Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41[a]
For the music director, a psalm of David.
41 How blessed[b] is the one who treats the poor properly.[c]
When trouble comes,[d] may[e] the Lord deliver him.[f]
2 May the Lord protect him and save his life.[g]
May he be blessed[h] in the land.
Do not turn him over[i] to his enemies.[j]
3 The Lord supports[k] him on his sickbed;
you have healed him from his illness.[l]
4 As for me, I said:[m]
“O Lord, have mercy on me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you.
5 My enemies ask this cruel question about me,[n]
‘When will he finally die and be forgotten?’[o]
6 When someone comes to visit,[p] he pretends to be friendly;[q]
he thinks of ways to defame me,[r]
and when he leaves he slanders me.[s]
7 All who hate me whisper insults about me to one another;[t]
they plan ways to harm me.
8 They say,[u]
‘An awful disease[v] overwhelms him,[w]
and now that he is bedridden he will never recover.’[x]
9 Even my close friend[y] whom I trusted,
he who shared meals with me, has turned against me.[z]
10 As for you, O Lord, have mercy on me and raise me up,
so I can pay them back!”[aa]
11 By this[ab] I know that you are pleased with me,
for my enemy does[ac] not triumph[ad] over me.
12 As for me, you uphold[ae] me because of my integrity;[af]
you allow[ag] me permanent access to your presence.[ah]
13 The Lord God of Israel deserves praise[ai]
in the future and forevermore.[aj]
We agree! We agree![ak]
Psalm 52[a]
For the music director, a well-written song[b] by David. It was written when Doeg the Edomite went and informed Saul: “David has arrived at the home of Ahimelech.”[c]
52 Why do you boast about your evil plans,[d] O powerful man?
God’s loyal love protects me all day long.[e]
2 Your tongue carries out your destructive plans;[f]
it is as effective as a sharp razor, O deceiver.[g]
3 You love evil more than good,
lies more than speaking the truth.[h] (Selah)
4 You love to use all the words that destroy,[i]
and the tongue that deceives.
5 Yet[j] God will make you a permanent heap of ruins.[k]
He will scoop you up[l] and remove you from your home;[m]
he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)
6 When the godly see this, they will be filled with awe,
and will mock the evildoer, saying:[n]
7 “Look, here is the man who would not make[o] God his protector.
He trusted in his great wealth
and was confident about his plans to destroy others.”[p]
8 But I[q] am like a flourishing[r] olive tree in the house of God;
I continually[s] trust in God’s loyal love.
9 I will continually[t] thank you when[u] you execute judgment;[v]
I will rely on[w] you,[x] for your loyal followers know you are good.[y]
Psalm 44[a]
For the music director, by the Korahites; a well-written song.[b]
44 O God, we have clearly heard;[c]
our ancestors[d] have told us
what you did[e] in their days,
in ancient times.[f]
2 You, by your power,[g] defeated nations and settled our fathers on their land;[h]
you crushed[i] the people living there[j] and enabled our ancestors to occupy it.[k]
3 For they did not conquer[l] the land by their swords,
and they did not prevail by their strength,[m]
but rather by your power,[n] strength,[o] and good favor,[p]
for you were partial to[q] them.
4 You are my[r] king, O God.
Decree[s] Jacob’s[t] deliverance.
5 By your power[u] we will drive back[v] our enemies;
by your strength[w] we will trample down[x] our foes.[y]
6 For I do not trust in my bow,
and I do not prevail by my sword.
7 For you deliver[z] us from our enemies;
you humiliate[aa] those who hate us.
8 In God we boast all day long,
and we will continually give thanks to your name. (Selah)
9 But[ab] you rejected and embarrassed us.
You did not go into battle with our armies.[ac]
10 You made us retreat[ad] from the enemy.
Those who hate us take whatever they want from us.[ae]
11 You handed us[af] over like sheep to be eaten;
you scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold[ag] your people for a pittance;[ah]
you did not ask a high price for them.[ai]
13 You made us[aj] an object of disdain to our neighbors;
those who live on our borders taunt and insult us.[ak]
14 You made us[al] an object of ridicule[am] among the nations;
foreigners treat us with contempt.[an]
15 All day long I feel humiliated[ao]
and am overwhelmed with shame,[ap]
16 before the vindictive enemy
who ridicules and insults me.[aq]
17 All this has happened to us, even though we have not rejected you[ar]
or violated your covenant with us.[as]
18 We have not been unfaithful,[at]
nor have we disobeyed your commands.[au]
19 Yet you have battered us, leaving us a heap of ruins overrun by wild dogs;[av]
you have covered us with darkness.[aw]
20 If we had rejected our God,[ax]
and spread out our hands in prayer to another god,[ay]
21 would not God discover it,
for he knows[az] a person’s secret thoughts?[ba]
22 Yet because of you[bb] we are killed all day long;
we are treated like[bc] sheep at the slaughtering block.[bd]
23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Wake up![be] Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you look the other way,[bf]
and ignore[bg] the way we are oppressed and mistreated?[bh]
25 For we lie in the dirt,
with our bellies pressed to the ground.[bi]
26 Rise up and help us.
Rescue us[bj] because of your loyal love.
