Book of Common Prayer

72 A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

² But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.

³ Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.

⁴ For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.

⁵ They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.

⁶ Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.

⁷ Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

⁸ They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.

⁹ They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.

¹¹ And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?

¹² Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.

¹³ And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.

¹⁴ And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.

¹⁵ If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.

¹⁶ I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:

¹⁷ Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.

¹⁸ But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.

¹⁹ How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.

²⁰ As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.

²¹ For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:

²² And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.

²³ I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.

²⁴ Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.

²⁵ For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?

²⁶ For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.

²⁷ For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.

²⁸ But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.

¹⁸ And the third day he brought them out of prison, and said: Do as I have said, and you shall live: for I fear God.

¹⁹ If you be peaceable men, let one of your brethren be bound in prison: and go ye your ways and carry the corn that you have bought, unto your houses.

²⁰ And bring your youngest brother to me, that I may find your words to be true, and you may not die. They did as he had said.

²¹ And they talked one to another: We deserve to suffer these things, because we have sinned against our brother, seeing the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear: therefore is this affliction come upon us.

²² And Ruben one of them, said: Did not I say to you: Do not sin against the boy: and you would not hear me? Behold his blood is required.

²³ And they knew not that Joseph understood, because he spoke to them by an interpreter.

²⁴ And he turned himself away a little while, and wept: and returning he spoke to them.

²⁵ And taking Simeon, and binding him in their presence, he commanded his servants to fill their sacks with wheat, and to put every man's money again in their sacks, and to give them besides provisions for the way: and they did so.

²⁶ But they having loaded their asses with the corn, went their way.

²⁷ And one of them opening his sack, to give his beast provender in the inn, saw the money in the sack's mouth;

²⁸ And said to his brethren: My money is given me again, behold it is in the sack. And they were astonished, and troubled, and said to one another: What is this that God hath done unto us?

⁹ I wrote to you in an epistle, not to keep company with fornicators.

¹⁰ I mean not with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or the extortioners, or the servers of idols; otherwise you must needs go out of this world.

¹¹ But now I have written to you, not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one, not so much as to eat.

¹² For what have I to do to judge them that are without? Do not you judge them that are within?

¹³ For them that are without, God will judge. Put away the evil one from among yourselves.

6 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to be judged before the unjust, and not before the saints?

² Know you not that the saints shall judge this world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

³ Know you not that we shall judge angels? how much more things of this world?

⁴ If therefore you have judgments of things pertaining to this world, set them to judge, who are the most despised in the church.

⁵ I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is not among you any one wise man, that is able to judge between his brethren?

⁶ But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers.

⁷ Already indeed there is plainly a fault among you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

⁸ But you do wrong and defraud, and that to your brethren.

4 And again he began to teach by the sea side; and a great multitude was gathered together unto him, so that he went up into a ship, and sat in the sea; and all the multitude was upon the land by the sea side.

² And he taught them many things in parables, and said unto them in his doctrine:

³ Hear ye: Behold, the sower went out to sow.

⁴ And whilst he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and ate it up.

⁵ And other some fell upon stony ground, where it had not much earth; and it shot up immediately, because it had no depth of earth.

⁶ And when the sun was risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

⁷ And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

⁸ And some fell upon good ground; and brought forth fruit that grew up, and increased and yielded, one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundred.

⁹ And he said: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

¹⁰ And when he was alone, the twelve that were with him asked him the parable.

¹¹ And he said to them: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but to them that are without, all things are done in parables:

¹² That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand: lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

¹³ And he saith to them: Are you ignorant of this parable? and how shall you know all parables?

¹⁴ He that soweth, soweth the word.

¹⁵ And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown, and as soon as they have heard, immediately Satan cometh and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.

¹⁶ And these likewise are they that are sown on the stony ground: who when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with joy.

¹⁷ And they have no root in themselves, but are only for a time: and then when tribulation and persecution ariseth for the word they are presently scandalized.

¹⁸ And others there are who are sown among thorns: these are they that hear the word,

¹⁹ And the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things entering in choke the word, and it is made fruitless.

²⁰ And these are they who are sown upon the good ground, who hear the word, and receive it, and yield fruit, the one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundred.