Book of Common Prayer
For the Director of Music: According to “The Lilies”. A testimony of Asaph. A psalm.
A Prayer for Jerusalem
80 Shepherd of Israel, listen!
The one who leads Joseph like a flock,
the one enthroned on the cherubim,
display your glory.[a]
2 Reveal[b] your power before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,
then come to our rescue.
3 God, restore us,
show your favor[c] and deliver us.
4 Lord God of the Heavenly Armies,
when will your smoldering anger[d]
toward your people’s prayers cease?[e]
5 You fed them tears as their food,
and caused them to drink a full measure of tears.
6 You have set us at strife against our neighbors
and our enemies deride us.
7 God of the Heavenly Armies, restore us
and show your favor,[f]
so we may be delivered.
8 You uprooted a vine from Egypt,
and drove out nations to transplant it.
9 You cleared the ground[g] so that its roots grew
and filled the land.
10 Mountains were covered by its shadows,
and the mighty cedars by its branches.
11 Its branches spread out to the Mediterranean[h] Sea
and its shoots to the Euphrates[i] River.
12 Why did you break down its walls
so that those who pass by pluck its fruits?[j]
13 Wild boars of the forest gnaw at it,
and creatures of the field feed on it.
14 God of the Heavenly Armies, return!
Look down from heaven and see.
Show care[k] toward this vine.
15 The root[l] that your right hand planted,
the shoot[m] that you tended for yourself,
16 was burned with fire, cut off,
and destroyed on account of your rebuke.
17 May you support the man at your right hand;
the son of man whom you have raised for yourself.
18 Then we will not turn away from you.
Restore us, so we can call upon your name.
19 God of hosts, restore to us the light of your favor.[n]
Then we’ll be delivered.
To the director: To Jeduthun. A psalm of Asaph.
Remembering God in Times of Trouble
77 I cry out to God!
I cry out to God and he hears me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
my hands were raised at night
and they did not grow weary.
I refused to be comforted.
3 I remember God, and I groan;
I meditate, while my spirit grows faint.
4 You kept my eyes open;
I was troubled and couldn’t speak.
5 I thought of ancient times,
considering years long past.
6 During the night I remembered my song.
I meditate in my heart,
and my spirit ponders.
7 Will the Lord reject me[a] forever
and not show favor again?
8 Has his gracious love ceased forever?
Will his promise be unfulfilled in future generations?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?
10 So I say: “It causes me pain
that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”
11 I will remember the Lord’s deeds;
indeed, I will remember your awesome deeds from long ago.
12 As I meditate on all your works,
I will consider your awesome deeds.
13 God, your way is holy.
What god is like our great God?
14 God, you are the one performing awesome deeds.
You reveal your might among the nations.
15 You delivered[b] your people—
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph—
with your power.
16 The waters saw you, God;
the waters saw you and writhed.
Indeed, the depths of the sea quaked.
17 The clouds poured rain;
the skies rumbled.
Indeed, your lightning bolts flashed.[c]
18 Your thunderous sound was in a whirlwind;
your lightning lights up the world;
the earth becomes agitated and quakes.
19 Your way was through the sea,
and your path through mighty waters,
but your footprints cannot be traced.[d]
20 You have led your people like a flock
by the hands of Moses and Aaron.
A Psalm of Asaph
A Prayer for Jerusalem
79 God, nations have invaded your land[a]
to desecrate your holy Temple,
to destroy Jerusalem,
2 to give the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds of the skies
and the flesh of your godly ones
to the beasts of the earth;
3 to make their blood flow like water around Jerusalem,
with no one being buried.
4 We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
a mockery and a derision to those around us.
5 How long, Lord, will you be angry? Forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath upon the nations
that do not acknowledge you,
and over the kingdoms
that do not call on your name.
7 For they consumed Jacob,
making his dwelling place desolate.
8 Don’t charge[b] us for previous iniquity,
but let your compassion come quickly to us,
for we have been brought very low.
9 Help us, God, our deliverer,
on account of your glorious name,
deliver us and forgive[c] our sins
on account of your name.
10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Let vengeance for the blood of your servants be meted[d] out
before our eyes and among the nations.
