Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 97
1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles and coastlands be glad!
2 Clouds and darkness are round about Him [as at Sinai]; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.(A)
3 Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries round about.
4 His lightnings illumine the world; the earth sees and trembles.
5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.
7 Let all those be put to shame who serve graven images, who boast in idols. Fall prostrate before Him, all you gods.(B)
8 Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced [in relief] because of Your judgments, O Lord.
9 For You, Lord, are high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.
10 O you who love the Lord, hate evil; He preserves the lives of His saints (the children of God), He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.(C)
11 Light is sown for the [uncompromisingly] righteous and strewn along their pathway, and joy for the upright in heart [the irrepressible joy which comes from consciousness of His favor and protection].
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you [consistently] righteous (upright and in right standing with God), and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.
Psalm 99
1 The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble [with reverential fear]! He sits [enthroned] above the cherubim, let the earth quake!
2 The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high above all the peoples.
3 Let them confess and praise Your great name, awesome and reverence inspiring! It is holy, and holy is He!(A)
4 The strength of the king who loves righteousness and equity You establish in uprightness; You execute justice and righteousness in Jacob (Israel).
5 Extol the Lord our God and worship at His footstool! Holy is He!
6 Moses and Aaron were among His priests, and Samuel was among those who called upon His name; they called upon the Lord, and He answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept His testimonies and the statutes that He gave them.(B)
8 You answered them, O Lord our God; You were a forgiving God to them, although avenging their evildoing and wicked practices.
9 Extol the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy!
Psalm 100
A Psalm of thanksgiving and for the thank offering.
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come before His presence with singing!
3 Know (perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.(C)
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!
5 For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.
Psalm 94
1 O Lord God, You to Whom vengeance belongs, O God, You to Whom vengeance belongs, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; render to the proud a fit compensation!
3 Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph and exult?
4 They pour out arrogant words, speaking hard things; all the evildoers boast loftily.(A)
5 They crush Your people, O Lord, and afflict Your heritage.
6 They slay the widow and the transient stranger and murder the unprotected orphan.
7 Yet they say, The Lord does not see, neither does the God of Jacob notice it.
8 Consider and understand, you stupid ones among the people! And you [self-confident] fools, when will you become wise?
9 He Who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He Who formed the eye, shall He not see?
10 He Who disciplines and instructs the nations, shall He not punish, He Who teaches man knowledge?
11 The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are vain (empty and futile—only a breath).(B)
12 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law,
13 That You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity, until the [inevitable] pit of corruption is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not cast off nor spurn His people, neither will He abandon His heritage.
15 For justice will return to the [uncompromisingly] righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
17 Unless the Lord had been my help, I would soon have dwelt in [the land where there is] silence.
18 When I said, My foot is slipping, Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, held me up.
19 In the multitude of my [anxious] thoughts within me, Your comforts cheer and delight my soul!
20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with You—they who frame and hide their unrighteous doings under [the sacred name of] law?
21 They band themselves together against the life of the [consistently] righteous and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord has become my High Tower and Defense, and my God the Rock of my refuge.
23 And He will turn back upon them their own iniquity and will wipe them out by means of their own wickedness; the Lord our God will wipe them out.
Psalm 95
1 O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights and strength of the hills are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication].
7 For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice,(C)
8 Harden not your hearts as at Meribah and as at Massah in the day of temptation in the wilderness,(D)
9 When your fathers tried My patience and tested Me, proved Me, and saw My work [of judgment].
10 Forty years long was I grieved and disgusted with that generation, and I said, It is a people that do err in their hearts, and they do not approve, acknowledge, or regard My ways.
11 Wherefore I swore in My wrath that they would not enter My rest [the land of promise].(E)
31 Jacob heard Laban’s sons complaining, Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s; he has acquired all this wealth and honor from what belonged to our father.
2 And Jacob noticed that Laban looked at him less favorably than before.
3 Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers and to your people, and I will be with you.
4 So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,
5 And he said to them, I see how your father looks at me, that he is not [friendly] toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.
6 You know that I have served your father with all my might and power.
7 But your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.
8 If he said, The speckled shall be your wages, then all the flock bore speckled; and if he said, The streaked shall be your hire, then all the flock bore streaked.
9 Thus God has taken away the flocks of your father and given them to me.
10 And I had a [a]dream at the time the flock conceived. I looked up and saw that the rams which mated with the she-goats were streaked, speckled, and spotted.
11 And the [b]Angel of God said to me in the dream, Jacob. And I said, Here am I.
12 And He said, Look up and see, all the rams which mate with the flock are streaked, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban does to you.
13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you vowed a vow to Me. Now arise, get out from this land and return to your native land.
