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Book of Common Prayer

Daily Old and New Testament readings based on the Book of Common Prayer.
Duration: 861 days
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)
Version
Psalm 16-17

16 The prayer of David. Hear, O Lord, my justice: attend to my supplication. Give ear unto my prayer, which proceedeth not from deceitful lips.

Let my judgment come forth from thy countenance: let thy eyes behold the things that are equitable.

Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.

That my mouth may not speak the works of men: for the sake of the words of thy lips, I have kept hard ways.

Perfect thou my goings in thy paths: that my footsteps be not moved.

I have cried to thee, for thou, O God, hast heard me: O incline thy ear unto me, and hear my words.

shew forth thy wonderful mercies; thou who savest them that trust in thee.

From them that resist thy right hand keep me, as the apple of thy eye. Protect me under the shadow of thy wings.

From the face of the wicked who have afflicted me. My enemies have surrounded my soul:

10 They have shut up their fat: their mouth hath spoken proudly.

11 They have cast me forth and now they have surrounded me: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth.

12 They have taken me, as a lion prepared for the prey; and as a young lion dwelling in secret places.

13 Arise, O Lord, disappoint him and supplant him; deliver my soul from the wicked one: thy sword

14 From the enemies of thy hand. O Lord, divide them from the few of the earth in their life: their belly is filled from thy hidden stores. They are full of children: and they have left to their little ones the rest of their substance.

15 But as for me, I will appear before thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear.

17 Unto the end, for David the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord the words of this canticle, in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hands of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. [2 Kings 22.]

I will love thee, O Lord, my strength:

The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer. My God is my helper, and in him will I put my trust. My protector and the horn of my salvation, and my support.

Praising I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies.

The sorrows of death surrounded me: and the torrents of iniquity troubled me.

The sorrows of hell encompassed me: and the snares of death prevented me.

In my affliction I called upon the Lord, and I cried to my God: And he heard my voice from his holy temple: and my cry before him came into his ears.

The earth shook and trembled: the foundations of the mountains were troubled and were moved, because he was angry with them.

There went up a smoke in his wrath: and a fire flamed from his face: coals were kindled by it.

10 He bowed the heavens, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

11 And he ascended upon the cherubim, and he flew; he flew upon the wings of the winds.

12 And he made darkness his covert, his pavilion round about him: dark waters in the clouds of the air.

13 At the brightness that was before him the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire.

14 And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the highest gave his voice: hail and coals of fire.

15 And he sent forth his arrows, and he scattered them: he multiplied lightnings, and troubled them.

16 Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were discovered: At thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the spirit of thy wrath.

17 He sent from on high, and took me: and received me out of many waters.

18 He delivered me from my strongest enemies, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me.

19 They prevented me in the day of my affliction: and the Lord became my protector.

20 And he brought me forth into a large place: he saved me, because he was well pleased with me.

21 And the Lord will reward me according to my justice; and will repay me according to the cleanness of my hands:

22 Because I have kept the ways of the Lord; and have not done wickedly against my God.

23 For till his judgments are in my sight: and his justices I have not put away from me.

24 And I shall be spotless with him: and shall keep myself from my iniquity.

25 And the Lord will reward me according to my justice; and according to the cleanness of my hands before his eyes.

26 With the holy, thou wilt be holy; and with the innocent man thou wilt be innocent.

27 And with the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted.

28 For thou wilt save the humble people; but wilt bring down the eyes of the proud.

29 For thou lightest my lamp, O Lord: O my God enlighten my darkness.

30 For by thee I shall be delivered from temptation; and through my God I shall go over a wall.

31 As for my God, his way is undefiled: the words of the Lord are fire tried: he is the protector of all that trust in him.

32 For who is God but the Lord? or who is God but our God?

33 God who hath girt me with strength; and made my way blameless.

34 Who hath made my feet like the feet of harts: and who setteth me upon high places.

35 Who teacheth my hands to war: and thou hast made my arms like a brazen bow.

36 And thou hast given me the protection of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath held me up: And thy discipline hath corrected me unto the end: and thy discipline, the same shall teach me.

37 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; and my feet are not weakened.

38 I will pursue after my enemies, and overtake them: and I will not turn again till they are consumed.

39 I will break them, and they shall not be able to stand: they shall fall under my feet.

40 And thou hast girded me with strength unto battle; and hast subdued under me them that rose up against me.

41 And thou hast made my enemies turn their back upon me, and hast destroyed them that hated me.

42 They cried, but there was none to save them, to the Lord: but he heard them not.

43 And I shall beat them as small as the dust before the wind; I shall bring them to nought, like the dirt in the streets.

