Book of Common Prayer
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.
6 Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation. 7 Nevertheless, the sons of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty,[a] so that the land was filled with them.
8 Now there rose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Surely, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when any war breaks out, they also join our enemies, and fight against us, and escape from the land.”
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities: Pithom and Rameses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew so that as a result they abhorred the sons of Israel. 13 The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, 14 and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
15 The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, 16 and he said, “When you perform the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the stools, if it is a son, then you must kill him, but if it is a daughter, then she may live.” 17 However, the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but kept the male children alive. 18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and preserved the male children’s lives?”
19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. 21 So it happened that because the midwives feared God, He gave them families.
22 Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “You must cast every son that is born into the river, and you must preserve every daughter’s life.”
One Body With Many Members
12 For as the body is one and has many parts, and all the many parts of that one body are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are slaves or free, and we have all been made to drink of one Spirit. 14 The body is not one part, but many.
15 If the foot says, “Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 16 And if the ear says, “Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But now God has established the parts, every one of them, in the body as it has pleased Him. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 So there are many parts, yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 No, those parts of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. 23 And those parts of the body which we think are less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor. And our less respectable parts are treated with much more respect, 24 whereas our more respectable parts have no need of this. But God has composed the body, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacks it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that the parts should have the same care for one another. 26 If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts rejoice with it.
Peter’s Declaration About Jesus(A)
27 Jesus and His disciples went out into the towns of Caesarea Philippi. On the way He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”
28 They answered, “John the Baptist, but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”
29 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered Him, “You are the Christ.”
30 He warned them that they should tell no one about Him.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection(B)
31 He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said this openly. And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him.
33 But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
34 When He had called the people to Him, with His disciples, He said to them, “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever would lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 Whoever therefore is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
9 And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.