Book of Common Prayer
Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
70 Be pleased, O God, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
2 Let them be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life!
Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire my hurt!
3 Let them be appalled because of their shame
who say, “Aha, Aha!”
4 May all who seek thee
rejoice and be glad in thee!
May those who love thy salvation
say evermore, “God is great!”
5 But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
Thou art my help and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not tarry!
Prayer for Lifelong Protection and Help
71 In thee, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame!
2 In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline thy ear to me, and save me!
3 Be thou to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress,[a] to save me,
for thou art my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
5 For thou, O Lord, art my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
6 Upon thee I have leaned from my birth;
thou art he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of thee.
7 I have been as a portent to many;
but thou art my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with thy praise,
and with thy glory all the day.
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.
10 For my enemies speak concerning me,
those who watch for my life consult together,
11 and say, “God has forsaken him;
pursue and seize him,
for there is none to deliver him.”
12 O God, be not far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
13 May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
with scorn and disgrace may they be covered
who seek my hurt.
14 But I will hope continually,
and will praise thee yet more and more.
15 My mouth will tell of thy righteous acts,
of thy deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
16 With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come,
I will praise thy righteousness, thine alone.
17 O God, from my youth thou hast taught me,
and I still proclaim thy wondrous deeds.
18 So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
till I proclaim thy might
to all the generations to come.[b]
Thy power 19 and thy righteousness, O God,
reach the high heavens.
Thou who hast done great things,
O God, who is like thee?
20 Thou who hast made me see many sore troubles
wilt revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
thou wilt bring me up again.
21 Thou wilt increase my honor,
and comfort me again.
22 I will also praise thee with the harp
for thy faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to thee with the lyre,
O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy,
when I sing praises to thee;
my soul also, which thou hast rescued.
24 And my tongue will talk of thy righteous help
all the day long,
for they have been put to shame and disgraced
who sought to do me hurt.
Plea for Help in Time of National Humiliation
A Maskil of Asaph.
74 O God, why dost thou cast us off for ever?
Why does thy anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
2 Remember thy congregation, which thou hast gotten of old,
which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thy heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where thou hast dwelt.
3 Direct thy steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
4 Thy foes have roared in the midst of thy holy place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
5 At the upper entrance they hacked
the wooden trellis with axes.[a]
6 And then all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They set thy sanctuary on fire;
to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of thy name.
8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile thy name for ever?
11 Why dost thou hold back thy hand,
why dost thou keep thy right hand in[b] thy bosom?
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy might;
thou didst break the heads of the dragons on the waters.
14 Thou didst crush the heads of Leviathan,
thou didst give him as food[c] for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 Thou didst cleave open springs and brooks;
thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams.
16 Thine is the day, thine also the night;
thou hast established the luminaries and the sun.
17 Thou hast fixed all the bounds of the earth;
thou hast made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
and an impious people reviles thy name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of thy dove to the wild beasts;
do not forget the life of thy poor for ever.
20 Have regard for thy[d] covenant;
for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Let not the downtrodden be put to shame;
let the poor and needy praise thy name.
22 Arise, O God, plead thy cause;
remember how the impious scoff at thee all the day!
23 Do not forget the clamor of thy foes,
the uproar of thy adversaries which goes up continually!
Ishbaal Assassinated
4 When Ish-bo′sheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed. 2 Now Saul’s son had two men who were captains of raiding bands; the name of the one was Ba′anah, and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon a man of Benjamin from Be-er′oth (for Be-er′oth also is reckoned to Benjamin; 3 the Be-er′othites fled to Gitta′im, and have been sojourners there to this day).
4 Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezre′el; and his nurse took him up, and fled; and, as she fled in her haste, he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephib′osheth.
5 Now the sons of Rimmon the Be-er′othite, Rechab and Ba′anah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ish-bo′sheth, as he was taking his noonday rest. 6 And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Ba′anah his brother slipped in.[a] 7 When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, 8 and brought the head of Ish-bo′sheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-bo′sheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.” 9 But David answered Rechab and Ba′anah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Be-er′othite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, 10 when one told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and slew him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. 11 How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous man in his own house upon his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand, and destroy you from the earth?” 12 And David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and feet, and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bo′sheth, and buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron.
25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s fetters were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30 and brought them out and said, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all that were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, with all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house, and set food before them; and he rejoiced with all his household that he had believed in God.
35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported the words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore come out and go in peace.” 37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now cast us out secretly? No! let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; 39 so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40 So they went out of the prison, and visited Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they exhorted them and departed.
The Tradition of the Elders
7 Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands,[a] observing the tradition of the elders;[b] 4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify[c] themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.[d]) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live[e] according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with hands defiled?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
8 You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.”
9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’; 11 but you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, given to God)[f]— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. And many such things you do.”
14 And he called the people to him again, and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.”[g] 17 And when he had entered the house, and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?”[h] (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man.”
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.