Book of Common Prayer

49 A psalm for Asaph. The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken: and he hath called the earth. From the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof:

² Out of Sion the loveliness of his beauty.

³ God shall come manifestly: our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. A fire shall burn before him: and a mighty tempest shall be round about him.

⁴ He shall call heaven from above, and the earth, to judge his people.

⁵ Gather ye together his saints to him: who set his covenant before sacrifices.

⁶ And the heavens shall declare his justice: for God is judge.

⁷ Hear, O my people, and I will speak: O Israel, and I will testify to thee: I am God, thy God.

⁸ I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices: and thy burnt offerings are always in my sight.

⁹ I will not take calves out of thy house: nor he goats out of thy flocks.

¹⁰ For all the beasts of the woods are mine: the cattle on the hills, and the oxen.

¹¹ I know all the fowls of the air: and with me is the beauty of the field.

¹² If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.

¹³ Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? or shall I drink the blood of goats?

¹⁴ Offer to God the sacrifice of praise: and pay thy vows to the most High.

¹⁵ And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

¹⁶ But to the sinner God hath said: Why dost thou declare my justices, and take my covenant in thy mouth?

¹⁷ Seeing thou hast hated discipline: and hast cast my words behind thee.

¹⁸ If thou didst see a thief thou didst run with him: and with adulterers thou hast been a partaker.

¹⁹ Thy mouth hath abounded with evil, and thy tongue framed deceits.

²⁰ Sitting thou didst speak against thy brother, and didst lay a scandal against thy mother's son:

²¹ These things hast thou done, and I was silent. Thou thoughtest unjustly that I should be like to thee: but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face.

²² Understand these things, you that forget God; lest he snatch you away, and there be none to deliver you.

²³ The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me: and there is the way by which I will shew him the salvation of God.

53 Unto the end, In verses, understanding for David.

² When the men of Ziph had come and said to Saul: Is not David hidden with us?

³ Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me in thy strength.

⁴ O God, hear my prayer: give ear to the words of my mouth.

⁵ For strangers have risen up against me; and the mighty have sought after my soul: and they have not set God before their eyes.

⁶ For behold God is my helper: and the Lord is the protector of my soul.

⁷ Turn back the evils upon my enemies; and cut them off in thy truth.

⁸ I will freely sacrifice to thee, and will give praise, O God, to thy name: because it is good:

⁹ For thou hast delivered me out of all trouble: and my eye hath looked down upon my enemies.

²³ And when Abigail saw David she made haste and lighted off the ass, and fell before David, on her face, and adored upon the ground.

²⁴ And she fell at his feet, and said: Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord: let thy handmaid speak, I beseech thee, in thy ears: and hear the words of thy servant.

²⁵ Let not my lord the king, I pray, regard this naughty man Nabal: for according to his name, he is a fool, and folly is with him: but I thy handmaid did not see thy servants, my lord, whom thou sentest.

²⁶ Now therefore, my lord, the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, who hath withholden thee from coming to blood, and hath saved thy hand to thee: and now let thy enemies be as Nabal, and all they that seek evil to my lord.

²⁷ Wherefore receive this blessing, which thy handmaid hath brought to thee, my lord: and give it to the young men that follow thee, my lord.

²⁸ Forgive the iniquity of thy handmaid: for the Lord will surely make for my lord a faithful house, because thou, my lord, fightest the battles of the Lord: let not evil therefore be found in thee all the days of thy life.

²⁹ For if a man at any time shall rise, and persecute thee, and seek thy life, the soul of my lord shall be kept, as in the bundle of the living, with the Lord thy God: but the souls of thy enemies shall be whirled, as with the violence and whirling of a sling.

³⁰ And when the Lord shall have done to thee, my lord, all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have made thee prince over Israel,

³¹ This shall not be an occasion of grief to thee, and a scruple of heart to my lord, that thou hast shed innocent blood, or hast revenged thyself: and when the Lord shall have done well by my lord, thou shalt remember thy handmaid.

³² And David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy speech:

³³ And blessed be thou, who hast kept me to day, from coming to blood, and revenging me with my own hand.

³⁴ Otherwise as the Lord liveth the God of Israel, who hath withholden me from doing thee any evil: if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me, there had not been left to Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

³⁵ And David received at her hand all that she had brought him, and said to her: Go in peace into thy house, behold I have heard thy voice, and have honoured thy face.

³⁶ And Abigail came to Nabal: and behold he had a feast in his house, like the feast of a king, and Nabal's heart was merry: for he was very drunk: and she told him nothing less or more until morning.

³⁷ But early in the morning when Nabal had digested his wine, his wife told him these words, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

³⁸ And after ten days had passed, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹ And when David had heard that Nabal was dead, he said: Blessed be the Lord, who hath judged the cause of my reproach at the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, and the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his head. Then David sent and treated with Abigail, that he might take her to himself for a wife.

⁴⁰ And David's servants came to Abigail to Carmel, and spoke to her, saying: David hath sent us to thee, to take thee to himself for a wife.

⁴¹ And she arose and bowed herself down with her face to the earth, and said: Behold, let thy servant be a handmaid, to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.

⁴² And Abigail arose, and made haste, and got upon an ass, and five damsels went with her, her waiting maids, and she followed the messengers of David, and became his wife.

⁴³ Moreover David took also Achinoam of Jezrahel: and they were both of them his wives.

⁴⁴ But Saul gave Michol his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Lais, who was of Gallium.

¹⁹ But as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and entered into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

²⁰ And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch:

²¹ Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith: and that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.

²² And when they had ordained to them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they believed.

²³ And passing through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia.

²⁴ And having spoken the word of the Lord in Perge, they went down into Attalia:

²⁵ And thence they sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been delivered to the grace of God, unto the work which they accomplished.

²⁶ And when they were come, and had assembled the church, they related what great things God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

²⁷ And they abode no small time with the disciples.

³⁵ And he saith to them that day, when evening was come: Let us pass over to the other side.

³⁶ And sending away the multitude, they take him even as he was in the ship: and there were other ships with him.

³⁷ And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled.

³⁸ And he was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow; and they awake him, and say to him: Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish?

³⁹ And rising up, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased: and there was made a great calm.

⁴⁰ And he said to them: Why are you fearful? have you not faith yet? And they feared exceedingly: and they said one to another: Who is this (thinkest thou) that both wind and sea obey him?