Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 87
A Psalm of the sons of Korah. A song.
1 On the holy hills stands the city [of Jerusalem and the temple] God founded.
2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion [through which the crowds of pilgrims enter from all nations] more than all the dwellings of Jacob (Israel).
3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah [pause, and calmly realize what that means]!
4 I will make mention of Rahab [the poetic name for Egypt] and Babylon as among those who know [the city of God]—behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia (Cush)—[saying], This man was born there.
5 Yes, of Zion it shall be said, This man and that man were born in her, for the Most High Himself will establish her.
6 The Lord shall count, when He registers the peoples, that this man was born there. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
7 The singers as well as the players on instruments shall say, All my springs (my sources of life and joy) are in you [city of our God].
Book Four
Psalm 90
A Prayer of Moses the man of God.
1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place and our refuge in all generations [says Moses].
2 Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed and given birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
3 You turn man back to dust and corruption, and say, Return, O sons of the earthborn [to the earth]!
4 For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.(A)
5 You carry away [these disobedient people, doomed to die within forty years] as with a flood; they are as a sleep [vague and forgotten as soon as they are gone]. In the morning they are like grass which grows up—
6 In the morning it flourishes and springs up; in the evening it is mown down and withers.
7 For we [the Israelites in the wilderness] are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled, overwhelmed, and frightened away.
8 Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.
9 For all our days [out here in this wilderness, says Moses] pass away in Your wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told [for we adults know we are doomed to die soon, without reaching Canaan].(B)
10 The days of our years are [a]threescore years and ten (seventy years)—or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years); yet is their pride [in additional years] only labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who knows the power of Your anger? [Who worthily connects this brevity of life with Your recognition of sin?] And Your wrath, who connects it with the reverent and worshipful fear that is due You?
12 So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.
13 Turn, O Lord [from Your fierce anger]! How long—? Revoke Your sentence and be compassionate and at ease toward Your servants.
14 O satisfy us with Your mercy and loving-kindness in the morning [now, before we are older], that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad in proportion to the days in which You have afflicted us and to the years in which we have suffered evil.
16 Let Your work [the signs of Your power] be revealed to Your servants, and Your [glorious] majesty to their children.
17 And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands—yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it.
Psalm 136
1 O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever.
2 O give thanks to the God of gods, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever.
3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever—
4 To Him Who alone does great wonders, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
5 To Him Who by wisdom and understanding made the heavens, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
6 To Him Who stretched out the earth upon the waters, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
7 To Him Who made the great lights, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever—
8 The sun to rule over the day, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
9 The moon and stars to rule by night, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
10 To Him Who smote Egypt in their firstborn, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(A)
11 And brought out Israel from among them, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(B)
12 With a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
13 To Him Who divided the Red Sea into parts, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(C)
14 And made Israel to pass through the midst of it, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
15 But shook off and overthrew Pharaoh and his host into the Red Sea, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
16 To Him Who led His people through the wilderness, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
17 To Him Who smote great kings, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
18 And slew famous kings, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever—(D)
19 Sihon king of the Amorites, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(E)
20 And Og king of Bashan, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(F)
21 And gave their land as a heritage, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
22 Even a heritage to Israel His servant, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;(G)
23 To Him Who [earnestly] remembered us in our low estate and imprinted us [on His heart], for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
24 And rescued us from our enemies, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
25 To Him Who gives food to all flesh, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever;
26 O give thanks to the God of heaven, for His mercy and loving-kindness endure forever!
9 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war! Stir up the mighty men! Let all the men of war draw near, let them come up.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong [a warrior]!(A)
11 Hasten and come, all you nations round about, and assemble yourselves; there You, O Lord, will bring down Your mighty ones (Your warriors).
12 Let the nations bestir themselves and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about.
13 Put in the sickle, for the [vintage] harvest is ripe; come, get down and tread the grapes, for the winepress is full; the vats overflow, for the wickedness [of the peoples] is great.(B)
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.(C)
15 The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining.
16 The Lord will thunder and roar from Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the children of Israel.(D)
17 So shall you know, understand, and realize that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and strangers and foreigners [not born into the family of God] shall no more pass through it.
2 My brethren, pay no servile regard to people [show no prejudice, no partiality]. Do not [attempt to] hold and practice the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ [the Lord] of glory [together with snobbery]!
2 For if a person comes into your congregation whose hands are adorned with gold rings and who is wearing splendid apparel, and also a poor [man] in shabby clothes comes in,
3 And you pay special attention to the one who wears the splendid clothes and say to him, Sit here in this preferable seat! while you tell the poor [man], Stand there! or, Sit there on the floor at my feet!
4 Are you not discriminating among your own and becoming critics and judges with wrong motives?
5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and in their position as believers and to inherit the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?
6 But you [in contrast] have insulted (humiliated, dishonored, and shown your contempt for) the poor. Is it not the rich who domineer over you? Is it not they who drag you into the law courts?
7 Is it not they who slander and blaspheme that precious name by which you are distinguished and called [the name of Christ invoked in baptism]?
8 If indeed you [really] fulfill the royal Law in accordance with the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as [you love] yourself, you do well.(A)
9 But if you show servile regard (prejudice, favoritism) for people, you commit sin and are rebuked and convicted by the Law as violators and offenders.
10 For whosoever keeps the Law [as a] whole but stumbles and offends in one [single instance] has become guilty of [breaking] all of it.
11 For He Who said, You shall not commit adultery, also said, You shall not kill. If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become guilty of transgressing the [whole] Law.(B)
12 So speak and so act as [people should] who are to be judged under the law of liberty [the moral instruction given by Christ, especially about love].
13 For to him who has shown no mercy the judgment [will be] merciless, but mercy [full of glad confidence] exults victoriously over judgment.
10 He who is faithful in a very little [thing] is faithful also in much, and he who is dishonest and unjust in a very little [thing] is dishonest and unjust also in much.
11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the [case of] unrighteous mammon ([a]deceitful riches, money, possessions), who will entrust to you the true riches?
12 And if you have not proved faithful in that which belongs to another [whether God or man], who will give you that which is your own [that is, [b]the true riches]?
13 No servant is able to serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (riches, or [c]anything in which you trust and on which you rely).
14 Now the Pharisees, who were covetous and lovers of money, heard all these things [taken together], and they began to sneer at and ridicule and scoff at Him.
15 But He said to them, You are the ones who declare yourselves just and upright before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted and highly thought of among men is detestable and abhorrent (an abomination) in the sight of God.(A)
16 Until John came, there were the Law and the Prophets; since then the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone strives violently to go in [would force his [d]own way rather than God’s way into it].
17 Yet it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to fail and become void.
18 Whoever divorces (dismisses and repudiates) his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.
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