14 And Rachel and Leah answered him, Is there any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house?
15 Are we not counted by him as strangers? For he sold us and has also quite devoured our money [the price you paid for us].
16 For all the riches which God has taken from our father are ours and our children’s. Now then, whatever God has said to you, do it.
17 Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon the camels;
18 And he drove away all his livestock and all his gain which he had gotten, the livestock he had obtained and accumulated in Padan-aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.
19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep [possibly to the feast of sheepshearing], and Rachel stole her father’s household gods.
20 And Jacob outwitted Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in that he did not tell him that he [intended] to flee and slip away secretly.
21 So he fled with all that he had, and arose and crossed the river [Euphrates] and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead.
22 But on the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
23 So he took his kinsmen with him and pursued after [Jacob] for seven days, and they overtook him in the hill country of Gilead.
24 But God came to Laban the Syrian [Aramean] in a dream by night and said to him, Be careful that you do not speak from good to bad to Jacob [peaceably, then violently].
2 My little children, I write you these things so that you may not violate God’s law and sin. But if anyone should sin, we have an Advocate (One Who will intercede for us) with the Father—[it is] Jesus Christ [the all] righteous [upright, just, Who conforms to the Father’s will in every purpose, thought, and action].
2 And He [[a]that same Jesus Himself] is the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours alone but also for [the sins of] the whole world.
3 And this is how we may discern [[b]daily, by experience] that we are coming to know Him [to perceive, recognize, understand, and become better acquainted with Him]: if we keep (bear in mind, observe, practice) His teachings (precepts, commandments).
4 Whoever says, I know Him [I perceive, recognize, understand, and am acquainted with Him] but fails to keep and obey His commandments (teachings) is a liar, and the Truth [[c]of the Gospel] is not in him.
5 But he who keeps (treasures) His Word [who bears in mind His precepts, who observes His message in its entirety], truly in him has the love of and for God been perfected (completed, reached maturity). By this we may perceive (know, recognize, and be sure) that we are in Him:
6 Whoever says he abides in Him ought [as [d]a personal debt] to walk and conduct himself in the same way in which He walked and conducted Himself.
7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the message which you have heard [the [e]doctrine of salvation through Christ].
8 Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true (is realized) in Him and in you, because the darkness ([f]moral blindness) is clearing away and the true Light ([g]the revelation of God in Christ) is already shining.
9 Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, [h]born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.
10 Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.
11 But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [[i]in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
18 However, the Jews did not believe that he had [really] been blind and that he had received his sight until they called (summoned) the parents of the man.
19 They asked them, Is this your son, whom you reported as having been born blind? How then does he see now?
20 His parents answered, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind.
21 But as to how he can now see, we do not know; or who has opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age. Ask him; let him speak for himself and give his own account of it.
22 His parents said this because they feared [the leaders of] the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should acknowledge Jesus to be the Christ, he should be expelled and excluded from the synagogue.
23 On that account his parents said, He is of age; ask him.
24 So the second time they summoned the man who had been born blind, and said to him, Now give God the glory (praise). This [a]Fellow we know is only a sinner (a wicked person).
25 Then he answered, I do not know whether He is a sinner and wicked or not. But one thing I do know, that whereas I was blind before, now I see.
26 So they said to him, What did He [actually] do to you? How did He open your eyes?
27 He answered, I already told you and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Can it be that you wish to become His disciples also?
28 And they stormed at him [they jeered, they sneered, they reviled him] and retorted, You are His disciple yourself, but we are the disciples of Moses.
29 We know for certain that God spoke with Moses, but as for this Fellow, we know nothing about where He hails from.
30 The man replied, Well, this is astonishing! Here a Man has opened my eyes, and yet you do not know where He comes from. [That is amazing!]
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and a worshiper of Him and does His will, He listens to him.
32 Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.
33 If this Man were not from God, He would not be able to do anything like this.
34 They retorted, You were wholly born in sin [from head to foot]; and do you [presume to] teach us? So they cast him out [threw him clear outside the synagogue].
35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and meeting him He said, Do you believe in and adhere to the Son of Man [b]or the Son of God?
36 He answered, Who is He, Sir? Tell me, that I may believe in and adhere to Him.
37 Jesus said to him, You have seen Him; [in fact] He is talking to you right now.
38 He called out, Lord, I believe! [I rely on, I trust, I cleave to You!] And he worshiped Him.
39 Then Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment [as a Separator, in order that there may be [c] separation between those who believe on Me and those who reject Me], to make the sightless see and to make those who see become blind.
40 Some Pharisees who were near, hearing this remark, said to Him, Are we also blind?
41 Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin; but because you now claim to have sight, your sin remains. [If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but because you insist, We do see clearly, you are unable to escape your guilt.]
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