Book of Common Prayer
Praise to God for His Deliverance
For the music director. Of David, the servant of Yahweh,
who spoke to Yahweh the words of this song
when[a] Yahweh delivered him from the hand of all his enemies,
and from the hand of Saul.[b]
18 And he said:
“I love you, O Yahweh, my strength.”
2 Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock in whom I have taken refuge,
my shield and the horn of my deliverance, my stronghold.
3 I called upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised,
and I was saved from my enemies.
4 The ropes of death encircled me,
and streams of ruin overwhelmed me.
5 The ropes of Sheol surrounded me;
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my trouble I called on Yahweh,
and to my God I cried for help.
He heard my voice from his temple,
and my cry for help
came up before his presence into his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains trembled,
and they staggered because he was angry.
8 Smoke went forth from his nose,
and fire from his mouth consumed.
Burning coals blazed from him.
9 So he bowed the heavens and came down
with a thick cloud under his feet.
10 And he mounted a cherub and flew,
and he swooped down on wings of wind.
11 He made darkness his hiding place;
all about him his covering
was a darkness of waters, thick clouds.[c]
12 From the brightness before him
his clouds passed over
with hail and coals of fire.
13 And Yahweh thundered from the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice
with hail and coals of fire.
14 And he shot his arrows and scattered them,[d]
and many lightning bolts and routed them.
15 Then the channels of the sea became visible,
and the foundations of the world were uncovered
by your rebuke, O Yahweh,
by the blast[e] of the wind of your nose.
16 He reached[f] from on high; he seized me.
He drew me from many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me
because they were stronger than I.
18 They confronted me on the day of disaster,
but Yahweh was my support.
19 So he brought me out to a spacious place.
He delivered me because he delighted in me.
20 Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands
he has repaid me.
21 Because I have kept the ways of Yahweh,
and have not acted wickedly against my God,
22 because all his ordinances are before me,
and his statutes I have not removed from me,
23 and I was blameless before him,
and I kept myself from my guilt.
24 Therefore Yahweh has repaid me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25 To the loyal you show yourself loyal.
To the blameless you show yourself blameless.
26 To the pure you show yourself pure.
but to the wicked you show yourself shrewd.
27 For you deliver humble people,
but haughty eyes you humiliate.
28 For you light my lamp;
Yahweh, my God, lights up my darkness.
29 For with you I can charge a troop,
and with my God I can scale a wall.
30 This[g] God—his way is blameless.
The word of Yahweh is flawless.[h]
He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
31 For who is God apart from Yahweh,
and who is a rock except our God?
32 The God who girded me with strength,
and made safe[i] my way,
33 he made my feet like the deer’s,
and on my high places he makes me stand.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You also gave me the shield of your salvation,
and your right hand supported me,
and your humility made me great.
36 You enlarged my step under me,
and my ankles did not slip.
37 I chased my enemies and overtook them;
I did not turn back until they were finished off.
38 I struck them and they were not able to stand up;
they fell under my feet.
39 And you girded me with strength for the battle;
those rising against me you made to kneel under me.
40 And you made my enemies turn their backs,[j]
then I destroyed those who hated me.
41 They cried out but there was no rescuer,
even to Yahweh, but he did not answer them.
42 And I ground them like dust in the wind,[k]
I emptied them[l] out like mud of the streets.
43 You rescued me from strife with people;
you set me as head (over) nations.
People I did not know served me;
44 as soon as they heard,[m] they obeyed me.
The children of a foreign land feigned obedience before me.
45 The children of a foreign land lost heart,[n]
and they came trembling from their strongholds.
46 Yahweh lives, and blessed be my rock,
and may the God of my salvation be exalted—
47 the God who executed vengeance for me,
and subdued peoples under me,
48 who delivered me from my enemies.
Indeed, you exalted me higher than those who rose against me.
You delivered me from the man of violence.
49 Therefore I will give thanks to you among the nations, O Yahweh,
and I will sing the praise of your name:
50 the one who makes great victories for his king,
and who shows loyal love for his anointed,
to David and to his descendants forever.
6 “And I[a] in turn gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places. Yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. 7 “And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. And I would send rain on one city and send no rain on another city. One tract of land will be rained on, and the tract of land on which it does not rain[b] will dry up. 8 So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water and they were not satisfied, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. 9 “I struck you with blight and with mildew. Frequently the cutting locust devoured your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. 10 “I sent among you a plague in the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with the captivity of your horses. And I made the stench of your camps go up into your nostrils, yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. 11 “I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a stick snatched from the fire, and yet you did not return to me,” is the declaration of Yahweh. 12 “Therefore, thus I will do to you, O Israel. Because I will do this to you, O Israel, prepare to meet your God! 13 Yes, here is the one who forms the mountains, and the one who creates the wind, and the one who reveals to humans what his thoughts are, and the one who treads on the heights of the earth; Yahweh, the God of hosts, is his name!”
11 Because[a] all these things are being destroyed in this way, what sort of people must you be in holy behavior and godliness, 12 while[b] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by[c] being burned up and the celestial bodies will melt as they[d] are consumed by heat! 13 But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness resides.
Final Exhortations and Conclusion
14 Therefore, dear friends, because you[e] are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. 15 And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, 16 as he does also in all his[f][g] letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. 17 Therefore, dear friends, because you[h] know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you[i] have been led away by the error of lawless persons. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
The Parable of the Tenant Farmers in the Vineyard
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a man—a master of a house—who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey. 34 And when the season of fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. 35 And the tenant farmers seized his slaves, one of whom they beat, and one of whom they killed, and one of whom they stoned. 36 Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first ones, and they did the same thing to them. 37 So finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when[a] the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance!’ 39 And they seized him and[b] threw him[c] out of the vineyard and killed him.[d] 40 Now when the master of the vineyard arrives, what will he do to those tenant farmers?” 41 They said to him, “He will destroy those evil men completely and lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruits in their season.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures,
‘The stone which the builders rejected,
this has become the cornerstone.[e]
This came about from the Lord,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?[f]
43 For this reason, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people[g] who produce its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls—it will crush him!” 45 And when[h] the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them, 46 and although they[i] wanted to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds, because they looked upon him as a prophet.
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