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.
25 The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
2 Say to the Israelites, When you come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the Lord.
3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits.
4 But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard.
5 What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes on your uncultivated vine you shall not gather, for it is a year of rest to the land.
6 And the sabbath rest of the [untilled] land shall [in its increase] furnish food for you, for your male and female slaves, your hired servant, and the temporary resident who lives with you,
7 For your domestic animals also and for the [wild] beasts in your land; all its yield shall be for food.
8 And you shall number seven sabbaths or weeks of years for you, seven times seven years, so the total time of the seven weeks of years shall be forty-nine years.
9 Then you shall sound abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month [almost October]; on the Day of Atonement blow the trumpet in all your land.
10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his ancestral possession [which through poverty he was compelled to sell], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated in bond service].
11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall not sow, or reap and store what grows of itself, or gather the grapes of the uncultivated vines.
12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat the [sufficient] increase of it out of the field.
13 In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his ancestral property.
14 And if you sell anything to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another.
15 According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy from your neighbor. And he shall sell to you according to the number of years [remaining in which you may gather] the crops [before you must restore the property to him].
16 If the years [to the next Jubilee] are many, you may increase the price, and if the years remaining are few, you shall diminish the price, for the number of the crops is what he is selling to you.
17 You shall not oppress and wrong one another, but you shall [reverently] fear your God. For I am the Lord your God.
2 Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.
3 Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.
4 But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.
5 If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of [a]the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.
6 Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind.
7 For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord,
8 [For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides].
16 Do not be misled, my beloved brethren.
17 Every good gift and every perfect ([a]free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].
18 And it was of His own [free] will that He gave us birth [as sons] by [His] Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures [a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself].
13 Someone from the crowd said to Him, Master, order my brother to divide the inheritance and share it with me.
14 But He told him, Man, who has appointed Me a judge or umpire and divider over you?
15 And He said to them, Guard yourselves and keep free from all covetousness (the immoderate desire for wealth, the greedy longing to have more); for a man’s life does not consist in and is not derived from possessing [a]overflowing abundance or that which is [b]over and above his needs.
16 Then He told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man was fertile and yielded plentifully.
17 And he considered and debated within himself, What shall I do? I have no place [in which] to gather together my harvest.
18 And he said, I will do this: I will pull down my storehouses and build larger ones, and there I will store all [c]my grain or produce and my goods.
19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many good things laid up, [enough] for many years. Take your ease; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself merrily.
20 But God said to him, You fool! This very night [d] they [the messengers of God] will demand your soul of you; and all the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?(A)
21 So it is with the one who continues to lay up and hoard possessions for himself and is not rich [in his relation] to God [this is how he fares].
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