Book of Common Prayer
MEM
97 How I love your law!
It is my meditation all day.
98 Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
for your commandments are always with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understand more than the aged,
because I have kept your precepts.
101 I have kept my feet from every evil way,
that I might observe your word.
102 I have not turned away from your ordinances,
for you have taught me.
103 How sweet are your promises to my taste,
more than honey to my mouth!
104 Through your precepts, I get understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.
NUN
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet,
and a light for my path.
106 I have sworn, and have confirmed it,
that I will obey your righteous ordinances.
107 I am afflicted very much.
Revive me, Yahweh, according to your word.
108 Accept, I beg you, the willing offerings of my mouth.
Yahweh, teach me your ordinances.
109 My soul is continually in my hand,
yet I won’t forget your law.
110 The wicked have laid a snare for me,
yet I haven’t gone astray from your precepts.
111 I have taken your testimonies as a heritage forever,
for they are the joy of my heart.
112 I have set my heart to perform your statutes forever,
even to the end.
SAMEKH
113 I hate double-minded men,
but I love your law.
114 You are my hiding place and my shield.
I hope in your word.
115 Depart from me, you evildoers,
that I may keep the commandments of my God.
116 Uphold me according to your word, that I may live.
Let me not be ashamed of my hope.
117 Hold me up, and I will be safe,
and will have respect for your statutes continually.
118 You reject all those who stray from your statutes,
for their deceit is in vain.
119 You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross.
Therefore I love your testimonies.
120 My flesh trembles for fear of you.
I am afraid of your judgments.
For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. By Asaph.
81 Sing aloud to God, our strength!
Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song, and bring here the tambourine,
the pleasant lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the New Moon,
at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For it is a statute for Israel,
an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant,
when he went out over the land of Egypt,
I heard a language that I didn’t know.
6 “I removed his shoulder from the burden.
His hands were freed from the basket.
7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you.
I answered you in the secret place of thunder.
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.” Selah.
8 “Hear, my people, and I will testify to you,
Israel, if you would listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god in you,
neither shall you worship any foreign god.
10 I am Yahweh, your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
11 But my people didn’t listen to my voice.
Israel desired none of me.
12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts,
that they might walk in their own counsels.
13 Oh that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I would soon subdue their enemies,
and turn my hand against their adversaries.
15 The haters of Yahweh would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever.
16 But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat.
I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”
A Psalm by Asaph.
82 God presides in the great assembly.
He judges among the gods.
2 “How long will you judge unjustly,
and show partiality to the wicked?” Selah.
3 “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless.
Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and needy.
Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
5 They don’t know, neither do they understand.
They walk back and forth in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 I said, “You are gods,
all of you are sons of the Most High.
7 Nevertheless you shall die like men,
and fall like one of the rulers.”
8 Arise, God, judge the earth,
for you inherit all of the nations.
6 On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king. 2 It was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who were doorkeepers, who had tried to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus. 3 The king said, “What honor and dignity has been given to Mordecai for this?”
Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”
4 The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had come into the outer court of the king’s house, to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
5 The king’s servants said to him, “Behold,[a] Haman stands in the court.”
The king said, “Let him come in.” 6 So Haman came in. The king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?”
Now Haman said in his heart, “Who would the king delight to honor more than myself?” 7 Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, 8 let royal clothing be brought which the king uses to wear, and the horse that the king rides on, and on the head of which a royal crown is set. 9 Let the clothing and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man whom the king delights to honor with them, and have him ride on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’”
10 Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and take the clothing and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.”
11 Then Haman took the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”
12 Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered. 13 Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall before him.” 14 While they were yet talking with him, the king’s eunuchs came, and hurried to bring Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared.
19 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper country, came to Ephesus and found certain disciples. 2 He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They said to him, “No, we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
3 He said, “Into what then were you baptized?”
They said, “Into John’s baptism.”
4 Paul said, “John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Christ Jesus.”[a]
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke with other languages and prophesied. 7 They were about twelve men in all.
8 He entered into the synagogue and spoke boldly for a period of three months, reasoning and persuading about the things concerning God’s Kingdom.
9 But when some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that all those who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry.
3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”(A)
5 The devil, leading him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 The devil said to him, “I will give you all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I want. 7 If you therefore will worship before me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”(B)
9 He led him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
‘He will put his angels in charge of you, to guard you;’
11 and,
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone.’”(C)
12 Jesus answering, said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”(D)
13 When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time.
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