Book of Common Prayer
For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Lilies.” By David.
69 Save me, God,
for the waters have come up to my neck!
2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold.
I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3 I am weary with my crying.
My throat is dry.
My eyes fail looking for my God.
4 Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head.
Those who want to cut me off, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty.
I have to restore what I didn’t take away.
5 God, you know my foolishness.
My sins aren’t hidden from you.
6 Don’t let those who wait for you be shamed through me, Lord Yahweh of Armies.
Don’t let those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, God of Israel.
7 Because for your sake, I have borne reproach.
Shame has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my mother’s children.
9 For the zeal of your house consumes me.
The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
10 When I wept and I fasted,
that was to my reproach.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became a byword to them.
12 Those who sit in the gate talk about me.
I am the song of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, Yahweh, in an acceptable time.
God, in the abundance of your loving kindness, answer me in the truth of your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire, and don’t let me sink.
Let me be delivered from those who hate me, and out of the deep waters.
15 Don’t let the flood waters overwhelm me,
neither let the deep swallow me up.
Don’t let the pit shut its mouth on me.
16 Answer me, Yahweh, for your loving kindness is good.
According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me.
17 Don’t hide your face from your servant,
for I am in distress.
Answer me speedily!
18 Draw near to my soul and redeem it.
Ransom me because of my enemies.
19 You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor.
My adversaries are all before you.
20 Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness.
I looked for some to take pity, but there was none;
for comforters, but I found none.
21 They also gave me poison for my food.
In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table before them become a snare.
May it become a retribution and a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can’t see.
Let their backs be continually bent.
24 Pour out your indignation on them.
Let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.
25 Let their habitation be desolate.
Let no one dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom you have wounded.
They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt.
27 Charge them with crime upon crime.
Don’t let them come into your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of life,
and not be written with the righteous.
29 But I am in pain and distress.
Let your salvation, God, protect me.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song,
and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 It will please Yahweh better than an ox,
or a bull that has horns and hoofs.
32 The humble have seen it, and are glad.
You who seek after God, let your heart live.
33 For Yahweh hears the needy,
and doesn’t despise his captive people.
34 Let heaven and earth praise him;
the seas, and everything that moves therein!
35 For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah.
They shall settle there, and own it.
36 The children also of his servants shall inherit it.
Those who love his name shall dwell therein.
BOOK 3
A Psalm by Asaph.
73 Surely God[a] is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone.
My steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no struggles in their death,
but their strength is firm.
5 They are free from burdens of men,
neither are they plagued like other men.
6 Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck.
Violence covers them like a garment.
7 Their eyes bulge with fat.
Their minds pass the limits of conceit.
8 They scoff and speak with malice.
In arrogance, they threaten oppression.
9 They have set their mouth in the heavens.
Their tongue walks through the earth.
10 Therefore their people return to them,
and they drink up waters of abundance.
11 They say, “How does God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked.
Being always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain,
and washed my hands in innocence,
14 For all day long I have been plagued,
and punished every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus”,
behold, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 When I tried to understand this,
it was too painful for me—
17 until I entered God’s sanctuary,
and considered their latter end.
18 Surely you set them in slippery places.
You throw them down to destruction.
19 How they are suddenly destroyed!
They are completely swept away with terrors.
20 As a dream when one wakes up,
so, Lord,[b] when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.
21 For my soul was grieved.
I was embittered in my heart.
22 I was so senseless and ignorant.
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
You have held my right hand.
24 You will guide me with your counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom do I have in heaven?
There is no one on earth whom I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart fails,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For, behold, those who are far from you shall perish.
You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you.
28 But it is good for me to come close to God.
I have made the Lord Yahweh[c] my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
24 Abraham was old, and well advanced in age. Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things. 2 Abraham said to his servant, the elder of his house, who ruled over all that he had, “Please put your hand under my thigh. 3 I will make you swear by Yahweh, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live. 4 But you shall go to my country, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
5 The servant said to him, “What if the woman isn’t willing to follow me to this land? Must I bring your son again to the land you came from?”
6 Abraham said to him, “Beware that you don’t bring my son there again. 7 Yahweh, the God of heaven—who took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying, ‘I will give this land to your offspring—he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. 8 If the woman isn’t willing to follow you, then you shall be clear from this oath to me. Only you shall not bring my son there again.”
9 The servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. 10 The servant took ten of his master’s camels, and departed, having a variety of good things of his master’s with him. He arose, and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. 11 He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time that women go out to draw water. 12 He said, “Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, please give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 Behold, I am standing by the spring of water. The daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. 14 Let it happen, that the young lady to whom I will say, ‘Please let down your pitcher, that I may drink,’ then she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink,’—let her be the one you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
15 Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, with her pitcher on her shoulder. 16 The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin. No man had known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up. 17 The servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please give me a drink, a little water from your pitcher.”
18 She said, “Drink, my lord.” She hurried, and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him a drink. 19 When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will also draw for your camels, until they have finished drinking.” 20 She hurried, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels.
21 The man looked steadfastly at her, remaining silent, to know whether Yahweh had made his journey prosperous or not. 22 As the camels had done drinking, the man took a golden ring of half a shekel[a] weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold, 23 and said, “Whose daughter are you? Please tell me. Is there room in your father’s house for us to stay?”
24 She said to him, “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25 She said moreover to him, “We have both straw and feed enough, and room to lodge in.”
26 The man bowed his head, and worshiped Yahweh. 27 He said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his loving kindness and his truth toward my master. As for me, Yahweh has led me on the way to the house of my master’s relatives.”
3 For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin. 5 You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children,
“My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord,
nor faint when you are reproved by him;
6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”(A)
7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children. 9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11 All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
7 After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. 2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand. 3 His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do. 4 For no one does anything in secret while he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.” 5 For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.
6 Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7 The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.”
9 Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. 10 But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. 11 The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, “Where is he?” 12 There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.” 13 Yet no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.
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