Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 45
To the Chief Musician; [set to the tune of] “Lilies” [probably a popular air. A Psalm] of the sons of Korah. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem. A song of love.
1 My heart overflows with a [a]goodly theme; I address my psalm to a King. My tongue is like the pen of a ready writer.
2 You are fairer than the children of men; graciousness is poured upon Your lips; therefore God has blessed You forever.
3 Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O mighty One, in Your glory and Your majesty!
4 And in Your majesty ride on triumphantly for the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God); and let Your right hand guide You to tremendous things.
5 Your arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under You; Your darts pierce the hearts of the King’s enemies.
6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
7 You love righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with God and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.(A)
8 Your garments are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia; stringed instruments make You glad.
9 Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10 Hear, O daughter, consider, submit, and consent to my instruction: forget also your own people and your father’s house;
11 So will the King desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, be submissive and reverence and honor Him.
12 And, O daughter of Tyre, the richest of the people shall entreat your favor with a gift.
13 The King’s daughter in the inner part [of the palace] is all glorious; her clothing is inwrought with gold.(B)
14 She shall be brought to the King in raiment of needlework; with the virgins, her companions that follow her, she shall be brought to You.
15 With gladness and rejoicing will they be brought; they will enter into the King’s palace.
16 Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, whom You will make princes in all the land.
17 I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore shall the people praise and give You thanks forever and ever.
Psalm 47
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 O clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph and songs of joy!
2 For the Lord Most High excites terror, awe, and dread; He is a great King over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our inheritance for us, the glory and pride of Jacob, whom He loves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!(A)
5 God has ascended amid shouting, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
7 For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises in a skillful psalm and with understanding.
8 God reigns over the nations; God sits upon His holy throne.
9 The princes and nobles of the peoples are gathered together, a [united] people for the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.
Psalm 48
A song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain,
2 Fair and beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth—[a]Mount Zion [the City of David], to the northern side [Mount Moriah and the temple], the [whole] city of the Great King!(B)
3 God has made Himself known in her palaces as a Refuge (a High Tower and a Stronghold).
4 For, behold, the kings assembled, they came onward and they passed away together.
5 They looked, they were amazed; they were stricken with terror and took to flight [affrighted and dismayed].
6 Trembling took hold of them there, and pain as of a woman in childbirth.
7 With the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
9 We have thought of Your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of Your temple.
10 As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness (rightness and justice).
11 Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your [righteous] judgments!
12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her, number her towers (her lofty and noble deeds of past days),
13 Consider well her ramparts, go through her palaces and citadels, that you may tell the next generation [and cease recalling disappointments].
14 For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide [even] until death.
15 After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am your [a]Shield, your abundant compensation, and your reward shall be exceedingly great.
2 And Abram said, Lord God, what can You give me, since I am going on [from this world] childless and he who shall be the owner and heir of my house is this [steward] Eliezer of Damascus?
3 And Abram continued, Look, You have given me no child; and [a servant] born in my house is my heir.
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man shall not be your heir, but he who shall come from your own body shall be your heir.
5 And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be.(A)
6 And he [Abram] believed in (trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness (right standing with God).(B)
7 And He said to him, I am the [same] Lord, Who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land as an inheritance.
8 But he [Abram] said, Lord God, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it?
9 And He said to him, Bring to Me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
10 And he brought Him all these and cut them down the middle [into halves] and laid each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not divide.
11 And when the birds of prey swooped down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
17 When the sun had gone down and a [thick] darkness had come on, behold, a smoking oven and a flaming torch passed between those pieces.
18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant (promise, pledge) with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates—the land of
19 The Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
20 The Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim,
21 The Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
9 Now even the first covenant had its own rules and regulations for divine worship, and it had a sanctuary [but one] of this world.(A)
2 For a tabernacle (tent) was erected, in the outer division or compartment of which were the lampstand and the table with [its loaves of] the showbread set forth. [This portion] is called the Holy Place.(B)
3 But [inside] beyond the second curtain or veil, [there stood another] tabernacle [division] known as the Holy of Holies.(C)
4 It had the golden [a]altar of incense and the ark (chest) of the covenant, covered over with wrought gold. This [ark] contained a golden jar which held the manna and the rod of Aaron that sprouted and the [two stone] slabs of the covenant [bearing the Ten Commandments].(D)
5 Above [the ark] and overshadowing the mercy seat were the representations of the cherubim [winged creatures which were the symbols] of glory. We cannot now go into detail about these things.
6 These arrangements having thus been made, the priests enter [habitually] into the outer division of the tabernacle in performance of their ritual acts of worship.
7 But into the second [division of the tabernacle] none but the high priest goes, and he only once a year, and never without taking a sacrifice of blood with him, which he offers for himself and for the errors and sins of ignorance and thoughtlessness which the people have committed.(E)
8 By this the Holy Spirit points out that the way into the [true Holy of] Holies is not yet thrown open as long as the former [the outer portion of the] tabernacle remains a recognized institution and is still standing,
9 Seeing that that first [outer portion of the] tabernacle was a parable (a visible symbol or type or picture of the present age). In it gifts and sacrifices are offered, and yet are incapable of perfecting the conscience or of cleansing and renewing the inner man of the worshiper.
10 For [the ceremonies] deal only with clean and unclean meats and drinks and different washings, [mere] external rules and regulations for the body imposed to tide the worshipers over until the time of setting things straight [of reformation, of the complete new order when Christ, the Messiah, shall establish the reality of what these things foreshadow—a better covenant].
11 But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come. [Then] through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with [human] hands, that is, not a part of this material creation,
12 He went once for all into the [Holy of] Holies [of heaven], not by virtue of the blood of goats and calves [by which to make reconciliation between God and man], but His own blood, having found and secured a complete redemption (an everlasting release for us).
13 For if [the mere] sprinkling of unholy and defiled persons with blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a burnt heifer is sufficient for the purification of the body,(F)
14 How much more surely shall the blood of Christ, Who [b]by virtue of [His] eternal Spirit [His own preexistent [c]divine personality] has offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, purify our consciences from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the [ever] living God?
5 Later on there was a Jewish festival (feast) for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem a pool near the Sheep Gate. This pool in the Hebrew is called Bethesda, having five porches (alcoves, colonnades, doorways).
3 In these lay a great number of sick folk—some blind, some crippled, and some paralyzed (shriveled up)—[a]waiting for the bubbling up of the water.
4 For an angel of the Lord went down at appointed seasons into the pool and moved and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was cured of whatever disease with which he was afflicted.
5 There was a certain man there who had suffered with a deep-seated and lingering disorder for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, Do you want to become well? [Are you really in earnest about getting well?]
7 The invalid answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me.
8 Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!
9 Instantly the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked. But that happened on the Sabbath.
10 So the Jews kept saying to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and you have no right to pick up your bed [it is not lawful].
11 He answered them, The [b]Man Who healed me and gave me back my strength, He Himself said to me, Pick up your bed and walk!
12 They asked him, Who is the Man Who told you, Pick up your bed and walk?
13 Now the invalid who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had quietly gone away [had passed on unnoticed], since there was a crowd in the place.
14 Afterward, when Jesus found him in the temple, He said to him, See, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.
15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus Who had made him well.
16 For this reason the Jews began to persecute (annoy, torment) Jesus [c]and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father has worked [even] until now, [He has never ceased working; He is still working] and I, too, must be at [divine] work.
18 This made the Jews more determined than ever to kill Him [to do away with Him]; because He not only was breaking (weakening, violating) the Sabbath, but He actually was speaking of God as being [in a special sense] His own Father, making Himself equal [putting Himself on a level] with God.
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