols?
11 and through thy knowledge the weak brother shall perish, for whom Christ died.
12 In this manner, therefore, sinning against the brethren and wounding their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.
13 Therefore, if food makes my brother to fall, I will never eat flesh nor do anything which may cause my brother to fall.
13 Enter ye in at the narrow gate, for the way that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and those who follow it are many;
14 because narrow is the gate, and confined is the way which leads unto life, and there are few that find it.
15 ¶ Keep yourselves also from the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
20 So that by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens.
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