44 Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people: thou wilt make me head of the Gentiles.

45 A people, which I knew not, hath served me: at the hearing of the ear they have obeyed me.

46 The children that are strangers have lied to me, strange children have faded away, and have halted from their paths.

47 The Lord liveth, and blessed be my God, and let the God of my salvation be exalted:

48 O God, who avengest me, and subduest the people under me, my deliverer from my enemies.

49 And thou wilt lift me up above them that rise up against me: from the unjust man thou wilt deliver me.

50 Therefore will I give glory to thee, O Lord, among the nations, and I will sing a psalm to thy name.

51 Giving great deliverance to his king, and shewing mercy to David his anointed: and to his seed for ever.

Psalm 22

22 A psalm for David. The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing.

He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment:

He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name's sake.

For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.

Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!

And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.

Ruth 4:1-17

Then Booz went up to the gate, and sat there. And when he had seen the kinsman going by, of whom he had spoken before, he said to him, calling him by his name: Turn aside for a little while, and sit down here. He turned aside, and sat down.

And Booz taking ten men of the ancients of the city, said to them: Sit ye down here.

They sat down, and he spoke to the kinsman: Noemi, who is returned from the country of Moab, will sell a parcel of land that belonged to our brother Elimelech.

I would have thee to understand this, and would tell thee before all that sit here, and before the ancients of my people. If thou wilt take possession of it by the right of kindred: buy it and possess it: but if it please thee not, tell me so, that I may know what I have to do. For there is no near kinsman besides thee, who art first, and me, who am second. But he answered: I will buy the field.

And Booz said to him: When thou shalt buy the field at the woman's hand, thou must take also Ruth the Moabitess, who was the wife of the deceased: to raise up the name of thy kinsman in his inheritance.

He answered: I yield up my right of next akin: for I must not cut off the posterity of my own family. Do thou make use of my privilege, which I profess I do willingly forego.

Now this in former times was the manner in Israel between kinsmen, that if at any time one yielded his right to another: that the grant might be sure, the man put off his shoe, and gave it to his neighhour; this was a testimony of cession of right in Israel.

So Booz said to his kinsman: Put off thy shoe. And immediately he took it off from his foot.

And he said to the ancients and to all the people: You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and Chelion's, and Mahalon's, of the hand of Noemi:

10 And have taken to wife Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahalon, to raise up the name of the deceased in his inheritance lest his name be cut off, from among his family and his brethren and his people. You, I say, are witnesses of this thing.

11 Then all the people that were in the gate, and the ancients answered: We are witnesses: The Lord make this woman who cometh into thy house, like Rachel, and Lia, who built up the house of Israel: that she may be an example of virtue in Ephrata, and may have a famous name in Bethlehem:

12 And that the house may be, as the house of Phares, whom Thamar bore unto Juda, of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman.

13 Booz therefore took Ruth, and married her: and went in unto her, and the Lord gave her to conceive and to bear a son.

14 And the women said to Noemi: Blessed be the Lord, who hath not suffered thy family to want a successor, that his name should be preserved in Israel.

15 And thou shouldst have one to comfort thy soul, and cherish thy old age. For he is born of thy daughter in law: who loveth thee: and is much better to thee, than if thou hadst seven sons.

16 And Noemi taking the child laid it in her bosom, and she carried it, and was a nurse unto it.

17 And the women her neighbours, congratulating with her and saying: There is a son born to Noemi: called his name Obed: he is the father of Isai, the father of David.

1 Timothy 5:17-25

17 Let the priests that rule well, be esteemed worthy of double honour: especially they who labour in the word and doctrine:

18 For the scripture saith: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn: and, The labourer is worthy of his reward.

19 Against a priest receive not an accusation, but under two or three witnesses.

20 Them that sin reprove before all: that the rest also may have fear.

21 I charge thee before God, and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by declining to either side.

22 Impose not hands lightly upon any man, neither be partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself chaste.

23 Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thy frequent infirmities.

24 Some men's sins are manifest, going before to judgment: and some men they follow after.

25 In like manner also good deeds are manifest: and they that are otherwise, cannot be hid.

Luke 14:1-11

14 And it came to pass, when Jesus went into the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees, on the sabbath day, to eat bread, that they watched him.

And behold, there was a certain man before him that had the dropsy.

And Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?

But they held their peace. But he taking him, healed him, and sent him away.

And answering them, he said: Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out, on the sabbath day?

And they could not answer him to these things.

And he spoke a parable also to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them:

When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honourable than thou be invited by him:

And he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee, Give this man place: and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place.

10 But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place; that when he who invited thee, cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee.

11 Because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.