Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 95
1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms!
3 For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are also His.
5 The sea is His, for He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.
7 For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand.
Today if you hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
and as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tested Me and tried Me,
though they had seen My deeds.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known My ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in My wrath,
“They shall not enter into My rest.”
Psalm 69
For the Music Director. To the melody of “Lilies.” A Psalm of David.
1 Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my throat.
2 I sink in deep mire;
there is no standing place;
I have come into the watery depths,
and a stream overflows me.
3 I am weary of my crying;
my throat is parched;
my eyes fail
while I wait for my God.
4 Those who hate me without cause
are more than the hairs of my head;
they are mighty
who would destroy me, being my wrongful enemies,
so that I must pay back
what I did not steal.
5 O God, You know my folly,
and my sins are not hidden from You.
6 May those who wait on You,
O Lord God of Hosts,
not be ashamed because of me;
may those who seek You
not be humiliated because of me,
O God of Israel.
7 Because for Your sake I have endured insult;
humiliation has covered my face.
8 I have become estranged to my relatives,
and a foreigner to my mother’s children;
9 for the zeal of Your house has consumed me,
and the insults of those who insulted You fell on me.
10 When I wept with fasting for my soul,
it became an insult to me.
11 I also made sackcloth my garment,
and I became a byword to them.
12 Those who sit in the gate speak against me,
and I am the song of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord;
in an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of Your mercy,
answer me in the truth of Your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire
that I may not sink;
may I be delivered from those who hate me,
and out of the watery depths.
15 May the stream not overflow me;
neither may the deep swallow me up,
nor the pit close its mouth on me.
16 Answer me, O Lord, for Your lovingkindness is good;
turn Your face to me according to the abundance of Your tender mercies.
17 Do not hide Your face from Your servant,
for I am in trouble; answer me quickly.
18 Draw near to my soul, and redeem it;
deliver me because of my enemies.
19 You have known how I am insulted, and my shame and my dishonor;
my adversaries are all before You.
20 Insults have broken my heart,
and I am sick;
and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none;
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They also gave me poison for my food,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 May their table become a snare before them,
and may security become a trap.
23 May their eyes be darkened so they do not see,
and make their sides shake continually.
24 Pour out Your indignation on them,
and may Your wrathful anger overtake them.
25 May their habitation be desolate,
and may no one dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom You have struck down,
and they recount the pain of those You have wounded.
27 Add punishment to their iniquity,
and do not let them come into Your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
and not be written along with the righteous.
29 But I am poor and in pain;
may Your salvation, O God, set me secure on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song,
and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
31 This also will please the Lord
more than an ox or bull with horns and hoofs.
32 The humble will see this and be glad;
and you who seek God, may your heart live.
33 For the Lord hears the poor,
and does not despise His prisoners.
34 Let heaven and earth praise Him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
35 For God will save Zion,
and will build the cities of Judah;
that they may dwell there, and take possession of it.
36 The descendants of His servants will inherit it;
and those who love His name will dwell in it.
BOOK THREE
Psalms 73–89
Psalm 73
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to the pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet almost stumbled;
my steps had almost slipped.
3 For I was envious at the boastful;
I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no pains in their death;
their bodies are fat.
5 They are not in trouble as other people;
nor are they plagued like others.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes bulge with fatness;
they have more than a heart could wish.
8 They mock and speak with evil oppression;
they speak loftily.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore people turn to them,
and abundant waters are drunk by them.
11 They say, “How does God know?
And is there knowledge with the Most High?”
12 Observe, these are the wicked, always at ease;
they increase in riches.
13 Surely I have kept my heart pure for nothing,
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I am plagued,
and chastened every morning.
15 If I said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16 When I thought to understand this,
it was troublesome in my eyes,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their end.
18 Surely You have set them in slippery places;
You have brought them down to ruin.
19 How they come to desolation, as in a moment!
They have come to an end, utterly consumed with terrors.
20 As a dream when one awakes,
so, O Lord, when You awake,
You will despise their form.
21 Thus my heart was embittered,
and I was pierced in my feelings.
22 I was a brute and did not understand;
I was as a beast before You.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You have held me by my right hand.
24 You will guide me with Your counsel,
and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.
26 My flesh and my heart fails,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
27 For those who are far from You will perish;
You destroy everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have taken my refuge in the Lord God,
that I may declare all Your works.
Joseph’s Brothers Return With Benjamin
43 Now the famine was severe in the land. 2 When they had eaten up the grain which they had brought out of Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little food.”
3 Judah spoke to him, saying, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ 4 If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you. 5 But if you will not send him, we will not go down. For the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ ”
6 Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?”
7 And they said, “The man asked us directly about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ So we answered his questions. How could we even know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?”
8 And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, so that we may live and not die, both we and you, and also our little ones. 9 I will be a surety for him. You may hold me personally responsible for him. If I fail to bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. 10 For if we had not delayed, we could have returned twice.”
11 Their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, do this. Take some of the best fruits in the land in your bags, and carry down a present for the man: a little balm and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, pistachio nuts and almonds. 12 Take double the money with you, along with the money that was brought back in the mouths of your sacks. Carry it with you again. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13 Also, take your brother and arise, return to the man. 14 And may God Almighty give you mercy before the man, so that he may send away your other brother, along with Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”
15 The men took the gift, and they took double the money with them, along with Benjamin. Then they went on their way down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.
Questions About Marriage
7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to the wife due affection, and likewise the wife to the husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you for lack of self-control. 6 I speak this as a concession and not as a command. 7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man has his proper gift from God, one after this manner and another after that.
8 I say to the unmarried and widows that it is good for them if they live even as I am. 9 But if they cannot restrain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
The Calming of a Storm(A)
35 That same day, when the evening came, He said to them, “Let us go cross to the other side.” 36 When they had sent the crowd away, they took Him in the boat just as He was. There were also other little boats with Him. 37 A great wind storm arose, and the waves splashed into the boat, so that it was now filling the boat. 38 He was in the stern asleep on a pillow. They woke Him and said, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 He rose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” Then the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
40 He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is that you have no faith?”
41 They feared greatly and said to one another, “What kind of Man is He, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.