Book of Common Prayer
To the Music director. Davidic. As a memorial.
A Call for Help
70 God, come to my rescue.
Lord, hurry to help me.
2 May those who seek to kill me be publicly humiliated.
May those who take pleasure in my harm
be turned back in humiliation.
3 May those who say “Aha! Aha!”
be turned back because of their shameful deeds.[a]
4 Let those who seek you greatly rejoice in you.
Let those who love your deliverance say,
“May God be continuously exalted.”
5 As for me, I am poor and needy.
God, come quickly to me.
You are my helper and my deliverer.
Lord, please do not delay.
A Prayer for Deliverance
71 In you, Lord, I take refuge;
let me never be humiliated.
2 Rescue and deliver me,[b] because you are righteous.
Turn your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my sheltering refuge where I may go continuously;
command my deliverance
for you are my rock and fortress.
4 My God, deliver me from the power of the wicked
and the grasp of ruthless practicers of evil.
5 For you are my hope, Lord God,
my security since I was young.
6 I depended on you since birth,[c]
when you brought me[d] from my mother’s womb;
I praise you continuously.
7 I have become an example to many
that you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with your praise
and your splendor daily.
9 Don’t throw me away when I am old;
do not abandon me when my strength fails.
10 For my enemies talk against me;
those who seek to kill me plot together
11 and say, “God has abandoned him.
Run after him and seize him,
because there’s no deliverer.”
12 God, do not be distant from me.
My God, come quickly to help me.
13 Let my adversaries be ashamed and consumed;[e]
let those who seek my destruction
be covered with scorn and disgrace.
14 As for me, I will hope continuously
and will praise you more and more.
15 I[f] will declare your righteousness
and your salvation every day,
though I do not fully understand
what the outcome will be.[g]
16 Lord God, I will come in the power of[h] your mighty acts,
remembering your righteousness—yours alone.
17 God, you taught me from my youth,
so I am still declaring your awesome deeds.
18 Also, when I reach old age and have gray hair,
God, do not forsake me,
until I have declared your power
to this generation
and your might to the next one.
19 Your many righteous deeds,[i] God, are great,
20 God, who can compare to you,
who caused me to experience[j] troubles
that were numerous and disastrous?
You will return to revive me
and lift me up from the depths of the earth.
21 You will increase my honor
and comfort me once again.
22 I also will praise you with the harp;
because of your faithfulness, my God,
I will praise you with the lyre—
Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you,
whose life you have redeemed.
24 Moreover, my tongue will speak all day about your justice;
for those who seek my destruction will be utterly humiliated.
An instruction[a] of Asaph
A Plea for Deliverance
74 Why, God? Have you rejected us forever?
Your anger is burning against the sheep of your pasture.
2 Remember your community,
whom you purchased long ago,
the tribe whom you redeemed
for your possession.
Remember[b] Mount Zion,
where you live.
3 Hurry! Look at the permanent ruins—
every calamity the enemy brought upon the Holy Place.
4 Those who are opposing you roar
where we were meeting with you;
they unfurl their war banners as signs.
5 As one blazes a trail
through a forest with an ax,
6 now they’re tearing down all its carved work
with hatchets and hammers.
7 They burned your sanctuary to the ground,
desecrating your dwelling place.
8 They say to themselves,
“We’ll crush them completely;”
They burned down all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We see no signs for us;
there is no longer a prophet,
and no one among us knows the future.[c]
10 God, how long will the adversary scorn
while the enemy despises your name endlessly?
11 Why do you not withdraw your hand—
your right hand—from your bosom
and destroy them?[d]
12 But God is my king from ancient times,
who brings acts of deliverance throughout the earth.
13 You split the sea by your own power.
You shattered the heads of sea monsters in the water.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan.
You set it as food for desert creatures.[e]
15 You opened both the spring and the river;
you dried up flowing rivers.
16 Yours is the day, and yours is the night;
you established the moon and the sun.
17 You set all the boundaries of the earth;
you made summer and winter.
18 Remember this: The enemy scorns the Lord
and a foolish people despises your name.
19 Don’t hand over the life of your dove to beasts;
do not continuously forget your afflicted ones.
20 Pay attention to your covenant,
for the dark regions of the earth are full of violence.
21 Don’t let the oppressed return in humiliation.
The poor and needy will praise your name.
22 Get up, God, and prosecute your case—
remember that you’re being scorned
by fools all day long.
23 Don’t ignore the shout of those opposing you,
The uproar of those who rebel against you continuously.
Preparing for the Future
11 Spread your bread on the water—
after a while you will find it.
2 Apportion what you have into seven, or even eight parts,
because you don’t know what disaster might befall the land.
3 If the clouds are full of rain,
they will pour out on the earth;
if a tree falls toward the south or the north,
wherever it falls, there it will lay.
4 Whoever keeps staring at the wind won’t sow;
whoever daydreams[a] won’t reap.
5 Just as you do not understand the way of the spirit
in the[b] womb of a pregnant mother,
so also you do not know
what God is doing in everything he makes.
6 Sow your seed in the morning,
and don’t stop working[c] until evening,
since you don’t know which of your endeavors will do well,
whether this one or that,
or even if both will do equally well.
Preparing for Old Age
7 How sweet is the daylight, and how pleasant it is for someone’s eyes to behold the sunshine! 8 Even if a person lives many years, let him enjoy them all, recalling that there will be many days of darkness to come—all of which are pointless.
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will never fulfill the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh wants is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, and so you do not do what you want to do. 18 But if you are being led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.
19 Now the actions of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, promiscuity, 20 idolatry, witchcraft,[a] hatred, rivalry, jealously, outbursts of anger, quarrels, conflicts, factions, 21 envy, murder,[b] drunkenness, wild partying, and things like that. I am telling you now, as I have told you in the past, that people who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,[c] 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 Now those who belong to the Messiah[d] Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.
Peter Declares His Faith in Jesus(A)
13 When Jesus had come to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They said, “Some say[a] John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 He asked them, “But who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,[b] the Son of the living God!”
17 Then Jesus told him, “How blessed you are, Simon son of Jonah,[c] since flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, though my Father in heaven has. 18 I tell you that you are Peter,[d] and it is on this rock[e] that I will build my congregation,[f] and the powers of hell[g] will not conquer it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom from[h] heaven. Whatever you prohibit on earth will have been prohibited[i] in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will have been permitted[j] in heaven.”
20 Then he strictly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.[k]
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.