Book of Common Prayer
78 Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old,
3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done.
5 For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded to our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
6 that the generation to come might know them, even the children who should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children,
7 that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments;
8 and so might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in His law;
11 they forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them.
12 Marvelous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and caused them to pass through; and He made the waters to stand as a heap.
14 In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.
15 He cleaved the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.
16 He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17 And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
18 And they tempted God in their heart by asking for meat for their lust.
19 Yea, they spoke against God: they said, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
20 Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His people?”
21 Therefore the Lord heard this and was wroth; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also rose up against Israel,
22 because they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation,
23 though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.
25 Man ate angels’ food; He sent them meat to the full.
26 He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by His power He brought in the south wind.
27 He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea.
28 And He let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations.
29 So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire.
30 But they were not estranged from their lust; but while their meat was yet in their mouths,
31 the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
32 For all this, they sinned still and believed not in His wondrous works.
33 Therefore their days did He consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.
34 When He slew them, then they sought Him; and they returned and inquired early after God.
35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God, their redeemer.
36 Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues.
37 For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they steadfast in His covenant.
38 But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not. Yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath;
39 for He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again.
40 How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert!
41 Yea, they turned back and tested God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
42 They remembered not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy,
43 how He had wrought His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the field of Zoan,
44 and had turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink.
45 He sent divers sorts of flies among them which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them.
46 He gave also their harvest unto the caterpillar, and their labor unto the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost.
48 He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.
50 He made a path to His anger; He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
51 and smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham.
52 But He made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 And He led them on safely, so that they feared not; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 And He brought them to the border of His sanctuary, even to this mountain, which His right hand had purchased.
55 He cast out the heathen also before them, and apportioned them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56 Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God and kept not His testimonies,
57 but turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers; they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and loved Him to jealousy with their graven images.
59 When God heard this, He was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel,
60 so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He had placed among men,
61 and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy’s hand.
62 He gave His people over also unto the sword, and was wroth with His inheritance.
63 The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not given to marriage.
64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.
66 And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts, and laid upon them a perpetual reproach.
67 Moreover He refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
68 but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved.
69 And He built His sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which He hath established for ever.
70 He also chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following the ewes great with young He brought him to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance.
72 So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
7 Then Jerubbaal (who is Gideon) and all the people who were with him, rose up early and pitched camp beside the well of Harod, so that the host of the Midianites were on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley.
2 And the Lord said unto Gideon, “The people who are with thee are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against Me, saying, ‘Mine own hand hath saved me.’
3 Now therefore go, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead.’” And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand, and there remained ten thousand.
4 And the Lord said unto Gideon, “The people are yet too many. Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. And it shall be that of whom I say unto thee, ‘This shall go with thee,’ the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, ‘This shall not go with thee,’ the same shall not go.”
5 So he brought down the people unto the water; and the Lord said unto Gideon, “Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink.”
6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.
7 And the Lord said unto Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand, and let all the other people go every man unto his place.”
8 So the people took victuals in their hand, and their trumpets; and he sent all the rest of Israel every man unto his tent, and retained those three hundred men. And the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley.
9 And it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him, “Arise, get thee down unto the host, for I have delivered it into thine hand.
10 But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Purah thy servant down to the host,
11 and thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host.” Then went he down with Purah his servant unto the outside of the armed men who were in the host.
12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the East lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for multitude.
13 And when Gideon had come, behold, there was a man who told a dream unto his fellow, and said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream; and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came unto a tent, and smote it so that it fell, and overturned it so that the tent lay flat.”
14 And his fellow answered and said, “This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel, for into his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the host.”
15 And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and the interpretation thereof, that he worshiped, and returned into the host of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.”
16 And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers and lamps within the pitchers.
17 And he said unto them, “Look on me and do likewise; and behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall ye do.
18 When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and say, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’”
3 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
2 And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered into the temple.
3 He, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms.
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, “Look on us.”
5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something from them.
6 Then Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
7 And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
8 And leaping up, he stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God,
10 and they knew that it was he that sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.
11 And as the lame man who had been healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch, which is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.
19 And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who art thou?”
20 And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”
21 And they asked him, “What then? Art thou Elijah?” And he said, “I am not.” “Art thou that Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”
22 Then said they unto him, “Who art thou, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?”
23 He said, “I am ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,”’ as said the prophet Isaiah.”
24 And those who were sent were of the Pharisees.
25 And they asked him, and said unto him, “Why dost thou baptize then if thou art not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that Prophet?”
26 John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but there standeth One among you whom ye know not.
27 He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe’s strap I am not worthy to unloose.”
28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Copyright © 1994 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc.