Book of Common Prayer

56 ^1-2 Lord, have mercy on me; all day long the enemy troops press in. So many are proud to fight against me; how they long to conquer me.

^3-4 But when I am afraid, I will put my confidence in you. Yes, I will trust the promises of God. And since I am trusting him, what can mere man do to me? ⁵ They are always twisting what I say. All their thoughts are how to harm me. ⁶ They meet together to perfect their plans; they hide beside the trail, listening for my steps, waiting to kill me. ⁷ They expect to get away with it. Don’t let them, Lord. In anger cast them to the ground.

⁸ You have seen me tossing and turning through the night. You have collected all my tears and preserved them in your bottle! You have recorded every one in your book.

⁹ The very day I call for help, the tide of battle turns. My enemies flee! This one thing I know: God is for me! ^10-11 I am trusting God—oh, praise his promises! I am not afraid of anything mere man can do to me! Yes, praise his promises. ¹² I will surely do what I have promised, Lord, and thank you for your help. ¹³ For you have saved me from death and my feet from slipping, so that I can walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

57 O God, have pity, for I am trusting you! I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings until this storm is past. ² I will cry to the God of heaven who does such wonders for me. ³ He will send down help from heaven to save me because of his love and his faithfulness. He will rescue me from these liars who are so intent upon destroying me. ⁴ I am surrounded by fierce lions—hotheads whose teeth are sharp as spears and arrows. Their tongues are like swords. ⁵ Lord, be exalted above the highest heavens! Show your glory high above the earth. ⁶ My enemies have set a trap for me. Frantic fear grips me. They have dug a pitfall in my path. But look! They themselves have fallen into it!

⁷ O God, my heart is quiet and confident. No wonder I can sing your praises! ⁸ Rouse yourself, my soul! Arise, O harp and lyre! Let us greet the dawn with song! ⁹ I will thank you publicly throughout the land. I will sing your praises among the nations. ¹⁰ Your kindness and love are as vast as the heavens. Your faithfulness is higher than the skies.

¹¹ Yes, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. May your glory shine throughout the earth.

58 ^1-2 Justice? You high and mighty politicians don’t even know the meaning of the word! Fairness? Which of you has any left? Not one! All your dealings are crooked: you give “justice” in exchange for bribes.^{[a] 3} These men are born sinners, lying from their earliest words! ^4-5 They are poisonous as deadly snakes, cobras that close their ears to the most expert of charmers.

⁶ O God, break off their fangs. Tear out the teeth of these young lions, Lord. ⁷ Let them disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands.^{[b] 8} Let them be as snails that dissolve into slime and as those who die at birth, who never see the sun. ⁹ God will sweep away both old and young. He will destroy them more quickly than a cooking pot can feel the blazing fire of thorns beneath it.

¹⁰ The godly shall rejoice in the triumph of right;^[c] they shall walk the bloodstained fields of slaughtered, wicked men. ¹¹ Then at last everyone will know that good is rewarded, and that there is a God who judges justly here on earth.

64 ^1-2 Lord, listen to my complaint: Oh, preserve my life from the conspiracy of these wicked men, these gangs of criminals. ³ They cut me down with sharpened tongues; they aim their bitter words like arrows straight at my heart. ⁴ They shoot from ambush at the innocent. Suddenly the deed is done, yet they are not afraid. ⁵ They encourage each other to do evil. They meet in secret to set their traps. “He will never notice them here,” they say. ⁶ They keep a sharp lookout for opportunities of crime. They spend long hours with all their endless evil thoughts and plans.^[a]

⁷ But God himself will shoot them down. Suddenly his arrow will pierce them. ⁸ They will stagger backward, destroyed by those they spoke against. All who see it happening will scoff at them. ⁹ Then everyone shall stand in awe and confess the greatness of the miracles of God; at last they will realize what amazing things he does. ¹⁰ And the godly shall rejoice in the Lord, and trust and praise him.

65 ^1-2 O God in Zion, we wait before you in silent praise, and thus fulfill our vow. And because you answer prayer, all mankind will come to you with their requests. ³ Though sins fill our hearts, you forgive them all. ⁴ How greatly to be envied are those you have chosen to come and live with you within the holy tabernacle courts! What joys await us among all the good things there. ⁵ With dread deeds and awesome power you will defend us from our enemies,^[b] O God who saves us. You are the only hope of all mankind throughout the world and far away upon the sea.