The Lord Appeals to the Exiles
48 Listen to this, O family of Jacob,[a]
you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’
and are descended from Judah,[b]
who take oaths in the name of the Lord,
and invoke[c] the God of Israel—
but not in an honest and just manner.[d]
2 Indeed, they live in the holy city;[e]
they trust in[f] the God of Israel,
whose name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
3 “I announced events beforehand,[g]
I issued the decrees and made the predictions;[h]
suddenly I acted and they came to pass.
4 I did this[i] because I know how stubborn you are.
Your neck muscles are like iron
and your forehead like bronze.[j]
5 I announced them to you beforehand;
before they happened, I predicted them for you,
so you could never say,
‘My image did these things,
my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’
6 You have heard; now look at all the evidence![k]
Will you not admit that what I say is true?[l]
From this point on I am announcing to you new events
that are previously unrevealed and you do not know about.[m]
7 Now they come into being,[n] not in the past;
before today you did not hear about them,
so you could not say,
‘Yes,[o] I know about them.’
8 You did not hear,
you do not know,
you were not told beforehand.[p]
For I know that you are very deceitful;[q]
you were labeled[r] a rebel from birth.
9 For the sake of my reputation[s] I hold back my anger;
for the sake of my prestige[t] I restrain myself from destroying you.[u]
10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have purified you[v] in the furnace of misery.
11 For my sake alone[w] I will act,
for how can I allow my name to be defiled?[x]
I will not share my glory with anyone else![y]
Salutation
1 From Paul,[a] an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead) 2 and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia. 3 Grace and peace to you[b] from God the Father and our[c] Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever! Amen.
Occasion of the Letter
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one[d] who called you by the grace of Christ[e] and are following[f] a different[g] gospel— 7 not that there really is another gospel,[h] but[i] there are some who are disturbing you and wanting[j] to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach[k] a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you,[l] let him be condemned to hell![m] 9 As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell![n] 10 Am I now trying to gain the approval of people,[o] or of God? Or am I trying to please people?[p] If I were still trying to please[q] people,[r] I would not be a slave[s] of Christ!
Paul’s Vindication of His Apostleship
11 Now[t] I want you to know, brothers and sisters,[u] that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.[v] 12 For I did not receive it or learn it from any human source;[w] instead I received it[x] by a revelation of Jesus Christ.[y]
13 For you have heard of my former way of life[z] in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it. 14 I[aa] was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation,[ab] and was[ac] extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.[ad] 15 But when the one[ae] who set me apart from birth[af] and called me by his grace was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in[ag] me so that I could preach him[ah] among the Gentiles, I did not go to ask advice from[ai] any human being,[aj] 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia,[ak] and then returned to Damascus.
Restoration and Healing
21 When Jesus had crossed again in a boat[a] to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea. 22 Then[b] one of the synagogue leaders,[c] named Jairus,[d] came up, and when he saw Jesus,[e] he fell at his feet. 23 He asked him urgently, “My little daughter is near death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.” 24 Jesus[f] went with him, and a large crowd followed and pressed around him.
25 Now[g] a woman was there who had been suffering from a hemorrhage[h] for twelve years.[i] 26 She had endured a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,[j] 28 for she kept saying,[k] “If only I touch his clothes, I will be healed.”[l] 29 At once the bleeding stopped,[m] and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Jesus knew at once that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 But[n] he looked around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.[o] Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s[p] house saying, “Your daughter has died. Why trouble the teacher any longer?” 36 But Jesus, paying no attention to what was said, told the synagogue leader, “Do not be afraid; just believe.” 37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James,[q] and John, the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the synagogue leader where[r] he saw noisy confusion and people weeping and wailing loudly.[s] 39 When he entered he said to them, “Why are you distressed and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep!” 40 And they began making fun of him.[t] But he forced them all outside,[u] and he took the child’s father and mother and his own companions[v] and went into the room where the child was.[w] 41 Then, gently taking the child by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up.” 42 The girl got up at once and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). They were completely astonished at this.[x] 43 He strictly ordered that no one should know about this,[y] and told them to give her something to eat.
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