Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 63
A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.
1 O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.
2 So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.
3 Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
4 So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips
6 When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.
7 For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.
8 My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.
9 But those who seek and demand my life to ruin and destroy it shall [themselves be destroyed and] go into the lower parts of the earth [into the underworld of the dead].
10 They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a prey for foxes and jackals.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone who swears by Him [that is, who binds himself by God’s authority, acknowledging His supremacy, and devoting himself to His glory and service alone; every such one] shall glory, for the mouths of those who speak lies shall be stopped.
Psalm 98
A Psalm.
1 O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have wrought salvation for Him.
2 The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness has He openly shown in the sight of the nations.(A)
3 He has [earnestly] remembered His mercy and loving-kindness, His truth and His faithfulness toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have witnessed the salvation of our God.(B)
4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy, yes, sing praises!
5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the voice of melody.
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it, the world, and those who dwell in it!
8 Let the rivers clap their hands; together let the hills sing for joy
9 Before the Lord, for He is coming to judge [and rule] the earth; with righteousness will He judge [and rule] the world, and the peoples with equity.
Psalm 103
[A Psalm] of David.
1 Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul; and all that is [deepest] within me, bless His holy name!
2 Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits—
3 Who forgives [every one of] all your iniquities, Who heals [each one of] all your diseases,
4 Who redeems your life from the pit and corruption, Who beautifies, dignifies, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercy;
5 Who satisfies your mouth [your necessity and desire at your personal age and situation] with good so that your youth, renewed, is like the eagle’s [strong, overcoming, soaring]!(A)
6 The Lord executes righteousness and justice [not for me only, but] for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and loving-kindness.(B)
9 He will not always chide or be contending, neither will He keep His anger forever or hold a grudge.
10 He has not dealt with us after our sins nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great are His mercy and loving-kindness toward those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father loves and pities his children, so the Lord loves and pities those who fear Him [with reverence, worship, and awe].
14 For He knows our frame, He [earnestly] remembers and imprints [on His heart] that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16 For the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.
17 But the mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord are from everlasting to everlasting upon those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him, and His righteousness is to children’s children—(C)
18 To such as keep His covenant [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it] and to those who [earnestly] remember His commandments to do them [imprinting them on their hearts].
19 The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word.
21 Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, all you His hosts, you His ministers who do His pleasure.
22 Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion; bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul!
2 Now Abram was extremely rich in livestock and in silver and in gold.
3 And he journeyed on from the South [country of Judah, the Negeb] as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
4 Where he had built an altar at first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.(A)
5 But Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents.
6 Now the land was not able to nourish and support them so they could dwell together, for their possessions were too great for them to live together.
7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land [making fodder more difficult to obtain].
8 So Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I beg of you, between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are relatives.
9 Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself, I beg of you, from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right hand, then I will go to the left.
10 And Lot looked and saw that everywhere the Jordan Valley was well watered. Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, [it was all] like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
11 Then Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and [he] traveled east. So they separated.
12 Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the [Jordan] Valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom and dwelt there.
13 But the men of Sodom were wicked and exceedingly great sinners against the Lord.
14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had left him, Lift up now your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward;
15 For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your posterity forever.(B)
16 And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth, then could your descendants also be counted.(C)
17 Arise, walk through the land, the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to you.
18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt among the oaks or terebinths of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and built there an altar to the Lord.
2 Then after [an interval] of fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem. [This time I went] with Barnabas, taking Titus along with [me] also.
2 I went because it was specially and divinely revealed to me that I should go, and I put before them the Gospel [declaring to them that] which I preach among the Gentiles. However, [I presented the matter] privately before those of repute, [for I wanted to make certain, by thus at first confining my communication to this private conference] that I was not running or had not run in vain [guarding against being discredited either in what I was planning to do or had already done].
3 But [all went well!] even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled [as some had anticipated] to be circumcised, although he was a Greek.
4 [My precaution was] because of false brethren who had been secretly smuggled in [to the Christian brotherhood]; they had slipped in to spy on our liberty and the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might again bring us into bondage [under the Law of Moses].
5 To them we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the Gospel might continue to be [preserved] for you [in its purity].
6 Moreover, [no new requirements were made] by those who were reputed to be something—though what was their individual position and whether they really were of importance or not makes no difference to me; God is not impressed with the positions that men hold and He is not partial and recognizes no external distinctions—those [I say] who were of repute imposed no new requirements upon me [had nothing to add to my Gospel, and from them I received no new suggestions].(A)
7 But on the contrary, when they [really] saw that I had been entrusted [to carry] the Gospel to the uncircumcised [Gentiles, just as definitely] as Peter had been entrusted [to proclaim] the Gospel to the circumcised [Jews, they were agreeable];
8 For He Who motivated and fitted Peter and worked effectively through him for the mission to the circumcised, motivated and fitted me and worked through me also for [the mission to] the Gentiles.
9 And when they knew (perceived, recognized, understood, and acknowledged) the grace (God’s unmerited favor and spiritual blessing) that had been bestowed upon me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars of the Jerusalem church, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, with the understanding that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Jews).
10 They only [made one stipulation], that we were to remember the poor, which very thing I was also eager to do.
31 Soon after this, Jesus, coming back from the region of Tyre, passed through Sidon on to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of Decapolis [the ten cities].
32 And they brought to Him a man who was deaf and had difficulty in speaking, and they begged Jesus to place His hand upon him.
33 And taking him aside from the crowd [privately], He thrust His fingers into the man’s ears and spat and touched his tongue;
34 And looking up to heaven, He sighed as He said, Ephphatha, which means, Be opened!
35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak distinctly and as he should.
36 And Jesus [[a]in His own interest] admonished and ordered them sternly and expressly to tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
37 And they were overwhelmingly astonished, saying, He has done everything excellently (commendably and nobly)! He even makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak!
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation