Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 66
To the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.
1 Make a joyful noise unto God, all the earth;
2 Sing forth the honor and glory of His name; make His praise glorious!
3 Say to God, How awesome and fearfully glorious are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power shall Your enemies submit themselves to You [with feigned and reluctant obedience].
4 All the earth shall bow down to You and sing [praises] to You; they shall praise Your name in song. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
5 Come and see the works of God; see how [to save His people He smites their foes; He is] terrible in His doings toward the children of men.
6 He turned the sea into dry land, they crossed through the river on foot; there did we rejoice in Him.
7 He rules by His might forever, His eyes observe and keep watch over the nations; let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
8 Bless our God, O peoples, give Him grateful thanks and make the voice of His praise be heard,
9 Who put and kept us among the living, and has not allowed our feet to slip.
10 For You, O God, have proved us; You have tried us as silver is tried, refined, and purified.
11 You brought us into the net (the prison fortress, the dungeon); You laid a heavy burden upon our loins.
12 You caused men to ride over our heads [when we were prostrate]; we went through fire and through water, but You brought us out into a broad, moist place [to abundance and refreshment and the open air].
13 I will come into Your house with burnt offerings [of entire consecration]; I will pay You my vows,
14 Which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in distress.
15 I will offer to You burnt offerings of fat lambs, with rams consumed in sweet-smelling smoke; I will offer bullocks and he-goats. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
16 Come and hear, all you who reverently and worshipfully fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me!
17 I cried aloud to Him; He was extolled and high praise was under my tongue.
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;(A)
19 But certainly God has heard me; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God, Who has not rejected my prayer nor removed His mercy and loving-kindness from being [as it always is] with me.
2 And He said to me [Ezekiel], Son of man, stand upon your feet and I will speak to you.
2 And the Spirit entered into me when He spoke to me and set me upon my feet, and I heard Him speaking to me.
3 And He said to me, I send you, son of man, to the children of Israel, two rebellious nations that have rebelled against Me. They and their fathers have transgressed against Me even to this very day.
4 And the children are impudent and hard of heart. I send you to them and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God.
5 And they, whether they will hear or refuse to hear—for they are a rebellious house—yet shall they know and realize that there has been a prophet among them.
6 And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words; though briers and thorns are all around you and you dwell and sit among scorpions, be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.
7 And you shall speak My words to them whether they will hear or refuse to hear, for they are most rebellious.
11 Now the apostles (special messengers) and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard [with astonishment] that the Gentiles (heathen) also had received and accepted and welcomed the Word of God [the doctrine concerning the attainment through Christ of salvation in the kingdom of God].
2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party [certain Jewish Christians] found fault with him [separating themselves from him in a hostile spirit, opposing and disputing and contending with him],
3 Saying, Why did you go to uncircumcised men and [even] eat with them?
4 But Peter began [at the beginning] and narrated and explained to them step by step [the whole list of events]. He said:
5 I was in the town of Joppa praying, and [falling] in a trance I saw a vision of something coming down from heaven, like a huge sheet lowered by the four corners; and it descended until it came to me.
6 Gazing intently and closely at it, I observed in it [a variety of] four-footed animals and wild beasts and reptiles of the earth and birds of the air,
7 And I heard a voice saying to me, Get up, Peter; kill and eat.
8 But I said, No, by no means, Lord; for nothing common or unhallowed or [ceremonially] unclean has ever entered my mouth.
9 But the voice answered a second time from heaven, What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding or calling it common or unhallowed or unclean.
10 This occurred three times, and then all was drawn up again into heaven.
11 And right then the three men sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house in which we were.
12 And the [Holy] Spirit instructed me to accompany them without [the least] hesitation or misgivings or discrimination. So these six brethren accompanied me also, and we went into the man’s house.
13 And he related to us how he had seen the angel in his house which stood and said to him, Send men to Joppa and bring Simon who is surnamed Peter;
14 He will give and explain to you a message by means of which you and all your household [as well] will be saved [[a]from eternal death].
15 When I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He did on us at the beginning.(A)
16 Then I recalled the declaration of the Lord, how He said, John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with ([b]be placed in, introduced into) the Holy Spirit.
17 If then God gave to them the same Gift [equally] as He gave to us when we believed in (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on) the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I and what power or authority had I to interfere or hinder or forbid or withstand God?
18 When they heard this, they were quieted and made no further objection. And they glorified God, saying, Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance [c]unto [real] life [after resurrection].
Psalm 97
1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles and coastlands be glad!
2 Clouds and darkness are round about Him [as at Sinai]; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.(A)
3 Fire goes before Him and burns up His adversaries round about.
4 His lightnings illumine the world; the earth sees and trembles.
5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
6 The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory.
7 Let all those be put to shame who serve graven images, who boast in idols. Fall prostrate before Him, all you gods.(B)
8 Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced [in relief] because of Your judgments, O Lord.
9 For You, Lord, are high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods.
10 O you who love the Lord, hate evil; He preserves the lives of His saints (the children of God), He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.(C)
11 Light is sown for the [uncompromisingly] righteous and strewn along their pathway, and joy for the upright in heart [the irrepressible joy which comes from consciousness of His favor and protection].
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you [consistently] righteous (upright and in right standing with God), and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.
Psalm 138
[A Psalm] of David.
1 I will confess and praise You [O God] with my whole heart; before the gods will I sing praises to You.
2 I will worship toward Your holy temple and praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and for Your truth and faithfulness; for You have exalted above all else Your name and Your word and You have magnified Your word above all Your name!
3 In the day when I called, You answered me; and You strengthened me with strength (might and inflexibility to temptation) in my inner self.
4 All the kings of the land shall give You credit and praise You, O Lord, for they have heard of the promises of Your mouth [which were fulfilled].
5 Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord and joyfully celebrate His mighty acts, for great is the glory of the Lord.
6 For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly [bringing them into fellowship with Him]; but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes [only] at a distance.(A)
7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and Your right hand will save me.(B)
8 The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, endure forever—forsake not the works of Your own hands.(C)
2 Then after [an interval] of fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem. [This time I went] with Barnabas, taking Titus along with [me] also.
2 I went because it was specially and divinely revealed to me that I should go, and I put before them the Gospel [declaring to them that] which I preach among the Gentiles. However, [I presented the matter] privately before those of repute, [for I wanted to make certain, by thus at first confining my communication to this private conference] that I was not running or had not run in vain [guarding against being discredited either in what I was planning to do or had already done].
3 But [all went well!] even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled [as some had anticipated] to be circumcised, although he was a Greek.
4 [My precaution was] because of false brethren who had been secretly smuggled in [to the Christian brotherhood]; they had slipped in to spy on our liberty and the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might again bring us into bondage [under the Law of Moses].
5 To them we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the Gospel might continue to be [preserved] for you [in its purity].
6 Moreover, [no new requirements were made] by those who were reputed to be something—though what was their individual position and whether they really were of importance or not makes no difference to me; God is not impressed with the positions that men hold and He is not partial and recognizes no external distinctions—those [I say] who were of repute imposed no new requirements upon me [had nothing to add to my Gospel, and from them I received no new suggestions].(A)
7 But on the contrary, when they [really] saw that I had been entrusted [to carry] the Gospel to the uncircumcised [Gentiles, just as definitely] as Peter had been entrusted [to proclaim] the Gospel to the circumcised [Jews, they were agreeable];
8 For He Who motivated and fitted Peter and worked effectively through him for the mission to the circumcised, motivated and fitted me and worked through me also for [the mission to] the Gentiles.
9 And when they knew (perceived, recognized, understood, and acknowledged) the grace (God’s unmerited favor and spiritual blessing) that had been bestowed upon me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars of the Jerusalem church, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, with the understanding that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Jews).
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