Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer upon Shoshannim, {lilies} A testimony of Asaph: A Psalm.
1 ¶ Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth.
2 In the presence of Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength and come and save us.
3 Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
4 O LORD God of the hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
5 Thou dost feed them with the bread of tears and give them tears to drink in great measure.
6 Thou dost make us a strife unto our neighbours, and our enemies laugh at us among themselves.
7 Turn us again, O God of the hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
8 ¶ Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it.
9 Thou didst prepare room before it and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the earth.
10 The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and its boughs were like the cedars of God.
11 She sent out her boughs unto the sea and her branches unto the river.
12 Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all those who pass by the way pluck her?
13 The boar out of the wood wastes it, and the wild beast of the field devours it.
14 Return, we beseech thee, O God of the hosts: look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine
15 and the vineyard which thy right hand has planted and the branch that thou didst make strong for thyself.
16 It is burned with fire; it is cut down; they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.
17 Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou didst make strong for thyself,
18 so we will not go back from thee. Thou shalt quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
19 Turn us again, O LORD God of the hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
To the Overcomer, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of Asaph.
1 ¶ I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; my sore bled in the night and ceased not; my soul refused to be comforted.
3 I remembered God and cried out; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
4 Thou didst hold my eyelids open; I am broken and did not speak.
5 I have considered the days from the beginning, the years of the ages.
6 I call to remembrance my songs of the night; I commune with my own heart, and my spirit made diligent search.
7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8 Is his mercy gone for ever? does his word fail from generation to generation?
9 Has God forgotten to have mercy? has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
10 And I said, This is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11 ¶ I remembered the works of JAH; therefore I shall remember thy wonders of old.
12 I meditated also on all thy works and spoke of thy doings.
13 Thy way, O God, is in holiness; who is so great a God as our God?
14 Thou art the God that doest wonders; thou hast declared thy strength among the peoples.
15 Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16 The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid; the depths also were troubled.
17 The clouds poured out floods of waters; the heavens thundered; thy bolts of lightning also went forth.
18 The voice of thy thunder was all around; the lightnings lightened the world; the earth trembled and shook.
19 Thy way was in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps were not known.
20 Thou didst lead thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 ¶ O God, the Gentiles are come into thine inheritance; they have defiled the temple of thy holiness; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
2 The dead bodies of thy slaves they have given to be food unto the fowls of the heavens, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.
3 They have shed their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.
4 We are reproached by our neighbours, scorned, and derided by those that are round about us.
5 How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?
6 ¶ Pour out thy wrath upon the Gentiles that do not know thee and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon thy name.
7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place.
8 O remember not against us former iniquities; let thy tender mercies speedily meet us on the way, for we are very poor.
9 Help us, O God, our saving health, for the honor of thy name and deliver us and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.
10 Why should the Gentiles say, Where is their God? let him be known among the Gentiles in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy slaves which is shed.
11 Let the sighing of the prisoners come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve those that are appointed to die
12 and render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, with which they have reproached thee, O Lord.
13 So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: from generation to generation we will sing thy praises.
9 ¶ Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month, the sons of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloth and earth upon them.
2 And the seed of Israel had separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
3 And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the LORD their God.
4 ¶ Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani and cried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God.
5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
6 Thou, O LORD, art alone; thou hast made the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, and thou givest life to them all; and the host of the heavens worship thee.
7 Thou art, O LORD, the God who didst choose Abram and didst bring him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees and didst give him the name of Abraham
8 and didst find his heart faithful before thee and didst make a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it, to his seed and hast performed thy word; for thou art righteous.
9 And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and didst hear their cry by the Red Sea
10 and didst show signs and wonders upon Pharaoh and on all his slaves and on all the people of his land; for thou didst know that they had dealt proudly against them. So didst thou make thee a name, as it is this day.
11 And thou didst divide the sea before them so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou didst throw into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.
12 Moreover, thou didst lead them by day with a pillar of cloud and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light in the way by which they should go.
13 Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai and didst speak with them from heaven and didst give them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments,
14 and didst make known unto them the sabbath of thy holiness and didst prescribe for them commandments, statutes, and law by the hand of Moses, thy slave.
15 And thou didst give them bread from heaven in their hunger and didst bring forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst and didst promise them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.
16 But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks and did not hearken unto thy commandments
17 and refused to hear; neither did they remember thy wonders that thou hadst done among them, but hardened their necks and in their rebellion thought to appoint a leader to return to their bondage; but thou art a God of pardons, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great mercy, for thou didst not leave them.
18 Even when they had made themselves a molten calf and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had committed great abominations;
19 yet thou in thy manifold mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to illuminate the way in which they should go.
20 Thou didst give thy good spirit to teach them and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth and didst give them water for their thirst.
21 Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wax old, and their feet did not swell.
22 Thou didst give them kingdoms and peoples and didst divide them into corners; so they possessed the land of Sihon and the land of the king of Heshbon and the land of Og, king of Bashan.
23 Thou didst multiply their sons as the stars of heaven and didst introduce them into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers, that they should go in to inherit it.
24 So the sons came in and possessed the land, and thou didst humble the inhabitants of the land before them, the Canaanites, and didst give them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
25 And they took strong cities and fertile land and inherited houses full of all goods, hewn cisterns, vineyards and oliveyards and many trees of good fruit; so they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
18 ¶ And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was illuminated with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all the Gentiles have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the power of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from the heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye not be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto the heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you and pay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has given thee to drink, give her double.
7 As much as she has glorified herself and lived deliciously, give her that much torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
8 Therefore, shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
15 ¶ Then certain scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem came unto Jesus, saying,
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother, and, He that curses father or mother, let him die without recourse.
5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, Whatever I might have helped thee with is already my offering unto God,
6 and now has no need to honour his father or his mother with succour. Thus ye have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,
8 This people draws nigh unto me with their mouth and honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.
10 ¶ And calling the multitude unto him, he said unto them, Hear and understand:
11 not that which goes into the mouth defiles the man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this defiles the man.
12 Then his disciples came and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this word?
13 But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.
14 Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into a pit.
15 Then Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable.
16 And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?
17 Do not ye yet understand that whatever enters in at the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught?
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man.
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
20 these are the things which defile the man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.
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