Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41[a]
Thanksgiving After Sickness
1 For the leader. A psalm of David.
I
2 Blessed the one concerned for the poor;[b]
on a day of misfortune, the Lord delivers him.(A)
3 The Lord keeps and preserves him,
makes him blessed in the land,
and does not betray him to his enemies.
4 The Lord sustains him on his sickbed,
you turn down his bedding whenever he is ill.[c]
II
5 Even I have said, “Lord, take note of me;
heal me, although I have sinned against you.
6 My enemies say bad things against me:
‘When will he die and his name be forgotten?’
7 When someone comes to visit me, he speaks without sincerity.
His heart stores up malice;
when he leaves, he gossips.(B)
8 All those who hate me whisper together against me;
they imagine the worst about me:
9 ‘He has had ruin poured over him;
that one lying down will never rise again.’
10 [d]Even my trusted friend,
who ate my bread,
has raised his heel against me.(C)
III
11 “But you, Lord, take note of me to raise me up
that I may repay them.”[e]
Psalm 52[a]
The Deceitful Tongue
1 For the leader. A maskil of David, 2 when Doeg the Edomite entered and reported to Saul, saying to him: “David has entered the house of Ahimelech.”(A)
I
3 Why do you glory in what is evil, you who are mighty by the mercy of God?
All day long
4 you are thinking up intrigues;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor,
you worker of deceit.(B)
5 You love evil more than good,
lying rather than saying what is right.(C)
Selah
6 You love all the words that create confusion,
you deceitful tongue.(D)
II
7 God too will strike you down forever,
he will lay hold of you and pluck you from your tent,
uproot you from the land of the living.(E)
Selah
8 The righteous will see and they will fear;
but they will laugh at him:(F)
9 “Behold the man! He did not take God as his refuge,
but he trusted in the abundance of his wealth,
and grew powerful through his wickedness.”(G)
III
Psalm 44[a]
God’s Past Favor and Israel’s Present Need
1 For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.
I
2 O God, we have heard with our own ears;
our ancestors have told us(A)
The deeds you did in their days,
with your own hand in days of old:
3 You rooted out nations to plant them,(B)
crushed peoples and expelled them.
4 Not with their own swords did they conquer the land,(C)
nor did their own arms bring victory;
It was your right hand, your own arm,
the light of your face for you favored them.(D)
5 You are my king and my God,(E)
who bestows victories on Jacob.
6 Through you we batter our foes;
through your name we trample our adversaries.
7 Not in my bow do I trust,
nor does my sword bring me victory.
8 You have brought us victory over our enemies,
shamed those who hate us.
9 In God we have boasted all the day long;
your name we will praise forever.
Selah
II
10 (F)But now you have rejected and disgraced us;
you do not march out with our armies.(G)
11 You make us retreat[b] before the foe;
those who hate us plunder us at will.(H)
12 You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered,
scatter us among the nations.(I)
13 You sell your people for nothing;
you make no profit from their sale.(J)
14 You make us the reproach of our neighbors,(K)
the mockery and scorn of those around us.
15 You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
16 All day long my disgrace is before me;
shame has covered my face
17 At the sound of those who taunt and revile,
at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
III
18 All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
nor been disloyal to your covenant.
19 [c]Our hearts have not turned back,
nor have our steps strayed from your path.
20 Yet you have left us crushed,
desolate in a place of jackals;[d](L)
you have covered us with a shadow of death.
21 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
stretched out our hands to another god,
22 Would not God have discovered this,
God who knows the secrets of the heart?
23 For you we are slain all the day long,
considered only as sheep to be slaughtered.(M)
IV
Chapter 37
Joseph Sold into Egypt. 1 Jacob settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan.[a] 2 This is the story of the family of Jacob.[b] When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flocks with his brothers; he was an assistant to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and Joseph brought their father bad reports about them. 3 Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long ornamented tunic.[c] 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his brothers, they hated him so much that they could not say a kind word to him.
5 [d]Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers, they hated him even more.(A) 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had. 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf rose to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you really going to make yourself king over us? Will you rule over us?” So they hated him all the more because of his dreams and his reports.(B)
9 Then he had another dream, and told it to his brothers. “Look, I had another dream,” he said; “this time, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 When he told it to his father and his brothers, his father reproved him and asked, “What is the meaning of this dream of yours? Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers are to come and bow to the ground before you?” 11 So his brothers were furious at him but his father kept the matter in mind.
I. Address[a]
Chapter 1
Greeting. 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,[b] and Sosthenes our brother,(A) 2 to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.(B) 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving. 4 I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, 6 as the testimony[c] to Christ was confirmed among you, 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.(C) 8 He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus [Christ].(D) 9 God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.(E)
II. Disorders in the Corinthian Community
A. Divisions in the Church[d]
Groups and Slogans. 10 I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.(F) 11 For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you. 12 I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to[e] Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”(G) 13 [f]Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I give thanks [to God] that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,(H) 15 so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. 16 (I baptized the household of Stephanas also; beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)(I) 17 [g]For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence,[h] so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.(J)
Paradox of the Cross. 18 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.(K) 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”(L)
I. The Preparation for the Public Ministry of Jesus[a]
Chapter 1
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ [the Son of God].[b]
The Preaching of John the Baptist. 2 (A)As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:[c](B)
“Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way.
3 (C)A voice of one crying out in the desert:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.’”
4 John [the] Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. 6 John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist.[d] He fed on locusts and wild honey. 7 And this is what he proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. 8 [e](D)I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the holy Spirit.”
The Baptism of Jesus. 9 (E)It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. 10 On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.[f] 11 (F)And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The Temptation of Jesus.[g] 12 At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert,(G) 13 and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.
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