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!
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Sh’vat, in the second year of Daryavesh, this message from Adonai came to Z’kharyah the son of Berekhyah, the son of ‘Iddo, the prophet: 8 It was night, and I saw there before me a man riding on a russet-colored horse. He stood among the myrtle bushes in the valley; and behind him were other horses, russet, chestnut-colored and white. 9 I asked, “What are these, my Lord?” The angel speaking with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.” 10 The man standing among the myrtles said, “These are those whom Adonai has sent to wander throughout the earth.” 11 Then they themselves answered the angel of Adonai standing among the myrtles, “We have been wandering throughout the earth, and the whole world is quiet and at peace.” 12 The angel of Adonai said, “Adonai-Tzva’ot, how long will you keep withholding mercy from Yerushalayim and the cities of Y’hudah? You’ve been angry with them for the past seventy years!” 13 Adonai replied with kind and comforting words to the angel who was speaking with me. 14 The angel speaking with me then said to me, “Here is what Adonai-Tzva’ot says: ‘I am extremely jealous on behalf of Yerushalayim and Tziyon; 15 and [to the same degree] I am extremely angry with the nations that are so self-satisfied; because I was only a little angry [at Yerushalayim and Tziyon], but they made the suffering worse.’ 16 Therefore Adonai says, ‘I will return to Yerushalayim with merciful deeds. My house will be rebuilt there,’ says Adonai-Tzva’ot; ‘yes, a measuring line will be stretched out over Yerushalayim.’ 17 In addition, proclaim that Adonai-Tzva’ot says, ‘My cities will again overflow with prosperity.’ Adonai will again comfort Tziyon, and he will again make Yerushalayim the city of his choice.”
4 From: Yochanan
To: The seven Messianic communities in the province of Asia:
Grace and shalom to you from the One who is, who was and who is coming; from the sevenfold Spirit before his throne; 5 and from Yeshua the Messiah, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the earth’s kings.
To him, the one who loves us, who has freed us from our sins at the cost of his blood, 6 who has caused us to be a kingdom, that is, cohanim for God, his Father — to him be the glory and the rulership forever and ever. Amen.
7 Look! He is coming with the clouds![a]
Every eye will see him,
including those who pierced him;
and all the tribes of the Land will mourn him.[b]
Yes! Amen!
8 “I am the ‘A’ and the ‘Z,’” says Adonai,
God of heaven’s armies,
the One who is, who was and who is coming.
9 I, Yochanan, am a brother of yours and a fellow-sharer in the suffering, kingship and perseverance that come from being united with Yeshua. I had been exiled to the island called Patmos for having proclaimed the message of God and borne witness to Yeshua. 10 I came to be, in the Spirit, on the Day of the Lord; and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, 11 saying, “Write down what you see on a scroll, and send it to the seven Messianic communities — Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea!” 12 I turned around to see who was speaking to me; and when I had turned, I saw seven gold menorahs; 13 and among the menorahs was someone like a Son of Man, wearing a robe down to his feet and a gold band around his chest.[c] 14 His head and hair were as white as snow-white wool, his eyes like a fiery flame, 15 his feet like burnished brass refined in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of rushing waters.[d] 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, out of his mouth went a sharp double-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
17 When I saw him, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand upon me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last, 18 the Living One. I was dead, but look! — I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys to Death and Sh’ol. 19 So write down what you see, both what is now, and what will happen afterwards. 20 Here is the secret meaning of the seven stars you saw in my right hand, and of the seven gold menorahs: the seven stars are the angels of the seven Messianic communities, and the seven menorahs are the seven Messianic communities.
43 “When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it travels through dry country seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says to itself, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house standing empty, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they come and live there — so that in the end, the person is worse off than he was before. This is how it will be for this wicked generation.”
46 He was still speaking to the crowd when his mother and brothers appeared outside, asking to talk with him. 47 [a] 48 But to the one who had informed him he replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his talmidim, he said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 Whoever does what my Father in heaven wants, that person is my brother and sister and mother.”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.