Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 8
God’s Glory, Man’s Dignity
For the choir director: on the Gittith.(A) A Davidic psalm.
1 Yahweh, our Lord,
how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth!(B)
You have covered the heavens with Your majesty.[a](C)
2 Because of Your adversaries,
You have established a stronghold[b]
from the mouths of children and nursing infants(D)
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I observe Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You set in place,(E)
4 what is man that You remember him,
the son of man that You look after him?(F)
5 You made him little less than God[c][d]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him lord over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet:[e](G)
7 all the sheep and oxen,
as well as the animals in the wild,
8 the birds of the sky,
and the fish of the sea
that pass through the currents of the seas.(H)
9 Yahweh, our Lord,
how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth!
Psalm 138
A Thankful Heart
Davidic.
1 I will give You thanks with all my heart;(A)
I will sing Your praise before the heavenly beings.[a](B)
2 I will bow down toward Your holy temple
and give thanks to Your name
for Your constant love and truth.
You have exalted Your name
and Your promise above everything else.(C)
3 On the day I called, You answered me;
You increased strength within me.[b](D)
The Temptation and the Fall
3 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”(A)
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’”(B)
4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman.(C) 5 “In fact, God knows that when[a] you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,[b] knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.(D) 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Sin’s Consequences
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze,[c] and they hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.(E) 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard You[d] in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 Then He asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 Then the man replied,(F) “The woman You gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?”
And the woman said, “It was the serpent. He deceived me, and I ate.”(G)
14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent:
Because you have done this,
you are cursed more than any livestock
and more than any wild animal.
You will move on your belly
and eat dust all the days of your life.(H)
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.(I)
Death through Adam and Life through Christ
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man,(A) and death through sin,(B) in this way death spread to all men,(C) because all sinned.[a] 13 In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law.(D) 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.(E) He is a prototype[b] of the Coming One.(F)
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man,(G) Jesus Christ. 16 And the gift is not like the one man’s sin, because from one sin came the judgment,(H) resulting in condemnation, but from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification.[c] 17 Since by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life(I) through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification[d](J) for everyone. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners,(K) so also through the one man’s obedience(L) the many will be made righteous. 20 The law came along to multiply the trespass.(M) But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more(N) 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death,(O) so also grace will reign(P) through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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