11 Let the cries of the prisoners reach you.
With the strength of your power,
release those condemned to death.[e]
12 Pay back our neighbors seven times[f]
the reproach with which they reproached you, Lord.
13 Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture,
will praise you always, from generation to generation.
We will declare your praise.
Treatment of Poor Israelis
35 “If your relative becomes so poor that he is indebted to you,[a] then you are to support him. You are to let him live with you just like the resident alien and the traveler. 36 You are not to take interest or profit from him. Instead, you are to fear your God and let your relative live with you. 37 You are not to loan him money with interest or sell him your food at a profit. 38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39 “If your brother with you becomes so poor that he sells himself to you, you are not to make him serve like a bond slave.[b] 40 Instead, he is to serve with you like a hired servant or a traveler who lives with you, until the year of jubilee. 41 Then he and his children with him may leave[c] to return to his family and his ancestor’s inheritance. 42 Since they’re my servants whom I’ve brought out of the land of Egypt, they are not to be sold as slaves. 43 You are not to rule over them with harshness. You are to fear your God.”
Release of Slaves
44 “As for your male and maid slaves who will be with you, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations. 45 You may also buy from resident aliens who live among you and their families who are with you, whom they fathered in your land. They may become your property. 46 You may give them as inherited property to your children[d] after you, to own as properties in perpetuity. You may make bond slaves of them, but no one is to rule over his fellow Israeli with harshness.
47 “If a resident alien or traveler becomes rich,[e] but your relative who lives next to him is so poor that he sells himself to that resident alien or traveler among you or to a member of the resident alien’s family, 48 he has the right to be redeemed after he sells himself. One of his brothers may redeem him. 49 His uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him or any blood[f] relative from his tribe may redeem him. If[g] he becomes rich,[h] then he may redeem himself.
50 “He is to bring an accounting to the one who bought him, starting from the year he had sold himself until the year of jubilee. The price of his sale is to correspond to the number of years comparable to the time a hired servant stays with him. 51 If there are still many years left, he is to refund the cost[i] of his redemption. 52 But if only a few years are left until the year of jubilee, he is to bring an accounting of the years that he is to refund for his redemption. 53 Like a hired servant, he is to remain with him year after year, but he is not to rule over him with what you see as severity. 54 If he isn’t redeemed by these, then he is to be set free in the year of jubilee—he and his children[j] with him— 55 because the Israelis are my servants. They’re my servants, since I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
The Messiah is Above All
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about this, we have not stopped praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the full knowledge of God’s[a] will with respect to all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you might live in a manner worthy of the Lord and be fully pleasing to him[b] as you bear fruit while doing all kinds of good things and growing in the full knowledge of God. 11 You are being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you might patiently endure everything with joy 12 and might thank the Father, who has enabled us[c] to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. 13 God[d] has rescued us from the power of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom he loves, 14 through whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The Parable about a Farmer(A)
13 That day Jesus left the house and sat down beside the sea. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, while the entire crowd stood on the shore. 3 Then he began to tell them many things in parables. He said, “Listen! A farmer went out to sow. 4 As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on stony ground, where they did not have a lot of soil. They sprouted at once because the soil wasn’t deep. 6 But when the sun came up, they were scorched. Since they did not have any roots, they dried up. 7 Other seeds fell among thorn bushes, and the thorn bushes grew higher and choked them out. 8 But other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop, some 100, some 60, and some 30 times what was sown.[a] 9 Let the person who has ears[b] listen!”
The Purpose of the Parables(B)
10 Then the disciples came and asked Jesus,[c] “Why do you speak to people[d] in parables?”
11 He answered them, “You have been given knowledge about the secrets of the kingdom from[e] heaven, but it hasn’t been given to them, 12 because to anyone who has something, more will be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the one who doesn’t have anything, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13 That’s why I speak to them in parables, because
‘they look but don’t see,
and they listen but don’t hear or understand.’
14 “With them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says:
‘You will listen and listen but never understand.
You will look and look but never comprehend,
15 for this people’s heart has become dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing.[f]
They have shut their eyes
so that they might not see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn,
and I would heal them.’[g]
16 “How blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear!
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.