Book of Common Prayer
An instruction. Of Asaph.
78 Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter riddles from of old,
3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us:
4 We will not hide [them] from their sons, shewing forth to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah, and his strength, and his marvellous works which he hath done.
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
6 That the generation to come might know [them], the children that should be born; that they might rise up and tell [them] to their children,
7 And that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but observe his commandments;
8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that prepared not their heart, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
9 The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
11 And forgot his doings, and his marvellous works which he had shewn them.
12 In the sight of their fathers had he done wonders, in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan.
13 He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through; and made the waters to stand as a heap;
14 And he led them with a cloud in the daytime, and all the night with the light of fire.
15 He clave rocks in the wilderness, and gave [them] drink as out of the depths, abundantly;
16 And he brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17 Yet they still went on sinning against him, provoking the Most High in the desert;
18 And they tempted God in their heart, by asking meat for their lust;
19 And they spoke against God: they said, Is God able to prepare a table in the wilderness?
20 Behold, he smote the rock, and waters gushed out, and streams overflowed; is he able to give bread also, or provide flesh for his people?
21 Therefore Jehovah heard, and was wroth; and fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also went up against Israel:
22 Because they believed not in God, and confided not in his salvation;
23 Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and had opened the doors of the heavens,
24 And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them the corn of the heavens.
25 Man did eat the bread of the mighty; he sent them provision to the full.
26 He caused the east wind to rise in the heavens, and by his strength he brought the south wind;
27 And he rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the seas,
28 And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations:
29 And they did eat, and were well filled; for that they lusted after, he brought to them.
30 They were not alienated from their lust, their meat was yet in their mouths,
31 When the anger of God went up against them; and he slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
32 For all this, they sinned still, and believed not in his marvellous works;
33 And he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
34 When he slew them, then they sought him, and returned and sought early after God;
35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and God, the Most High, their redeemer.
36 But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied unto him with their tongue;
37 For their heart was not firm toward him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.
38 But he was merciful: he forgave the iniquity, and destroyed [them] not; but many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his fury:
39 And he remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passeth away and cometh not again.
40 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert!
41 And they turned again and tempted God, and grieved the Holy One of Israel.
42 They remembered not his hand, the day when he delivered them from the oppressor,
43 How he set his signs in Egypt, and his miracles in the field of Zoan;
44 And turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink;
45 He sent dog-flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them;
46 And he gave their increase unto the caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust;
47 He killed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with hail-stones;
48 And he delivered up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and distress,—a mission of angels of woes.
50 He made a way for his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;
51 And he smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the first-fruits of their vigour in the tents of Ham.
52 And he made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
53 And he led them safely, so that they were without fear; and the sea covered their enemies.
54 And he brought them to his holy border, this mountain, which his right hand purchased;
55 And he drove out the nations before them, and allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56 But they tempted and provoked God, the Most High, and kept not his testimonies,
57 And they drew back and dealt treacherously like their fathers: they turned like a deceitful bow.
58 And they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.
59 God heard, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel:
60 And he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men,
61 And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor;
62 And delivered up his people unto the sword, and was very wroth with his inheritance:
63 The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not praised in [nuptial] song;
64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine;
66 And he smote his adversaries in the hinder part, and put them to everlasting reproach.
67 And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
68 But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved;
69 And he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he hath founded for ever.
70 And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds:
71 From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.
72 And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands.
21 Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
22 For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt;
23 but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt, unto this day, have I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them;
26 but they have not hearkened unto me, nor inclined their ear; and they have hardened their neck: they have done worse than their fathers.
27 And thou shalt speak all these words unto them, but they will not hearken unto thee; and thou shalt call unto them, but they will not answer thee.
28 And thou shalt say unto them, This is the nation which hath not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah their God, nor received correction; fidelity is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
29 Cut off thy hair, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the heights; for Jehovah hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.
30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith Jehovah; they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.
31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither did it come up into my mind.
32 Therefore, behold, days are coming, saith Jehovah, when it shall no more be said, Topheth, and Valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place.
33 And the carcases of this people shall be food for the fowl of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall scare [them] away.
34 And I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a waste.
13 For [it was] not by law that the promise was to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of [the] world, but by righteousness of faith.
14 For if they which [are] of law be heirs, faith is made vain, and the promise made of no effect.
15 For law works wrath; but where no law is neither [is there] transgression.
16 Therefore [it is] on the principle of faith, that [it might be] according to grace, in order to the promise being sure to all the seed, not to that only which [is] of the law, but to that also which [is] of Abraham's faith, who is father of us all,
17 (according as it is written, I have made thee father of many nations,) before the God whom he believed, who quickens the dead, and calls the things which be not as being;
18 who against hope believed in hope to his becoming father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be:
19 and not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body already become dead, being about a hundred years old, and the deadening of Sarah's womb,
20 and hesitated not at the promise of God through unbelief; but found strength in faith, giving glory to God;
21 and being fully persuaded that what he has promised he is able also to do;
22 wherefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
23 Now it was not written on his account alone that it was reckoned to him,
24 but on ours also, to whom, believing on him who has raised from among [the] dead Jesus our Lord,
25 who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification, it will be reckoned.
37 In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.
38 He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for [the] Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
40 [Some] out of the crowd therefore, having heard this word, said, This is truly the prophet.
41 Others said, This is the Christ. Others said, Does then the Christ come out of Galilee?
42 Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David, and from the village of Bethlehem, where David was?
43 There was a division therefore in the crowd on account of him.
44 But some of them desired to take him, but no one laid hands upon him.
45 The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, Why have ye not brought him?
46 The officers answered, Never man spoke thus, as this man [speaks].
47 The Pharisees therefore answered them, Are ye also deceived?
48 Has any one of the rulers believed on him, or of the Pharisees?
49 But this crowd, which does not know the law, are accursed.
50 Nicodemus says to them (being one of themselves),
51 Does our law judge a man before it have first heard from himself, and know what he does?
52 They answered and said to him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search and look, that no prophet arises out of Galilee.
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