Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 55
To the Chief Musician; with stringed instruments. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of David.
1 Listen to my prayer, O God, and hide not Yourself from my supplication!
2 Attend to me and answer me; I am restless and distraught in my complaint and must moan
3 [And I am distracted] at the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression and threats of the wicked; for they would cast trouble upon me, and in wrath they persecute me.
4 My heart is grievously pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fear and trembling have come upon me; horror and fright have overwhelmed me.
6 And I say, Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.
7 Yes, I would wander far away, I would lodge in the wilderness. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
8 I would hasten to escape and to find a shelter from the stormy wind and tempest.
9 Destroy [their schemes], O Lord, confuse their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go about on its walls; iniquity and mischief are in its midst.
11 Violence and ruin are within it; fraud and guile do not depart from its streets and marketplaces.
12 For it is not an enemy who reproaches and taunts me—then I might bear it; nor is it one who has hated me who insolently vaunts himself against me—then I might hide from him.
13 But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend.
14 We had sweet fellowship together and used to walk to the house of God in company.
15 Let desolations and death come suddenly upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol (the place of the dead), for evils are in their habitations, in their hearts, and their inmost part.
16 As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me.
17 Evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice.
18 He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me [so that none came near me], for they were many who strove with me.
19 God will hear and humble them, even He Who abides of old—Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!—because in them there has been no change [of heart], and they do not fear, revere, and worship God.
20 [My companion] has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; he has broken and profaned his agreement [of friendship and loyalty].
21 The words of his mouth were smoother than cream or butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.
22 Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).(A)
23 But You, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in, lean on, and confidently rely on You.
Psalm 138
[A Psalm] of David.
1 I will confess and praise You [O God] with my whole heart; before the gods will I sing praises to You.
2 I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name!
3 In the day when I called, You answered me; and You strengthened me with strength (might and inflexibility to temptation) in my inner self.
4 All the kings of the land shall give You credit and praise You, O Lord, for they have heard of the promises of Your mouth [which were fulfilled].
5 Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord and joyfully celebrate His mighty acts, for great is the glory of the Lord.
6 For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly [bringing them into fellowship with Him]; but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes [only] at a distance.(A)
7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me.(B)
8 The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, endure forever—forsake not the works of Your own hands.(C)
Psalm 139
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me.
2 You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.(D)
3 You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.(E)
5 You have beset me and shut me in—behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.
6 Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it.
7 Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there.(F)
9 If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me,
12 Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.(G)
13 For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery].
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!(H)
18 If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.
19 If You would [only] slay the wicked, O God, and the men of blood depart from me—(I)
20 Who speak against You wickedly, Your enemies who take Your name in vain!(J)
21 Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You? And am I not grieved and do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred; they have become my enemies.
23 Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
8 If you see the oppression of the poor and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in the state or province, do not marvel at the matter. [Be sure that there are those who will attend to it] for a higher [official] than the high is observing, and higher ones are over them.
9 Moreover, the profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field and in all, a king is an advantage to a land with cultivated fields.
10 He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with gain. This also is vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility)!
11 When goods increase, they who eat them increase also. And what gain is there to their owner except to see them with his eyes?
12 The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the fullness of the rich will not let him sleep.
13 There is a serious and severe evil which I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt.
14 But those riches are lost in a bad venture; and he becomes the father of a son, and there is nothing in his hand [with which to support the child].
15 As [the man] came forth from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came; and he will take away nothing for all his labor which he can carry in his hand.
16 And this also is a serious and severe evil—that in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what gain has he who labors for the wind?(A)
17 All his days also he eats in darkness [cheerlessly, with no sweetness and light in them], and much sorrow and sickness and wrath are his.
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is for one to eat and drink, and to find enjoyment in all the labor in which he labors under the sun all the days which God gives him—for this is his [allotted] part.(B)
19 Also, every man to whom God has given riches and possessions, and the power to enjoy them and to accept his appointed lot and to rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God [to him].
20 For he shall not much remember [seriously] the days of his life, because God [Himself] answers and corresponds to the joy of his heart [the tranquillity of God is mirrored in him].
