Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 25

[A Psalm] of David.

¹ Unto You, O Lord, do I bring my life.

² O my God, I trust, lean on, rely on, and am confident in You. Let me not be put to shame or [my hope in You] be disappointed; let not my enemies triumph over me.

³ Yes, let none who trust and wait hopefully and look for You be put to shame or be disappointed; let them be ashamed who forsake the right or deal treacherously without cause.

⁴ Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths.

⁵ Guide me in Your truth and faithfulness and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You [You only and altogether] do I wait [expectantly] all the day long.

⁶ Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercy and loving-kindness; for they have been ever from of old.

⁷ Remember not the sins (the lapses and frailties) of my youth or my transgressions; according to Your mercy and steadfast love remember me, for Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord; therefore will He instruct sinners in [His] way.

⁹ He leads the humble in what is right, and the humble He teaches His way.

¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are mercy and steadfast love, even truth and faithfulness are they for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.

¹¹ For Your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity and my guilt, for [they are] great.

¹² Who is the man who reverently fears and worships the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that he should choose.

¹³ He himself shall dwell at ease, and his offspring shall inherit the land.

¹⁴ The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him, and He will show them His covenant and reveal to them its [deep, inner] meaning.^(A)

¹⁵ My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.

¹⁶ [Lord] turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

¹⁷ The troubles of my heart are multiplied; bring me out of my distresses.

¹⁸ Behold my affliction and my pain and forgive all my sins [of thinking and doing].

¹⁹ Consider my enemies, for they abound; they hate me with cruel hatred.

²⁰ O keep me, Lord, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed or disappointed, for my trust and my refuge are in You.

²¹ Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for and expect You.

²² Redeem Israel, O God, out of all their troubles.

Psalm 9

To the Chief Musician; set for [possibly] soprano voices. A Psalm of David.

¹ I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will show forth (recount and tell aloud) all Your marvelous works and wonderful deeds!

² I will rejoice in You and be in high spirits; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High!

³ When my enemies turned back, they stumbled and perished before You.

⁴ For You have maintained my right and my cause; You sat on the throne judging righteously.

⁵ You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their name forever and ever.

⁶ The enemy have been cut off and have vanished in everlasting ruins, You have plucked up and overthrown their cities; the very memory of them has perished and vanished.

⁷ But the Lord shall remain and continue forever; He has prepared and established His throne for judgment.^(A)

⁸ And He will judge the world in righteousness (rightness and equity); He will minister justice to the peoples in uprightness.^(B)

⁹ The Lord also will be a refuge and a high tower for the oppressed, a refuge and a stronghold in times of trouble (high cost, destitution, and desperation).

¹⁰ And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God’s Word and the right of their necessity].^(C)

¹¹ Sing praises to the Lord, Who dwells in Zion! Declare among the peoples His doings!

¹² For He Who avenges the blood [of His people shed unjustly] remembers them; He does not forget the cry of the afflicted (the poor and the humble).

¹³ Have mercy upon me and be gracious to me, O Lord; consider how I am afflicted by those who hate me, You Who lift me up from the gates of death,

¹⁴ That I may show forth (recount and tell aloud) all Your praises! In the gates of the Daughter of Zion I will rejoice in Your salvation and Your saving help.

¹⁵ The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made; in the net which they hid is their own foot caught.

¹⁶ The Lord has made Himself known; He executes judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion [meditation]. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

¹⁷ The wicked shall be turned back [headlong into premature death] into Sheol (the place of the departed spirits of the wicked), even all the nations that forget or are forgetful of God.

¹⁸ For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the expectation and hope of the meek and the poor shall not perish forever.

¹⁹ Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before You.

²⁰ Put them in fear [make them realize their frail nature], O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

Psalm 15

A Psalm of David.

¹ Lord, who shall dwell [temporarily] in Your tabernacle? Who shall dwell [permanently] on Your holy hill?

² He who walks and lives uprightly and blamelessly, who works rightness and justice and speaks and thinks the truth in his heart,

³ He who does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his friend, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor;

⁴ In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he who honors those who fear the Lord (who revere and worship Him); who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

⁵ [He who] does not put out his money for ^[a]interest [to one of his own people] and who will not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.^(A)

⁹ Only take heed, and guard your life diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your [mind and] heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your children and your children’s children—

¹⁰ Especially how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, the Lord said to me, Gather the people together to Me and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn [reverently] to fear Me all the days they live upon the earth and that they may teach their children.

¹¹ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick gloom.

¹² And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.

¹³ And He declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tables of stone.

¹⁴ And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you the statutes and precepts, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.

1 Paul, an apostle (a special messenger) of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy [our] brother, to the church (assembly) of God which is at Corinth, and to all the saints (the people of God) throughout Achaia (most of Greece):

² Grace (favor and spiritual blessing) to you and [heart] peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),

⁴ Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God.

⁵ For just as Christ’s [^[a]own] sufferings fall to our lot ^[b][as they overflow upon His disciples, and we share and experience them] abundantly, so through Christ comfort (consolation and encouragement) is also [shared and experienced] abundantly by us.

⁶ But if we are troubled (afflicted and distressed), it is for your comfort (consolation and encouragement) and [for your] salvation; and if we are comforted (consoled and encouraged), it is for your comfort (consolation and encouragement), which works [in you] when you patiently endure the same evils (misfortunes and calamities) that we also suffer and undergo.

⁷ And our hope for you [our joyful and confident expectation of good for you] is ever unwavering (assured and unshaken); for we know that just as you share and are partners in [our] sufferings and calamities, you also share and are partners in [our] comfort (consolation and encouragement).

⁸ For we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about the affliction and oppressing distress which befell us in [the province of] Asia, how we were so utterly and unbearably weighed down and crushed that we despaired even of life [itself].

⁹ Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.

¹⁰ [For it is He] Who rescued and saved us from such a perilous death, and He will still rescue and save us; in and on Him we have set our hope (our joyful and confident expectation) that He will again deliver us [from danger and destruction and ^[c]draw us to Himself],

¹¹ While you also cooperate by your prayers for us [helping and laboring together with us]. Thus [the lips of] many persons [turned toward God will eventually] give thanks on our behalf for the grace (the blessing of deliverance) granted us at the request of the many who have prayed.

²⁵ Now huge crowds were going along with [Jesus], and He turned and said to them,

²⁶ If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his [own] father and mother [^[a]in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God] and [likewise] his wife and children and brothers and sisters—[yes] and even his own life also—he cannot be My disciple.

²⁷ Whoever does not persevere and carry his own cross and come after (follow) Me cannot be My disciple.

²⁸ For which of you, wishing to build a ^[b]farm building, does not first sit down and calculate the cost [to see] whether he has sufficient means to finish it?

²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is unable to complete [the building], all who see it will begin to mock and jeer at him,

³⁰ Saying, This man began to build and was not able (^[c]worth enough) to finish.

³¹ Or what king, going out to engage in conflict with another king, will not first sit down and consider and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand [men] to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?

³² And if he cannot [do so], when the other king is still a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks the terms of peace.

³³ So then, any of you who does not forsake (renounce, surrender claim to, give up, ^[d]say good-bye to) all that he has cannot be My disciple.

³⁴ Salt is good [an excellent thing], but if salt has lost its strength and has become saltless (insipid, flat), how shall its saltness be restored?

³⁵ It is fit neither for the land nor for the manure heap; men throw it away. He who has ears to hear, let him listen and consider and comprehend by hearing!