Book of Common Prayer
To the Director: A Davidic Psalm.
When Things Go Wrong
41 Blessed is the one who is considerate of the destitute;[a]
the Lord will deliver him when the times are evil.
2 The Lord will protect him and keep him alive;
he will be blessed in the land;
and he will not be handed over to the desires of his enemies.
3 The Lord will uphold him even on his sickbed;
you will transform his bed of illness into health.
4 As for me, I said,
“Lord, be gracious to me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
5 As for my enemies, with malice they said,
“When will he die and memory of[b] his name perish?”
6 The one who comes to visit me speaks lies;
in his heart he thinks slanderous things about me
and goes around spreading them.
7 As for all who hate me,
they whisper together against me;
they desire to do me harm.
8 They say, “Wickedness is entrenched in him.
Once he is brought low,
he will not rise again.”
9 As for my best friend,
the one in whom I trusted,
the one who ate my bread,
even he has insulted[c] me!
10 But you, Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up
so that I may pay them back!
11 In this way I will know that you are pleased with me,
and that my enemies will not shout in triumph over me.
12 As for me, you will maintain my just cause,
and you will cause me to stand in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
from eternity to eternity.
Amen and amen!
To the Director: A Davidic instruction[a] about Doeg, the Edomite, when he went to Saul and told him, “David went to the house of Abimelech.”
A Rebuke to the Deceitful
52 Why do you make evil
the foundation of your boasting, mighty one?[b]
God’s gracious love never ceases.[c]
2 Your tongue, like a sharp razor, devises wicked things
and crafts treachery.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking uprightly.
4 You love all words that destroy, you deceitful tongue!
5 But God will tear you down forever;
he will take you away,
even snatching you out of your tent!
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will fear when they see this,
but then they will laugh at him, saying,
7 “Look, here is a young man who refused to make God his strength;
instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and made his wickedness his strength.
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the gracious love of God forever and ever.
9 Therefore I will praise you forever
because of what you did;
I will proclaim that your name is good
in the midst of your faithful ones.
To the Director: An instruction[a] of the Sons of Korah.
A Prayer in Times of Defeat
44 God, we heard it with our ears;
our ancestors told us about what you did in their day—
a long time ago.
2 With your hand you expelled the nations
and established our ancestors.[b]
You afflicted nations
and cast them out.
3 It was not with their sword that they inherited the land,
nor did their own arm deliver them.
But it was by your power,[c] your strength,
and by the light of your face;
because you were pleased with them.
4 You are my king, God,
command[d] victories[e] for Jacob.
5 Through you we will knock down our oppressors;
through your name we will tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I place no confidence in my bow,
nor will my sword deliver me.
7 For you delivered us from our oppressors
and put to shame those who hate us.
8 We will praise God all day long;
and to your name we will give thanks forever.
9 However, you cast us off and made us ashamed!
You did not even march with our armies!
10 You made us retreat from our oppressors.
Our enemies ransacked us.
11 You handed us over to be slaughtered like sheep
and you scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold out your people for nothing,
and made no profit at that price.
13 You made us a laughing stock to our neighbors,
a source of mockery and derision to those around us.
14 You made us an object lesson among the nations;
people shake their heads at us.[f]
15 My dishonor tortures[g] me continuously;[h]
the shame on my face overwhelms[i] me
16 because of the voice of the one who mocks and reviles,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this came upon us,
yet we did not forsake you,
and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant;
18 Our hearts have not turned away;
our steps have not swerved from your path.
19 Nevertheless, you crushed us in the lair of jackals,
and covered us in deep darkness.[j]
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or lifted our hands to a foreign god,
21 wouldn’t God find out
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 For your sake we are being killed all day long.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Wake up! Why are you asleep, Lord?
Get up! Don’t cast us off forever!
24 Why are you hiding your face?
Why are you ignoring our affliction and oppression?
25 For we[k] have collapsed in the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Arise! Deliver us!
Redeem us according to your gracious love!
Greetings from Paul
1 From:[a] Paul, an apostle of the Messiah[b] Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother.
2 To: The holy[c] and faithful brothers in Colossae who are in union with the Messiah.[d]
May grace and peace from God our Father[e] be yours!
Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians
3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah,[f] praying always for you, 4 because we have heard about your faith in the Messiah[g] Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints, 5 based on the hope laid up for you in heaven. Some time ago you heard about this hope[h] through the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and spreading all over the world, so it has been doing[i] among you from the day you heard it and came to know the grace of God in truth. 7 You learned about this gospel[j] from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of the Messiah[k] on your[l] behalf. 8 He has told us about your love in the Spirit.
The Messiah is Above All
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about this, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of God’s[m] will with respect to all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you might live in a manner worthy of the Lord and be fully pleasing to him[n] as you bear fruit while doing all kinds of good things and growing in the full knowledge of God. 11 You are being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you might patiently endure everything with joy 12 and might thank the Father, who has enabled us[o] to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. 13 God[p] has rescued us from the power of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom he loves, 14 through whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath(A)
6 One time Jesus[a] was walking through some grain fields on a Sabbath.[b] His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what isn’t lawful on Sabbath days?”[c]
3 Jesus answered them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions became hungry? 4 How was it that he went into the house of God, took the Bread of the Presence and ate it, which was not lawful for anyone but the priests to eat, and then gave some of it to his companions?”
5 Then he told them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus Heals a Man with a Paralyzed Hand(B)
6 Once, on another Sabbath, Jesus[d] went into a synagogue and began teaching. A man whose right hand was paralyzed was there. 7 The scribes and the Pharisees were watching Jesus[e] closely to see[f] whether he would heal on the Sabbath, in order to find a way of accusing him of doing something wrong. 8 But Jesus[g] knew what they were thinking. So he told the man with the paralyzed hand, “Get up, and stand in the middle of the synagogue.”[h] So he got up and stood there.
9 Then Jesus asked them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?”
10 He looked around at all of them and then told the man,[i] “Hold out your hand.” The man[j] did so, and his hand was restored to health. 11 The others were furious[k] and began to discuss with each other what they could do to Jesus.
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