Book of Common Prayer

40 Unto the end, a psalm for David himself.

² Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.

³ The Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth: and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

⁴ The Lord help him on his bed of sorrow: thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness.

⁵ I said: O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.

⁶ My enemies have spoken evils against me: when shall he die and his name perish?

⁷ And if he came in to see me, he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out and spoke to the same purpose.

⁸ All my enemies whispered together against me: they devised evils to me.

⁹ They determined against me an unjust word: shall he that sleepeth rise again no more?

¹⁰ For even the man of peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me.

¹¹ But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up again: and I will requite them.

¹² By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.

¹³ But thou hast upheld me by reason of my innocence: and hast established me in thy sight for ever.

¹⁴ Blessed by the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it.

54 Unto the end, in verses, understanding for David.

² Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my supplication:

³ Be attentive to me and hear me. I am grieved in my exercise; and am troubled,

⁴ At the voice of the enemy, and at the tribulation of the sinner. For they have cast iniquities upon me: and in wrath they were troublesome to me.

⁵ My heart is troubled within me: and the fear of death is fallen upon me.

⁶ Fear and trembling are come upon me: and darkness hath covered me.

⁷ And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?

⁸ Lo, I have gone far off flying away; and I abode in the wilderness.

⁹ I waited for him that hath saved me from pusillanimity of spirit, and a storm.

¹⁰ Cast down, O Lord, and divide their tongues; for I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city.

¹¹ Day and night shall iniquity surround it upon its walls: and in the midst thereof are labour,

¹² And injustice. And usury and deceit have not departed from its streets.

¹³ For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him.

¹⁴ But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar,

¹⁵ Who didst take sweetmeats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent.

¹⁶ Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell. For there is wickedness in their dwellings: in the midst of them.

¹⁷ But I have cried to God: and the Lord will save me.

¹⁸ Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice.

¹⁹ He shall redeem my soul in peace from them that draw near to me: for among many they were with me.

²⁰ God shall hear, and the Eternal shall humble them. For there is no change with them, and they have not feared God:

²¹ He hath stretched forth his hand to repay. They have defiled his covenant,

²² They are divided by the wrath Of his countenance, and his heart hath drawn near. His words are smoother than oil, and the same are darts.

²³ Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall not suffer the just to waver for ever.

²⁴ But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee, O Lord.

51 Unto the end, understanding for David,

² When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul David went to the house of Achimelech. [1 Kings 22.]

³ Why dost thou glory in malice, thou that art mighty in iniquity?

⁴ All the day long thy tongue hath devised injustice: as a sharp razor, thou hast wrought deceit.

⁵ Thou hast loved malice more than goodness: and iniquity rather than to speak righteousness.

⁶ Thou hast loved all the words of ruin, O deceitful tongue.

⁷ Therefore will God destroy thee for ever: he will pluck thee out, and remove thee from thy dwelling place: and thy root out of the land of the living.

⁸ The just shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, and say:

⁹ Behold the man that made not God his helper: But trusted in the abundance of his riches: and prevailed in his vanity.

¹⁰ But I, as a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God for ever, yea for ever and ever.

¹¹ I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name, for it is good in the sight of thy saints.

26 And when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, and hast conquered it, and dwellest in it:

² Thou shalt take the first of all thy fruits, and put then? in a basket, and shalt go to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may be invocated there:

³ And thou shalt go to the priest that shall be in those days, and say to him: I profess this day before the Lord thy God, that I am come into the land, for which he swore to our fathers, that he would give it us.

⁴ And the priest taking the basket at thy hand, shall set it before the altar of the Lord thy God:

⁵ And thou shalt speak thus in the sight of the Lord thy God: The Syrian pursued my father, who went down into Egypt, and sojourned there in a very small number, and grew into a nation great and strong and of an infinite multitude.

⁶ And the Egyptians afflicted us, and persecuted us, laying on us most grievous burdens:

⁷ And we cried to the Lord God of our fathers: who heard us, and looked down upon our affliction, and labour, and distress:

⁸ And brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders:

⁹ And brought us into this place, and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰ And therefore now I offer the firstfruits of the land which the Lord hath given me. And thou shalt leave them in the sight of the Lord thy God, adoring the Lord thy God.

¹¹ And thou shalt feast in all the good things which the Lord thy God hath given thee, and thy house, thou and the Levite, and the stranger that is with thee.

¹⁶ And thanks be to God, who hath given the same carefulness for you in the heart of Titus.

¹⁷ For indeed he accepted the exhortation; but being more careful, of his own will he went unto you.

¹⁸ We have sent also with him the brother, whose praise is in the gospel through all the churches.

¹⁹ And not that only, but he was also ordained by the churches companion of our travels, for this grace, which is administered by us, to the glory of the Lord, and our determined will:

²⁰ Avoiding this, lest any man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us.

²¹ For we forecast what may be good not only before God, but also before men.

²² And we have sent with them our brother also, whom we have often proved diligent in many things; but now much more diligent, with much confidence in you,

²³ Either for Titus, who is my companion and fellow labourer towards you, or our brethren, the apostles of the churches, the glory of Christ.

²⁴ Wherefore shew ye to them, in the sight of the churches, the evidence of your charity, and of our boasting on your behalf.

⁹ And to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others, he spoke also this parable:

¹⁰ Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

¹¹ The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican.

¹² I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.

¹³ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

¹⁴ I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.