Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 93

¹ The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is robed, He has girded Himself with strength and power; the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.

² Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting.

³ The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up the roaring of their waves.

⁴ The Lord on high is mightier and more glorious than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty breakers and waves of the sea.

⁵ Your testimonies are very sure; holiness [apparent in separation from sin, with simple trust and hearty obedience] is becoming to Your house, O Lord, forever.

Psalm 96

¹ O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth!

² Sing to the Lord, bless (affectionately praise) His name; show forth His salvation from day to day.

³ Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples.

⁴ For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; He is to be reverently feared and worshiped above all [so-called] gods.^(A)

⁵ For all the gods of the nations are [lifeless] idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

⁶ Honor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

⁷ Ascribe to the Lord, O you families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

⁸ Give to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering and come [before Him] into His courts.

⁹ O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before and reverently fear Him, all the earth.

¹⁰ Say among the nations that the Lord reigns; the world also is established, so that it cannot be moved; He shall judge and rule the people righteously and with justice.^(B)

¹¹ Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all the things which fill it;

¹² Let the field be exultant, and all that is in it! Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy

¹³ Before the Lord, for He comes, for He comes to judge and govern the earth! He shall judge the world with righteousness and justice and the peoples with His faithfulness and truth.^(C)

Psalm 34

[A Psalm] of David; when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him out, and he went away.

¹ I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

² My life makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble and afflicted hear and be glad.

³ O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.

⁴ I sought (inquired of) the Lord and required Him [of necessity and on the authority of His Word], and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.^(A)

⁵ They looked to Him and were radiant; their faces shall never blush for shame or be confused.

⁶ This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

^7 [a]The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him [who revere and worship Him with awe] and each of them He delivers.^(B)

⁸ O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.^(C)

⁹ O fear the Lord, you His saints [revere and worship Him]! For there is no want to those who truly revere and worship Him with godly fear.

¹⁰ The young lions lack food and suffer hunger, but they who seek (inquire of and require) the Lord [by right of their need and on the authority of His Word], none of them shall lack any beneficial thing.

¹¹ Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you to revere and worshipfully fear the Lord.

¹² What man is he who desires life and longs for many days, that he may see good?

¹³ Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

¹⁴ Depart from evil and do good; seek, inquire for, and crave peace and pursue (go after) it!

¹⁵ The eyes of the Lord are toward the [uncompromisingly] righteous and His ears are open to their cry.

¹⁶ The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.^(D)

¹⁷ When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their distress and troubles.

¹⁸ The Lord is close to those who are of a broken heart and saves such as are crushed with sorrow for sin and are humbly and thoroughly penitent.

¹⁹ Many evils confront the [consistently] righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

²⁰ He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.

²¹ Evil shall cause the death of the wicked; and they who hate the just and righteous shall be held guilty and shall be condemned.

²² The Lord redeems the lives of His servants, and none of those who take refuge and trust in Him shall be condemned or held guilty.

44 And he commanded the steward of his house, saying, Fill the men’s sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put every man’s money in his sack’s mouth.

² And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack’s mouth of the youngest, with his grain money. And [the steward] did according to what Joseph had said.

³ As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys.

⁴ When they had left the city and were not yet far away, Joseph said to his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you rewarded evil for good? [Why have you stolen the silver cup?]

⁵ Is it not my master’s drinking cup with which he divines [the future]? You have done wrong in doing this.

⁶ And the steward overtook them, and he said to them these same words.

⁷ They said to him, Why does my lord say these things? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!

⁸ Note that the money which we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. Is it likely then that we would steal from your master’s house silver or gold?

⁹ With whomever of your servants [your master’s cup] is found, not only let that one die, but the rest of us will be my lord’s slaves.

¹⁰ And the steward said, Now let it be as you say: he with whom [the cup] is found shall be my slave, but [the rest of] you shall be blameless.

¹¹ Then quickly every man lowered his sack to the ground and every man opened his sack.

¹² And [the steward] searched, beginning with the eldest and stopping with the youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack.

¹³ Then they rent their clothes; and after each man had loaded his donkey again, they returned to the city.

¹⁴ Judah and his brethren came to Joseph’s house, for he was still there; and they fell prostrate before him.

¹⁵ Joseph said to them, What is this thing that you have done? Do you not realize that such a man as I can certainly detect and know by divination [everything you do without other knowledge of it]?

¹⁶ And Judah said, What shall we say to my lord? What shall we reply? Or how shall we clear ourselves, since God has found out and exposed the iniquity of your servants? Behold, we are my lord’s slaves, the rest of us as well as he with whom the cup is found.

¹⁷ But [Joseph] said, God forbid that I should do that; but the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant; and as for [the rest of] you, arise and go in peace to your father.

8 Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.^(A)

² For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.

³ For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [^[a]the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [^[b]subdued, overcame, ^[c]deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],^(B)

⁴ So that the righteous and just requirement of the Law might be fully met in us who live and move not in the ways of the flesh but in the ways of the Spirit [our lives governed not by the standards and according to the dictates of the flesh, but controlled by the Holy Spirit].

⁵ For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and ^[d]pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and ^[e]seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit.

⁶ Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that ^[f]comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].

⁷ [That is] because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it cannot.

⁸ So then those who are living the life of the flesh [catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature] cannot please or satisfy God, or be acceptable to Him.

⁹ But you are not living the life of the flesh, you are living the life of the Spirit, if the [Holy] Spirit of God [really] dwells within you [directs and controls you]. But if anyone does not possess the [Holy] Spirit of Christ, he is none of His [he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God].^(C)

¹⁰ But if Christ lives in you, [then although] your [natural] body is dead by reason of sin and guilt, the spirit is alive because of [the] righteousness [that He imputes to you].

²⁵ Believe Me when I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the time is coming and is here now when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear it shall live.

²⁶ For even as the Father has life in Himself and is self-existent, so He has given to the Son to have life in Himself and be self-existent.

²⁷ And He has given Him authority and granted Him power to execute (exercise, practice) judgment because He is ^[a]a Son of man [very man].

²⁸ Do not be surprised and wonder at this, for the time is coming when all those who are in the tombs shall hear His voice,

²⁹ And they shall come out—those who have practiced doing good [will come out] to the resurrection of [new] life, and those who have done evil will be raised for judgment [raised to meet their sentence].^(A)