Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41[a]
Trust in God in Sickness and Misfortune
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
2 [c]Blessed is he who has concern for the weak;
in time of trouble the Lord will deliver him.
3 The Lord will protect him and keep him alive;
he will make him happy on earth
and not abandon him to the will of his enemies.
4 The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed
and bring him back to health.
5 Once I prayed, “O Lord, have mercy on me;
heal me, for I have sinned[d] against you.
6 In their malice my enemies say of me,
‘When will he die and his name be forgotten?’
7 When someone comes to visit me,
he utters words without sincerity;
his heart[e] harbors slander,
and on departing he gives voice to it.
8 “All my enemies whisper against me
and conjure up the worst in my regard.
9 ‘He has a fatal disease,’ they say;
‘he will never rise up from his sickbed.’
10 “Even my friend whom I trusted,
the one who dined at my table,
has risen up[f] against me.
11 But you, O Lord, be merciful to me;
make me well[g] so that I may pay them back.”
12 By this I know that you are pleased with me—
that my enemy fails to triumph over me.
13 Because of my innocence you uphold me
and let me stand in your presence forever.
14 Blessed[h] be the Lord, the God of Israel,
forever and forever.
Amen and Amen.
Psalm 52[a]
Prayer for Help against Calumniators
1 For the director.[b] A maskil of David. 2 When Doeg the Edomite went and told Saul, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.”
3 Why do you boast of your evil deeds,
you champion of malice?[c]
All day long 4 you plot harm;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor,
you master of deceit.
5 [d]You love evil rather than good,
and lies rather than truthful speech. Selah
6 You wallow in destructive talk,
you tongue of deceit.
7 [e]This is the reason why God will crush you
and destroy you once and for all.
He will snatch you from your tent[f]
and uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
8 The righteous will see and be afraid;
they will mock him:
9 “This is the man
who refused to accept God as his refuge.
Rather, he placed his trust in his abundant riches
and gathered strength by his crimes.”
10 [g]But I am like a green olive tree[h]
in the house of God.
I place my trust forever and ever
in the kindness of God.
11 I will praise you forever
for what you have done,[i]
and in the presence of the saints
I will proclaim the goodness of your name.
Psalm 44[a]
Past Glory and Present Need of God’s People
1 For the director.[b] A maskil of the sons of Korah.
2 [c]O God, we have heard with our ears,
our ancestors have told us,
of the deeds you performed in their days,
in the days of old.
3 To establish them in the land,
you drove out the nations with your own hand;
you crushed the peoples
so that our ancestors could flourish.
4 It was not their own swords that won them the land,
nor did their own arms make them victorious;
rather, it was your right hand and your arm
and the light of your face,[d]
because you loved them.
5 You are my[e] King and my God,
who bestowed victories upon Jacob.
6 Through you we throw back our enemies;
through your name[f] we crush our assailants.
7 It is not in my bow that I trust,
nor can my sword ensure my victory.
8 It is you who saved us from our enemies;
you scattered in confusion those who hate us.
9 In God we boast the whole day long,
and we will praise your name forever. Selah
10 [g]But now you have rejected and humiliated us,
and you no longer accompany our armies.[h]
11 You have forced us to retreat[i] before the enemy;
those who hate us plunder us unceasingly.
12 You have handed us over like sheep to be slaughtered
and scattered us among the nations.
13 You have sold your people for nothing,
receiving no gain from their sale.
14 You have subjected us to the contempt of our neighbors,
to the mockery and scorn of all who are near.
15 You have made us a byword to the nations;
the peoples shake their heads[j] at us.
16 All day long I am confronted by my disgrace,
and my face is covered with shame
17 as I hear the shouts of taunting and abuse
and see the hateful enemy seeking revenge.
18 All this has happened to us
even though we have not forgotten you
or been false to your covenant.[k]
19 Our hearts[l] have not turned back,
nor have our feet wandered from your path.
20 Yet you have crushed us,
forced us to live among the jackals,[m]
and covered us with darkness.
21 If we had forgotten the name[n] of our God
or lifted up our hands to a foreign god,
22 would not God have discovered it,
he who knows the secrets of the heart?
23 For your sake we are put to death all day long;
we are treated like sheep destined to be slaughtered.[o]
24 Awake, O Lord. Why[p] do you sleep?
Rise up, and do not abandon us forever.
25 Why do you hide your face[q]
and continue to ignore our misery and our sufferings?
26 We have been brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.[r]
27 Rise up and come to our aid;
redeem us for the sake of your kindness.[s]
Renewal of the Holy City[a]
The Four Horsemen.[b] 7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo.
Zechariah related: 8 During the night I had a vision in which a man was riding a red horse among the myrtle trees in a glen. Behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. 9 “What are these, sir?” I asked, and the angel who was conversing with me said, “I will show you what they are.”
10 The man standing among the myrtle trees said, “They are the ones whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.” 11 Then they in turn spoke to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have been patrolling the earth, and the entire earth is tranquil and at peace.”
12 Then the angel of the Lord asked, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah who have been the object of your wrath for the last seventy years?” 13 Thereupon, the Lord replied with kind and comforting words to the angel who had talked with me.
14 The angel who was talking with me then said to me: Proclaim this message. Thus says the Lord of hosts: I feel very protective toward Jerusalem and Zion, 15 but I am deeply angry with the nations that feel complacent and secure. Previously I was angry only to a certain extent, but they added to the disaster.
16 Therefore, says the Lord, I will return to Jerusalem with compassion, and there is where my house will be rebuilt, says the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 Proclaim in addition: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities will once again overflow with prosperity. The Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.
He Is, He Was, and He Will Return.[a] 4 John, to the seven Churches[b] in Asia: grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,[c] the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood 6 and made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.[d]
7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him.
All the peoples of the earth will mourn him.
So shall it be. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
“I Am the First and the Last.”[e] 9 I, John—your brother and partner in the suffering and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are ours in Jesus—was on the island of Patmos[f] because I had proclaimed the word of God and given testimony to Jesus. 10 On the Lord’s day, I was caught up in the spirit,[g] and I heard behind me a loud voice, like the sound of a trumpet, 11 that said, “Write down on a scroll[h] what you see and send it to the seven Churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that had spoken to me, and when I turned I beheld seven gold lampstands. 13 [i]And in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man,[j] dressed in a robe that reached down to his feet and with a golden breastplate around his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white with the whiteness of wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a burning flame. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth there protruded a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face shone like the sun in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One. 18 I was dead, but now I am alive forevermore, and I hold the keys to death and the netherworld.
19 “Now write down what you have seen, what is happening now, and what will take place afterward. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and of the seven gold lampstands, is this: the seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches themselves.
43 New Offensive from the Evil Spirit.[a]“When an unclean spirit goes out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions seeking a place to rest, but it finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the home from which I departed.’And when it returns, it finds that home empty, swept clean, and put in order. 45 Then it goes off and brings back with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter and settle there. As a result, the plight of that person is worse than before. So it will also be with this evil generation.”
46 The True Family of Jesus.[b] While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brethren[c] appeared. They were standing outside, wishing to speak with him. [ 47 Someone told him, “Behold, your mother and your brothers are standing outside. They want to speak with you.”][d] 48 But Jesus replied to that man, “Who is my mother? Who are my brethren?” 49 Then, pointing to his disciples, he said, “Behold, my mother and my brethren. 50 Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.”
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