Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 37
A Psalm of David.
1 Do not fret because of evildoers,
nor be jealous of those who do injustice.
2 For they will quickly wither like the grass,
and fade like the green herbs.
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land, and practice faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
and He will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your judgment as the noonday.
7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret because of those who prosper in their way,
because of those who make wicked schemes.
8 Let go of anger, and forsake wrath;
do not fret—it surely leads to evil deeds.
9 For evildoers will be cut off,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the earth.
10 For yet a little while, and the wicked will not be;
you will look diligently for their place, and it will not be.
11 But the meek will inherit the earth,
and will delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
12 The wicked plot against the righteous,
and grind their teeth against them.
13 The Lord will laugh at him,
for He sees that his day is coming.
14 The wicked have drawn out the sword
and have bent their bow,
to cast down the poor and needy,
and to slay those on the upright path.
15 Their sword will enter into their own heart,
and their bows will be broken.
16 Better is a little that the righteous has
than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked will be broken,
but the Lord supports the righteous.
18 The Lord knows the days of people of integrity,
and their inheritance will be forever.
19 They will not be ashamed in the evil time,
and in the days of famine they will be satisfied.
20 But the wicked will perish,
and the enemies of the Lord will be like the glory of pastures;
they will waste away, in smoke they will waste away.
21 The wicked borrows and does not repay,
but the righteous is gracious and gives.
22 For those who are blessed of Him will inherit the earth,
but those who are cursed of Him will be cut off.
23 The steps of a man are made firm by the Lord;
He delights in his way.
24 Though he falls, he will not be hurled down,
for the Lord supports him with His hand.
25 I have been young, and now am old;
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken,
nor their offspring begging bread.
26 The righteous are gracious and lend,
and their offspring are a source of blessing.
27 Depart from evil and do good,
and abide forevermore.
28 For the Lord loves justice,
and does not forsake His saints;
they are preserved forever,
but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.
29 The righteous will inherit the land,
and dwell on it forever.
30 The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and their tongue speaks justice.
31 The law of their God is in their heart;
none of their steps will slip.
32 The wicked watch the righteous,
and seek to kill them.
33 The Lord will not forsake them to their hand,
nor condemn them when they are judged.
34 Hope in the Lord,
and keep His way,
and He will exalt you to inherit the land;
when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
35 I have seen the wicked in great power,
and spreading himself like a luxuriant tree.
36 Yet he passed away, and he was not;
I sought him, but he could not be found.
37 Mark the blameless man, and consider the upright,
for the end of that man is peace.
38 But the transgressors will be destroyed together;
the end of the wicked is to be cut off.
39 But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
He is their refuge in the time of distress.
40 The Lord will help them and deliver them;
He will deliver them from the wicked,
and save them, because they take refuge in Him.
The Tower of Babel
11 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 As the people journeyed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men built. 6 The Lord said, “The people are one and they have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; now nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore the name of it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. From there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
Sure Promise of God
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could vow by no one greater, He vowed by Himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you, and surely I will multiply you.”[a] 15 So after Abraham had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
16 For men indeed swear by a greater authority than themselves, and for them an oath of confirmation ends all dispute. 17 So God, wanting to show more abundantly the immutability of His counsel to the heirs of promise, confirmed it by an oath. 18 So that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, which enters the Inner Place behind the veil. 20 This is where Jesus has entered for us as a forerunner, since He has become the everlasting High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
4 Now when the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
4 Now it was necessary that He go through Samaria. 5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being exhausted from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came there to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I shall give him will become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.