⁶ He formed the mountains by his mighty strength. ⁷ He quiets the raging oceans and all the world’s clamor. ⁸ In the farthest corners of the earth the glorious acts of God shall startle everyone. The dawn and sunset shout for joy! ⁹ He waters the earth to make it fertile. The rivers of God will not run dry! He prepares the earth for his people and sends them rich harvests of grain. ¹⁰ He waters the furrows with abundant rain. Showers soften the earth, melting the clods and causing seeds to sprout across the land. ^11-12 Then he crowns it all with green, lush pastures in the wilderness; hillsides blossom with joy. ¹³ The pastures are filled with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. All the world shouts with joy and sings.

⁴⁶ He was thirty years old as he entered the service of the king. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and began traveling all across the land.

⁴⁷ And sure enough, for the next seven years there were bumper crops everywhere. ⁴⁸ During those years, Joseph requisitioned for the government a portion of all the crops grown throughout Egypt, storing them in nearby cities. ⁴⁹ After seven years of this, the granaries were full to overflowing, and there was so much that no one kept track of the amount.

⁵⁰ During this time before the arrival of the first of the famine years, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of the sun god Re of Heliopolis. ⁵¹ Joseph named his oldest son Manasseh (meaning “Made to Forget”—what he meant was that God had made up to him for all the anguish of his youth, and for the loss of his father’s home). ⁵² The second boy was named Ephraim (meaning “Fruitful”—“For God has made me fruitful in this land of my slavery,” he said).

⁵³ So at last the seven years of plenty came to an end. ⁵⁴ Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There were crop failures in all the surrounding countries, too, but in Egypt there was plenty of grain in the storehouses. ⁵⁵ The people began to starve. They pleaded with Pharaoh for food, and he sent them to Joseph. “Do whatever he tells you to,” he instructed them.

^56-57 So now, with severe famine all over the world, Joseph opened up the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians and to those from other lands who came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph.

⁸ You seem to think you already have all the spiritual food you need. You are full and spiritually contented, rich kings on your thrones, leaving us far behind! I wish you really were already on your thrones, for when that time comes you can be sure that we will be there, too, reigning with you. ⁹ Sometimes I think God has put us apostles at the very end of the line, like prisoners soon to be killed, put on display at the end of a victor’s parade, to be stared at by men and angels alike.

¹⁰ Religion has made us foolish, you say, but of course you are all such wise and sensible Christians! We are weak, but not you! You are well thought of, while we are laughed at. ¹¹ To this very hour we have gone hungry and thirsty, without even enough clothes to keep us warm. We have been kicked around without homes of our own. ¹² We have worked wearily with our hands to earn our living. We have blessed those who cursed us. We have been patient with those who injured us. ¹³ We have replied quietly when evil things have been said about us. Yet right up to the present moment we are like dirt underfoot, like garbage.

¹⁴ I am not writing about these things to make you ashamed, but to warn and counsel you as beloved children. ¹⁵ For although you may have ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, remember that you have only me as your father. For I was the one who brought you to Christ when I preached the Gospel to you. ¹⁶ So I beg you to follow my example and do as I do.

¹⁷ That is the very reason why I am sending Timothy—to help you do this. For he is one of those I won to Christ, a beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord. He will remind you of what I teach in all the churches wherever I go.

¹⁸ I know that some of you will have become proud, thinking that I am afraid to come to deal with you. ¹⁹ But I will come, and soon, if the Lord will let me, and then I’ll find out whether these proud men are just big talkers or whether they really have God’s power. ²⁰ The Kingdom of God is not just talking; it is living by God’s power. ²¹ Which do you choose? Shall I come with punishment and scolding, or shall I come with quiet love and gentleness?

^7-8 Meanwhile, Jesus and his disciples withdrew to the beach, followed by a huge crowd from all over Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, from beyond the Jordan River, and even from as far away as Tyre and Sidon. For the news about his miracles had spread far and wide and vast numbers came to see him for themselves.

⁹ He instructed his disciples to bring around a boat and to have it standing ready to rescue him in case he was crowded off the beach. ¹⁰ For there had been many healings that day and as a result great numbers of sick people were crowding around him, trying to touch him.

¹¹ And whenever those possessed by demons caught sight of him they would fall down before him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!” ¹² But he strictly warned them not to make him known.

¹³ Afterwards he went up into the hills and summoned certain ones he chose, inviting them to come and join him there; and they did. ^14-15 Then he selected twelve of them to be his regular companions and to go out to preach and to cast out demons. ^16-19 These are the names of the twelve he chose: Simon (he renamed him “Peter”), James and John (the sons of Zebedee, but Jesus called them “Sons of Thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (the son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon (a member of a political party advocating violent overthrow of the Roman government), Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).