Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 55[a]
A Lament over Betrayal
1 For the leader. On stringed instruments. A maskil of David.
I
2 Listen, God, to my prayer;(A)
do not hide from my pleading;
3 hear me and give answer.
I rock with grief; I groan
4 at the uproar of the enemy,
the clamor of the wicked.
They heap trouble upon me,
savagely accuse me.
5 My heart pounds within me;
death’s terrors fall upon me.
6 Fear and trembling overwhelm me;
shuddering sweeps over me.
7 I say, “If only I had wings like a dove
that I might fly away and find rest.(B)
8 Far away I would flee;
I would stay in the desert.(C)
Selah
9 “I would soon find a shelter
from the raging wind and storm.”
II
10 Lord, check and confuse their tongues.
For I see violence and strife in the city
11 making rounds on its walls day and night.
Within are mischief and trouble;
12 treachery is in its midst;
oppression and fraud never leave its streets.(D)
13 For it is not an enemy that reviled me—
that I could bear—
Not a foe who viewed me with contempt,
from that I could hide.
14 But it was you, my other self,
my comrade and friend,(E)
15 You, whose company I enjoyed,
at whose side I walked
in the house of God.
III
16 Let death take them;
let them go down alive to Sheol,(F)
for evil is in their homes and bellies.
17 But I will call upon God,
and the Lord will save me.
18 At dusk, dawn, and noon
I will grieve and complain,
and my prayer will be heard.(G)
19 He will redeem my soul in peace
from those who war against me,
though there are many who oppose me.
20 God, who sits enthroned forever,(H)
will hear me and afflict them.
Selah
For they will not mend their ways;
they have no fear of God.
21 He stretched out his hand at his friends
and broke his covenant.
22 Softer than butter is his speech,
but war is in his heart.
Smoother than oil are his words,
but they are unsheathed swords.(I)
23 Cast your care upon the Lord,
who will give you support.
He will never allow
the righteous to stumble.(J)
24 But you, God, will bring them down
to the pit of destruction.(K)
These bloodthirsty liars
will not live half their days,
but I put my trust in you.(L)
Psalm 74[a]
Prayer at the Destruction of the Temple
1 A maskil of Asaph.
I
Why, God, have you cast us off forever?[b](A)
Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture?(B)
2 Remember your people, whom you acquired of old,
the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage,
Mount Zion where you dwell.(C)
3 Direct your steps toward the utter destruction,
everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.
4 Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly;
they set up their own tokens of victory.
5 They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs,
swinging his ax in a thicket of trees.
6 They smashed all its engraved work,
struck it with ax and pick.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire,
profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground.(D)
8 They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all!
Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!”
9 [c]Even so we have seen no signs for us,
there is no prophet any more,(E)
no one among us who knows for how long.
10 How long, O God, will the enemy jeer?(F)
Will the enemy revile your name forever?
11 Why draw back your hand,
why hold back your right hand within your bosom?[d]
II
12 [e]Yet you, God, are my king from of old,
winning victories throughout the earth.
13 You stirred up the sea by your might;(G)
you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters.(H)
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan,(I)
gave him as food to the sharks.
15 You opened up springs and torrents,
brought dry land out of the primeval waters.[f]
16 Yours the day and yours the night too;
you set the moon and sun in place.
17 You fixed all the limits of the earth;
summer and winter you made.(J)
18 Remember how the enemy has jeered, Lord,
how a foolish people has reviled your name.
19 Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you;
do not forget forever the life of your afflicted.
20 Look to your covenant,
for the recesses of the land
are full of the haunts of violence.
21 Let not the oppressed turn back in shame;
may the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Arise, God, defend your cause;
remember the constant jeering of the fools.
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the unceasing uproar of your enemies.
Chapter 2
The Lord’s Wrath and Zion’s Ruin[a]
1 How the Lord in his wrath
has abhorred daughter Zion,
Casting down from heaven to earth
the glory of Israel,[b]
Not remembering his footstool
on the day of his wrath!
2 The Lord has devoured without pity
all of Jacob’s dwellings;
In his fury he has razed
daughter Judah’s defenses,
Has brought to the ground in dishonor
a kingdom and its princes.
3 In blazing wrath, he cut down entirely
the horn[c] of Israel;
He withdrew the support of his right hand
when the enemy approached;
He burned against Jacob like a blazing fire
that consumes everything in its path.
4 He bent his bow like an enemy;
the arrow in his right hand
Like a foe, he killed
all those held precious;
On the tent of daughter Zion
he poured out his wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become the enemy,
he has devoured Israel:
Devoured all its strongholds,
destroyed its defenses,
Multiplied moaning and groaning
throughout daughter Judah.
6 He laid waste his booth like a garden,
destroyed his shrine;[d]
The Lord has blotted out in Zion
feast day and sabbath,
Has scorned in fierce wrath
king and priest.(A)
7 The Lord has rejected his altar,
spurned his sanctuary;
He has handed over to the enemy
the walls of its strongholds.
They shout in the house of the Lord
as on a feast day.(B)
8 The Lord was bent on destroying
the wall of daughter Zion:
He stretched out the measuring line;[e]
did not hesitate to devour,
Brought grief on rampart and wall
till both succumbed.(C)
9 Her gates sank into the ground;
he smashed her bars to bits.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
instruction is wanting,
Even her prophets do not obtain
any vision from the Lord.(D)
14 Your prophets provided you visions
of whitewashed illusion;
They did not lay bare your guilt,
in order to restore your fortunes;
They saw for you only oracles
of empty deceit.(A)
15 All who pass by on the road,
clap their hands at you;
They hiss and wag their heads
over daughter Jerusalem:
“Is this the city they used to call
perfect in beauty and joy of all the earth?”(B)
16 They open their mouths against you,
all your enemies;
They hiss and gnash their teeth,
saying, “We have devoured her!
How we have waited for this day—
we have lived to see it!”(C)
17 The Lord has done what he planned.
He has fulfilled the threat
Decreed from days of old,
destroying without pity!
He let the enemy gloat over you
and exalted the horn of your foes.(D)
Paul’s Change of Plan. 23 (A)But I call upon God as witness, on my life, that it is to spare you that I have not yet gone to Corinth.[a] 24 Not that we lord it over your faith; rather, we work together for your joy, for you stand firm in the faith.
Chapter 2
1 For I decided not to come to you again in painful circumstances. 2 For if I inflict pain upon you, then who is there to cheer me except the one pained by me? 3 And I wrote as I did[b] so that when I came I might not be pained by those in whom I should have rejoiced, confident about all of you that my joy is that of all of you. 4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you might be pained but that you might know the abundant love I have for you.
The Offender.[c] 5 If anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure (not to exaggerate) to all of you. 6 This punishment by the majority is enough for such a person, 7 so that on the contrary you should forgive and encourage him instead, or else the person may be overwhelmed by excessive pain.(B) 8 Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. 9 For this is why I wrote, to know your proven character, whether you were obedient in everything.(C) 10 Whomever you forgive anything, so do I. For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for you in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we might not be taken advantage of by Satan, for we are not unaware of his purposes.(D)
Paul’s Anxiety.[d]
Chapter 12
Parable of the Tenants.[a] 1 He began to speak to them in parables.(A) “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.(B) 2 At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent them another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully. 5 He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed. 6 He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What [then] will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this scripture passage:(C)
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes’?”
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