Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Blessed are those who consider the poor;
the Lord will deliver them in the day of trouble.
2 The Lord will preserve them and keep them alive,
and they will be blessed on the earth,
and You will not deliver them to the will of their enemies.
3 The Lord will sustain them on the sickbed;
You will restore all his lying down in his illness.
4 I said, “Lord, be gracious to me;
heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
5 My enemies speak evil of me:
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
6 And if people come to see me, they speak insincerely;
their heart gathers iniquity to itself,
when they go outside, they tell it.
7 All who hate me whisper together against me;
they devise harm against me.
8 “An evil disease clings to him.
And now that he lies down, he will not rise up again.”
9 Yes, my own close friend,
in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread,
has lifted up the heel against me.
10 But You, O Lord, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them.
11 By this I know that You favor me,
because my enemy does not triumph over me.
12 As for me, You uphold me in my integrity,
and set me before You forever.
13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
from everlasting and to everlasting.
Amen and Amen.
Psalm 52
For the Music Director. A Contemplative Maskil. A Psalm of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelek.”
1 Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?
The goodness of God endures continually.
2 Your tongue devises calamities,
like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery.
3 You love evil more than good,
and lying rather than speaking righteousness. Selah
4 You love all devouring words,
O you deceitful tongue.
5 God will likewise break you down forever;
He will snatch you away and pluck you from your home,
and uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
6 The righteous also will see and fear,
and will laugh in contempt,
7 “See, this is the man
who did not make God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of riches,
and grew strong in his own wickedness.”
8 But I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God;
I trust in the mercy of God
forever and ever.
9 I will give thanks to You forever, because You have acted;
and I will wait on Your name,
for it is good before Your saints.
Psalm 44
For the Music Director. A Contemplative Maskil of the sons of Korah.
1 We have heard with our ears, O God,
our fathers have told us
what work You did in their days,
in the days of old:
2 how You drove out the nations with Your hand,
and planted others instead;
how You afflicted peoples,
and sent them away.
3 For they did not take possession of the land by their own sword,
nor did their own arm save them;
but it was Your right hand, and Your arm,
and the light of Your countenance, because You had favor on them.
4 You are my King, O God;
command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through You we will push down our opponents;
through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow,
nor will my sword save me.
7 But You have saved us from our opponents,
and have put to shame those who hate us.
8 In God we boast all the day long,
and give thanks to Your name forever. Selah
9 But You have rejected us and put us to shame,
and do not go out with our armies.
10 You make us to turn back from the opponent,
and those who hate us make us their spoil.
11 You have placed us like sheep for prey,
and have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sell Your people for nothing,
and do not increase Your wealth by their sale.
13 You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
a scorn and a derision to those who surround us.
14 You make us a byword among the nations,
a shaking of the head among the people.
15 All day long my reproach is before me,
and the shame of my face covers me,
16 from the voice of him who reproaches and reviles,
by reason of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this is come on us,
yet we have not forgotten You,
nor have we dealt falsely in Your covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back,
nor have our steps deviated from Your way,
19 though You have crushed us in the place of jackals,
and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God,
or stretched out our hands to a strange god,
21 would not God search this out?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yes, for Your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are considered like sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake; why do You sleep, O Lord?
Arise; do not reject us forever.
24 Why do You hide Your face,
and forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our body cleaves to the earth.
26 Arise, be our help,
and redeem us for the sake of Your lovingkindness.
Joseph’s Dreams
37 Now Jacob lived in the land where his father was a foreigner, in the land of Canaan.
2 These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers, and the boy was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors.[a] 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
5 Now Joseph dreamed a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have dreamed. 7 We were binding sheaves in the field. All of a sudden my sheaf rose up and stood upright, and your sheaves stood around it and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Will you really reign over us, or will you really have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.
9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “I have dreamed another dream. The sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing to me.”
10 But when he told it to his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow down ourselves to you to the ground?” 11 So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Greeting and Thanksgiving
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother,
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which has been given to you through Jesus Christ. 5 By Him you are enriched in everything, in all speech and in all knowledge, 6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift while waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, and by Him you were called to the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Divisions in the Church
10 Now I ask you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak in agreement and that there be no divisions among you. But be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now this is what I mean: Every one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. 16 I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides them, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
Christ the Power and Wisdom of God
18 For to those who are perishing, the preaching of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”[a]
The Preaching of John the Baptist(A)
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the Prophets:
“Look, I am sending My messenger before Your face,
who will prepare Your way before You.”[a]
3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make His paths straight.’ ”[b]
4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. 5 The whole region of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. 6 John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist. And he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He preached saying, “After me is coming One mightier than I, the straps of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I indeed have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The Baptism of Jesus(B)
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Coming up out of the water, He immediately saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, saying, “You are My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
The Temptation of Jesus(C)
12 The Spirit immediately drove Him into the wilderness. 13 And He was there in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts. And the angels ministered to Him.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.