Book of Common Prayer
For the Chief Musician. By David. A reminder.
70 Hurry, God, to deliver me.
Come quickly to help me, Yahweh.
2 Let them be disappointed and confounded who seek my soul.
Let those who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
3 Let them be turned because of their shame
who say, “Aha! Aha!”
4 Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation continually say,
“Let God be exalted!”
5 But I am poor and needy.
Come to me quickly, God.
You are my help and my deliverer.
Yahweh, don’t delay.
71 In you, Yahweh, I take refuge.
Never let me be disappointed.
2 Deliver me in your righteousness, and rescue me.
Turn your ear to me, and save me.
3 Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go.
Give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.
5 For you are my hope, Lord Yahweh,
my confidence from my youth.
6 I have relied on you from the womb.
You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb.
I will always praise you.
7 I am a marvel to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth shall be filled with your praise,
with your honor all day long.
9 Don’t reject me in my old age.
Don’t forsake me when my strength fails.
10 For my enemies talk about me.
Those who watch for my soul conspire together,
11 saying, “God has forsaken him.
Pursue and take him, for no one will rescue him.”
12 God, don’t be far from me.
My God, hurry to help me.
13 Let my accusers be disappointed and consumed.
Let them be covered with disgrace and scorn who want to harm me.
14 But I will always hope,
and will add to all of your praise.
15 My mouth will tell about your righteousness,
and of your salvation all day,
though I don’t know its full measure.
16 I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord Yahweh.
I will make mention of your righteousness, even of yours alone.
17 God, you have taught me from my youth.
Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.
18 Yes, even when I am old and gray-haired, God, don’t forsake me,
until I have declared your strength to the next generation,
your might to everyone who is to come.
19 God, your righteousness also reaches to the heavens.
You have done great things.
God, who is like you?
20 You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles,
you will let me live.
You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth.
21 Increase my honor
and comfort me again.
22 I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, my God.
I sing praises to you with the lyre, Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall shout for joy!
My soul, which you have redeemed, sings praises to you!
24 My tongue will also talk about your righteousness all day long,
for they are disappointed, and they are confounded,
who want to harm me.
A contemplation by Asaph.
74 God, why have you rejected us forever?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance:
Mount Zion, in which you have lived.
3 Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins,
all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
4 Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly.
They have set up their standards as signs.
5 They behaved like men wielding axes,
cutting through a thicket of trees.
6 Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers.
7 They have burned your sanctuary to the ground.
They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name.
8 They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.”
They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.
9 We see no miraculous signs.
There is no longer any prophet,
neither is there among us anyone who knows how long.
10 How long, God, shall the adversary reproach?
Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever?
11 Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand?
Take it from your chest and consume them!
12 Yet God is my King of old,
working salvation throughout the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your strength.
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
14 You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces.
You gave him as food to people and desert creatures.
15 You opened up spring and stream.
You dried up mighty rivers.
16 The day is yours, the night is also yours.
You have prepared the light and the sun.
17 You have set all the boundaries of the earth.
You have made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, Yahweh.
Foolish people have blasphemed your name.
19 Don’t deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts.
Don’t forget the life of your poor forever.
20 Honor your covenant,
for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.
21 Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed.
Let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, God! Plead your own cause.
Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day.
23 Don’t forget the voice of your adversaries.
The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.
55 “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters!
Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat!
Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in richness.
3 Turn your ear, and come to me.
Hear, and your soul will live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander to the peoples.
5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know;
and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you,
because of Yahweh your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel;
for he has glorified you.”
6 Seek Yahweh while he may be found.
Call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him,
to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
and your ways are not my ways,” says Yahweh.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky,
and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth,
and makes it grow and bud,
and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11 so is my word that goes out of my mouth:
it will not return to me void,
but it will accomplish that which I please,
and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
12 For you shall go out with joy,
and be led out with peace.
The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing;
and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up;
and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up.
It will make a name for Yahweh,
for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”
5 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
2 Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 4 You are alienated from Christ, you who desire to be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision amounts to anything, but faith working through love.
7 You were running well! Who interfered with you that you should not obey the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little yeast grows through the whole lump. 10 I have confidence toward you in the Lord that you will think no other way. But he who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
11 But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish that those who disturb you would cut themselves off.
13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”(A) 15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
27 Jesus went out, with his disciples, into the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”
28 They told him, “John the Baptizer, and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets.”
29 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
30 He commanded them that they should tell no one about him. 31 He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke to them openly. Peter took him and began to rebuke him. 33 But he, turning around and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you have in mind not the things of God, but the things of men.”
34 He called the multitude to himself with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the sake of the Good News will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 37 For what will a man give in exchange for his life? 38 For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
9 He said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, there are some standing here who will in no way taste death until they see God’s Kingdom come with power.”
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