Book of Common Prayer
For the Chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A contemplation by David.
55 Listen to my prayer, God.
Don’t hide yourself from my supplication.
2 Attend to me, and answer me.
I am restless in my complaint,
and moan 3 because of the voice of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they bring suffering on me.
In anger they hold a grudge against me.
4 My heart is severely pained within me.
The terrors of death have fallen on me.
5 Fearfulness and trembling have come on me.
Horror has overwhelmed me.
6 I said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove!
Then I would fly away, and be at rest.
7 Behold, then I would wander far off.
I would lodge in the wilderness.” Selah.
8 “I would hurry to a shelter from the stormy wind and storm.”
9 Confuse them, Lord, and confound their language,
for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they prowl around on its walls.
Malice and abuse are also within her.
11 Destructive forces are within her.
Threats and lies don’t depart from her streets.
12 For it was not an enemy who insulted me,
then I could have endured it.
Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me,
then I would have hidden myself from him.
13 But it was you, a man like me,
my companion, and my familiar friend.
14 We took sweet fellowship together.
We walked in God’s house with company.
15 Let death come suddenly on them.
Let them go down alive into Sheol.[a]
For wickedness is among them, in their dwelling.
16 As for me, I will call on God.
Yahweh will save me.
17 Evening, morning, and at noon, I will cry out in distress.
He will hear my voice.
18 He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me,
although there are many who oppose me.
19 God, who is enthroned forever,
will hear and answer them. Selah.
They never change
and don’t fear God.
20 He raises his hands against his friends.
He has violated his covenant.
21 His mouth was smooth as butter,
but his heart was war.
His words were softer than oil,
yet they were drawn swords.
22 Cast your burden on Yahweh and he will sustain you.
He will never allow the righteous to be moved.
23 But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction.
Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,
but I will trust in you.
By David.
138 I will give you thanks with my whole heart.
Before the gods,[a] I will sing praises to you.
2 I will bow down toward your holy temple,
and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth;
for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all.
3 In the day that I called, you answered me.
You encouraged me with strength in my soul.
4 All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Yahweh,
for they have heard the words of your mouth.
5 Yes, they will sing of the ways of Yahweh,
for Yahweh’s glory is great!
6 For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly;
but he knows the proud from afar.
7 Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me.
You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies.
Your right hand will save me.
8 Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me.
Your loving kindness, Yahweh, endures forever.
Don’t forsake the works of your own hands.
For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.
139 Yahweh, you have searched me,
and you know me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up.
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
but behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in behind and before.
You laid your hand on me.
6 This knowledge is beyond me.
It’s lofty.
I can’t attain it.
7 Where could I go from your Spirit?
Or where could I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol,[b] behold, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the dawn,
and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand will hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me.
The light around me will be night,”
12 even the darkness doesn’t hide from you,
but the night shines as the day.
The darkness is like light to you.
13 For you formed my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to you,
for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful.
My soul knows that very well.
15 My frame wasn’t hidden from you,
when I was made in secret,
woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my body.
In your book they were all written,
the days that were ordained for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is their sum!
18 If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand.
When I wake up, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would kill the wicked.
Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 For they speak against you wickedly.
Your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you?
Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred.
They have become my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart.
Try me, and know my thoughts.
18 Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 You shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates; 21 that your days and your children’s days may be multiplied in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth. 22 For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you—to do them, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cling to him— 23 then Yahweh will drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the western sea shall be your border. 25 No man will be able to stand before you. Yahweh your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you tread on, as he has spoken to you. 26 Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, but turn away out of the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.
5 For every high priest, being taken from among men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 2 The high priest can deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, because he himself is also surrounded with weakness. 3 Because of this, he must offer sacrifices for sins for the people, as well as for himself. 4 Nobody takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just like Aaron was. 5 So also Christ didn’t glorify himself to be made a high priest, but it was he who said to him,
“You are my Son.
Today I have become your father.”(A)
6 As he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
after the order of Melchizedek.”(B)
7 He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, 8 though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. 9 Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation, 10 named by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
4 Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself didn’t baptize, but his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed into Galilee. 4 He needed to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.[a]
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his children and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.[b] When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”
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