23 Now before the faith came, we were perpetually guarded under the Law, kept in custody in preparation for the faith that was destined to be revealed (unveiled, disclosed),
24 So that the Law served [a][to us Jews] as our trainer [our guardian, our guide to Christ, to lead us] until Christ [came], that we might be justified (declared righteous, put in right standing with God) by and through faith.
25 But now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a trainer (the guardian of our childhood).
26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
27 For as many [of you] as were baptized into Christ [into a spiritual union and communion with Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah] have put on (clothed yourselves with) Christ.
28 There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male [b]and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you belong to Christ [are in Him Who is Abraham’s Seed], then you are Abraham’s offspring and [spiritual] heirs according to promise.
4 Now what I mean is that as long as the inheritor (heir) is a child and under age, he does not differ from a slave, although he is the master of all the estate;
2 But he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date fixed by his father.
3 So we [Jewish Christians] also, when we were minors, were kept like slaves under [the rules of the Hebrew ritual and subject to] the elementary teachings of a system of external observations and regulations.
4 But when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to [the regulations of] the Law,
5 To purchase the freedom of (to ransom, to redeem, to [c]atone for) those who were subject to the Law, that we might be adopted and have sonship conferred upon us [and be recognized as God’s sons].
6 And because you [really] are [His] sons, God has sent the [[d]Holy] Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba (Father)! Father!
7 Therefore, you are no longer a slave (bond servant) but a son; and if a son, then [it follows that you are] an heir [e]by the aid of God, through Christ.
8 But at that previous time, when you had not come to be acquainted with and understand and know the true God, you [Gentiles] were in bondage to gods who by their very nature could not be gods at all [gods that really did not exist].
9 Now, however, that you have come to be acquainted with and understand and know [the true] God, or rather to be understood and known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly and worthless elementary things [[f]of all religions before Christ came], whose slaves you once more want to become?
10 You observe [particular] days and months and seasons and years!
11 I am alarmed [about you], lest I have labored among and over you to no purpose and in vain.
15 Then from Jerusalem came scribes and Pharisees and said,
2 Why do Your disciples transgress and violate the rules handed down by the elders of the past? For they do not practice [ceremonially] washing their hands before they eat.
3 He replied to them, And why also do you transgress and violate the commandment of God for the sake of the rules handed down to you by your forefathers (the elders)?
4 For God commanded, Honor your father and your mother, and, He who curses or reviles or speaks evil of or abuses or treats improperly his father or mother, let him surely come to his end by death.(A)
5 But you say, If anyone tells his father or mother, What you would have gained from me [that is, the money and whatever I have that might be used for helping you] is already dedicated as a gift to God, then he is exempt and no longer under obligation to honor and help his father or his mother.
6 So for the sake of your tradition (the rules handed down by your forefathers), you have set aside the Word of God [depriving it of force and authority and making it of no effect].
7 You pretenders (hypocrites)! Admirably and truly did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said:
8 These people draw near Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts hold off and are far away from Me.
9 Uselessly do they worship Me, for they teach as doctrines the commands of men.(B)
10 And Jesus called the people to Him and said to them, Listen and grasp and comprehend this:
11 It is not what goes into the mouth of a man that makes him unclean and defiled, but what comes out of the mouth; this makes a man unclean and defiles [him].
12 Then the disciples came and said to Him, Do You know that the Pharisees were displeased and offended and indignant when they heard this saying?
13 He answered, Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be torn up by the roots.(C)
14 Let them alone and disregard them; they are blind guides and teachers. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a ditch.
15 But Peter said to Him, Explain this [a]proverb (this [b]maxim) to us.
16 And He said, Are you also even yet dull and ignorant [without understanding and [c]unable to put things together]?
17 Do you not see and understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the [d]abdomen and so passes on into the place where discharges are deposited?
18 But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this is what makes a man unclean and defiles [him].
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts (reasonings and disputings and designs) such as murder, adultery, sexual vice, theft, false witnessing, slander, and irreverent speech.
20 These are what make a man unclean and defile [him]; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him unclean or defile [him].
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation