Book of Common Prayer
Worship and Obedience
95 Come! Let us sing joyfully to the Lord!
Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us shout with songs of praise to him.
3 For the Lord is an awesome God;
a great king above all divine beings.[a]
4 He holds in his hand the lowest parts of the earth
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea that he made belongs to him,
along with the dry land that his hands formed.
6 Come! Let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel in the presence of the Lord, who made us.
7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock in his care.[b]
If only you would listen to his voice today,
8 do not be stubborn like your ancestors were[c] at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah, in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me.
They tested me,
even though they had seen my awesome deeds.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation, so I said,
“They are a people whose hearts continuously err,
and they have not understood my ways.”
11 So in my anger I declared an oath:
“They are not to enter my place of rest.”
A song. A psalm by the descendants of Korah. According to Machalath Leannoth. An instruction[a] by Heman the Ezrahite.
A Cry for Help
88 Lord, God of my salvation,
by day and by night I cry out before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
listen[b] to my cry.
3 For my life is filled with troubles
as I approach Sheol.[c]
4 I am considered as one of those descending into the Pit,[d]
like a mighty man without strength,
5 released to remain[e] with the dead,
lying in a grave like a corpse,
remembered no longer,
and cut off from your power.
6 You have assigned me to the lowest part of the Pit,[f]
to the darkest depths.
7 Your anger lies heavily upon me;
you pound[g] me with all your waves.
8 You caused my acquaintances to shun me;[h]
you make me extremely abhorrent to them.
Restrained, I am unable to go out.
9 My eyes languish on account of my affliction;
all day long I call out to you, Lord,
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Can you perform wonders for the dead?
Can departed spirits stand up to praise you?
11 Can your gracious love be declared in the grave
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?[i]
12 Can your awesome deeds be known in darkness
or your righteousness in the land of oblivion?
13 As for me, I cry out to you Lord,
and in the morning my prayer greets you.
14 Why, Lord, have you rejected me?
Why have you hidden your face from me?
15 Since my youth I have been oppressed
and in danger of death.
I bear your dread
and am overwhelmed.
16 Your burning anger overwhelms me;
your terrors destroy me.
17 Like waters, they engulf me all day long;
they surround me on all sides.
18 You caused my friend and neighbor to shun me;[j]
and my acquaintances are confused.[k]
Davidic
Confidence in the Lord
27 The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom will I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
of whom will I be afraid?
2 When those who practice evil, my enemies, and my oppressors
come near me to devour my flesh,
they stumble and fall.
3 If an army encamps against me,
my heart will not fear.
If a war is launched against me,
I will even trust in that situation.
4 I have asked one thing from the Lord;
it is what I really seek:
that I may remain in the Lord’s Temple
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord;
and to inquire in his Temple.
5 For he will conceal me in his shelter on the day of evil;
He will hide me in a secluded chamber within his tent;
He will place me on a high rock.
6 Now my head will be lifted up above my enemies,
even those who surround me.
I will sacrifice in his tent with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melodies to the Lord.
7 Hear my voice, Lord, when I cry out!
Be gracious to me and answer me.
8 My mind recalls your word,[a]
“Seek my face,”
so your face, Lord, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me;
do not turn away in anger from your servant.
You have been my help,
therefore do not abandon or forsake me,
God of my salvation.
10 Though my father and my mother abandoned me,
the Lord gathers me up.
11 Teach me your way, Lord,
and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.
12 Do not hand me over to the desires of my enemies;
for false witnesses have risen up against me;
even the one who breathes out violence.
13 I believe that I will see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
14 Wait on the Lord.
Be courageous, and he will strengthen your heart.
Wait on the Lord!
Job Pleads with His Friends
21 “Be gracious to me, be gracious to me, my friends,
because God’s hand has struck me.
22 Why are you chasing me, as God has been doing?
Aren’t you satisfied that I’m sick?[a]
23 If only my words were written down;
if only they were inscribed in a book
24 using an iron stylus with lead for ink!
Then they’d be engraved in rock forever.
25 “As for me, I know that my Vindicator[b] is alive;
And he, the Last One,[c] will take his stand on the soil.[d]
26 Even after my skin has been destroyed,
clothed in my flesh I will see God,
27 whom I will see for myself.
My own eyes will look at him—
there won’t be anyone else for me!—
He is the culmination of my innermost desire.”
We Must Enter the Rest
4 Therefore, as long as the promise of entering his rest remains valid, let us be afraid! Otherwise, some of you will fail[a] to reach it, 2 because we have had the good news told to us as well as to them. But the message they heard did not help them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened to it. 3 We who have believed are entering that rest, just as he has said,
“So in my anger I swore a solemn oath
that they would never enter my rest,”[b]
even though his actions had been finished since the creation[c] of the world. 4 Somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day as follows: “On the seventh day God rested from all his actions,”[d] 5 and again in this passage,[e] “They will never enter my rest.”[f] 6 Therefore, since it is still true that some will enter it, and since those who once heard the good news failed to enter it because of their disobedience, 7 he again fixes a definite day—“Today”—saying long afterward through David, as already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”[g]
8 For if Joshua[h] had given them rest, he would not have spoken later about another day.
9 There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God to keep, 10 because the one who enters God’s[i] rest has himself rested from his own actions, just as God did[j] from his. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fail by following their example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, as it judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart. 13 No creature can hide from him, but everyone is exposed and helpless before the eyes of the one to whom we must give a word of explanation.
Our Compassionate High Priest
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us live our lives consistent with[k] our confession of faith.[l] 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Instead, we have one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet he never sinned. 16 So let us keep on coming boldly to the throne of grace, so that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
The Spirit Gives Life
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in union with the Messiah[a] Jesus.[b] 2 For the Spirit’s law of life in the Messiah[c] Jesus has set me[d] free from the Law of sin and death. 3 For what the Law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the form of humanity,[e] he condemned sin by being incarnate, 4 so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to human nature but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To focus our minds on the human nature leads to death, but to focus our minds on the Spirit leads to life and peace. 7 That is why the mind that focuses on human nature is hostile toward God. It refuses to submit to the authority of God’s Law because it is powerless to do so. 8 Indeed, those who are under the control of human nature cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not under the control of the human nature but under the control of the Spirit, since God’s Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of the Messiah,[f] he does not belong to him. 10 But if the Messiah[g] is in you, your bodies are dead due to sin, but the spirit[h] is alive due to righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then the one who raised the Messiah[i] from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive by his Spirit who lives in you.
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