Book of Common Prayer
Thanksgiving for God’s Provision in Time of Sickness
For the music director. A psalm of David.[a]
41 Blessed is the one who has regard for the poor;
in the day of disaster, Yahweh delivers him.
2 Yahweh protects him and keeps him alive;
he is blessed in the land,
and you do not give him
into the will[b] of his enemies.
3 Yahweh sustains him on his sick bed.
In his illness, you restore to health.[c]
4 As for me, I said, “O Yahweh, be gracious to me.
Heal me,[d] for I have sinned against you.”
5 My enemies speak evil about me,
“When will he die and his name perish?”
6 And when one comes to see me, he speaks falsely;
his heart gathers disaster for itself.
He goes out to the street; he speaks.
7 All who hate me speak together against me.
Against me they assume the worst[e] for me:
8 “A ruinous thing is poured out on him,
and now that he lies down, he will not rise up again.”
9 Even my close friend,[f] whom I trusted,
who ate my bread,
has lifted his heel against me.
10 But you, O Yahweh, be gracious to me and raise me up
that I may repay them.
11 By this I know that you delight in me:
because my enemy has not shouted in triumph over me.
12 As for me, you have upheld me in my integrity,
and you have set me in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Amen and Amen.
God’s Judgment on the Wicked and Love for the Faithful
For the music director. A maskil of David.
When Doeg the Edomite came and informed Saul.
And he said to him, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”[a]
52 Why do you boast about evil, O mighty man?
The loyal love of God endures continually.[b]
2 Your tongue plans destruction,
like a sharp razor, working deceit.
3 You love evil more than good,
a lie more than speaking what is right.[c] Selah
4 You love all devouring words,
O deceitful tongue,
5 but God will pull you down forever.
He will snatch you and tear you away from your tent,
and he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
6 And the righteous will see and fear,
and will laugh at him, saying,
7 “Look, the man who would not make God his refuge,
but he trusted in the greatness of his wealth;
he took refuge in his destructiveness.”
8 But I am like an olive tree flourishing
in the house[d] of God.
I trust the loyal love of God forever and ever.
9 I will give thanks to you forever, because of what you have done,
and I will wait on your name, because it is good,
in the presence of your faithful ones.
Present Defeat and Past Deliverance
For the music director. Of the sons of Korah. A maskil.[a]
44 O God, we have heard with our ears;
our ancestors[b] have told us
of work you worked in their days,
in days of old.
2 You with your hand drove out the nations,
but them[c] you planted.
You harmed the peoples,
but them[d] you let spread out.
3 For not with their sword
did they possess the land,
and their arm did not give them victory.
Rather it was your right hand and your arm
and the light of your presence,
because you delighted in them.
4 You are my king, O God.
Command[e] victories for Jacob.
5 By you we push down our enemies;
by your name we tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I do not trust my bow,
and my sword cannot give me victory.
7 Rather you have saved us from our enemies,[f]
and have humiliated those who hate us.
8 In God we boast all the day,
and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah
9 Surely you have rejected and disgraced us,
and have not gone out with our armies.
10 You have caused us to pull back from the enemy,
and so those who hate us have plundered for themselves.
11 You have given us as sheep for food,
and among the nations you have scattered us.
12 You have sold your people cheaply,[g]
and did not profit by their price.
13 You have made us a taunt to our neighbors,
a derision and a scorn to those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations,
a shaking of the head among the peoples.
15 All day long[h] my disgrace is before me,
and the shame of my face covers me,
16 because of the voice of the taunter and the reviler,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this has befallen us, though we have not forgotten you,
and we have not been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
and our steps have not turned aside from your way.
19 But you have crushed us in a place of jackals,
and have covered us with deep shadow.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
or had spread out our hands in prayer to a foreign god,
21 would not God discover this,
for he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Rather, on account of you we are killed all day long;[i]
we are accounted as sheep for slaughter.
23 Wake up! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake! Do not reject forever.
24 Why do you hide your face?
Have you forgotten our misery and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust.
Our body[j] clings to the ground.
26 Rise up! Be a help for us,
and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.
Abram Rescues Lot
14 And it happened that in the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar, Arioch, the king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam, and Tidal, the king of Goiim, 2 made war with Bera, the king of Sodom, and Birsha, the king of Gomorrah, Shinab, the king of Admah, and Shemeber, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). 3 All these joined forces at the valley of Siddim (that is, the sea of the salt). 4 Twelve years they had served Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5 In the fourteenth year Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-Kiriathaim, 6 And the Horites in their hill country of Seir, as far as El-Paran, which is at the wilderness. 7 Then[a] they turned back and came to En-Mishpat (that is, Kadesh). And they defeated the whole territory of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who were living in Hazazon-Tamar. 8 Then[b] the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out, and they took up battle position[c] in the Valley of Siddim 9 with Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, and Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Ellasar, four kings against five. 10 Now[d] the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits.[e] And the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell into them,[f] but the rest fled to the mountains. 11 So[g] they[h] took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions, and they left. 12 And they[i] took Lot, the son of the brother of Abram, and his possessions, and left. (Now he had been living in Sodom.) 13 Then[j] one who escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew. And he was living at the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and brother of Aner. They were allies with Abram.[k] 14 When[l] Abram heard that his relative[m] was taken captive, he summoned his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them, and he went in pursuit up to Dan. 15 And he divided his trained men against them at night, he and his servants. And he defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, which is north of Damascus. 16 And he brought back all the possessions. And he also brought back Lot, his relative,[n] and his possessions, and the women and the people as well.
Abram Meets Melchizedek
17 After his return from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the Valley of the King). 18 And Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. (He was the priest of God Most High). 19 And he blessed him and said,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Maker of heaven and earth.
20 And blessed be God Most High
who delivered your enemies into your hand.”
And he[o] gave to him a tenth of everything. 21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people, but the possessions take for yourself.” 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have raised my hand to Yahweh, God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth, 23 that neither a thread nor[p] a thong of a sandal would I take from all that belongs to you, that you might not say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ 24 Nothing besides what[q] the servants have eaten and the share of the men who went out with me will I take. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”
The Mediator of a New and Better Covenant
8 Now this is the main point in what has been said: we have a high priest such as this, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord set up, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices; therefore it was[a] necessary for this one also to have something that he offers. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not even be a priest, because there[b] are those who offer the gifts according to the law, 5 who serve a sketch and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned when he[c] was about to complete the tabernacle, for he says, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain.”[d] 6 But now he has attained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted upon better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, occasion would not have been sought for a second. 8 For in finding fault with them he says,
“Behold, days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
on the day I took hold of them by my hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt,
because they did not continue in my covenant
and I disregarded them, says the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will decree with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I am putting my laws in their minds
and I will write them on their hearts,
and I will be their[e] God
and they will be my[f] people.
11 And they will not teach each one his fellow citizen
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their wrongdoings,
and I will not remember their sins any longer.”
13 In calling it new, he has declared the former to be old. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is near to disappearing.
Return to Galilee
43 And after the two days he departed from there into Galilee. 44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own homeland. 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they[a] had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast (for they themselves had also come to the feast).
A Royal Official’s Son Is Healed
46 Now he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was at Capernaum a certain royal official whose son was sick. 47 This man, when he[b] heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, went to him and asked that he come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people[c] see signs and wonders, you will never believe!” 49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he departed.
51 Now as[d] he was going down, his slaves met him, saying that his child was alive. 52 So he inquired from them the hour at which he had gotten better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So the father knew that it was that[e] same hour at which Jesus said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed, and his whole household. 54 Now this is again a second sign Jesus performed when he[f] came from Judea into Galilee.
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