Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 101
A Psalm of David.
1 I will sing of mercy and justice;
to You, O Lord, I will sing.
2 I will consider the path that is blameless.
When will You come to me?
I will walk within my house
with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing
before my eyes.
I hate the work of those who turn aside;
it shall not have part of me.
4 A perverted heart shall be far from me;
I will not know anything wicked.
5 Whoever privately slanders his neighbor,
him I will destroy;
whoever has a haughty look and a proud heart
I will not endure.
6 My eyes shall be favorable to the faithful in the land,
that they may live with me;
he who walks in a blameless manner,
he shall serve me.
7 He who practices deceit
shall not dwell within my house;
he who tells lies
shall not remain in my sight.
8 Every morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
that I may cut off all wicked doers
from the city of the Lord.
Psalm 109
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Do not remain silent,
O God of my praise!
2 For the mouth of the wicked and deceitful
are opened against me;
they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They encircled me with words of hatred
and fought against me without cause.
4 In return for my love they are my adversaries,
but I give myself to prayer.
5 They have rewarded me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned,
and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.
8 Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be wandering beggars;
let them seek their bread far from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has;
let the strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
neither let there be any to pity his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually,
that the Lord may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness,
but pursued the poor and needy and broken-hearted
to their death.
17 As he loved cursing,
so let it come over him;
as he did not delight in blessing,
so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like a garment,
so let it soak into him like water,
and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment that covers him,
and a belt that he continually wears.
20 Let this be the reward of my adversaries from the Lord,
and of those who speak evil against my soul.
21 But You, O God my Lord,
work on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow in the evening;
I am tossed as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting,
and my body is thin with no fat.
25 I am a reproach to my accusers;
when they look upon me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to Your mercy,
27 that they may know that this is by Your hand,
that You, O Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but You will bless;
when they arise, let them be ashamed,
but let Your servant rejoice.
29 Let my adversaries be clothed with shame,
and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace like a cloak.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
indeed, I will praise Him among the multitude.
ע Ayin
121 I have done what is right and just;
do not abandon me to my oppressors.
122 Be true to Your servant for good;
let not the proud ones oppress me.
123 My eyes long for Your deliverance
and for the promise of Your righteousness.
124 Deal with Your servant according to Your mercy,
and teach me Your statutes.
125 I am Your servant; grant me understanding,
that I may know Your testimonies.
126 It is time for You, O Lord, to act,
for they have broken Your law.
127 Therefore I love Your commandments
above gold, even fine gold.
128 For I follow all Your precepts to be right,
and I hate every false way.
פ Pe
129 Your testimonies are wonderful;
therefore my soul keeps them.
130 The giving of Your words gives light;
it grants understanding to the simple.
131 I opened my mouth and panted,
for I long for Your commandments.
132 Look upon me, and be merciful to me,
as You are for those who love Your name.
133 Order my steps according to Your word,
and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
134 Deliver me from the oppression of man,
so I will keep Your precepts.
135 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant,
and teach me Your statutes.
136 Rivers of waters run down my eyes,
because people do not keep Your law.
צ Tsadhe
137 You are righteous, O Lord,
and upright are Your judgments.
138 You have set Your testimonies in righteousness
and faithfulness.
139 My zeal has consumed me,
because my enemies have forgotten Your words.
140 Your word is pure and true;
therefore Your servant loves it.
141 I am small and despised,
yet I do not forget Your precepts.
142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
and Your law is true.
143 Trouble and anguish have discovered me,
but Your commandments are my delight.
144 The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting;
grant me understanding, and I shall live.
15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you, and let us prepare a young goat for you.”
16 The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If I stay, I will not eat your food, but if you want to make an offering to the Lord, you should offer it.” (For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of the Lord.)
17 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we can honor you when your words come true?”
18 The angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.” 19 Manoah took the young goat and the grain offering and offered them to the Lord upon a rock. Then he did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife watched. 20 When the flame went up from the altar toward the heavens, the angel of the Lord went up in the flames from the altar. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell face down on the ground. 21 The angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord.
22 Manoah said to his wife, “We are certainly going to die, for we have seen God.”
23 Yet his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, He would not have taken the burnt offering and grain offering from us. He would not have shown us these things, nor let us hear things such as these at this time.”
24 So the woman bore a son, and she called him Samson. The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him.
The Seven Helpers
6 Now in those days, as the disciples were multiplied, there was murmuring among the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were overlooked in the daily distribution. 2 So the twelve called the multitude of disciples together and said, “It is not reasonable for us to leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Brothers, look among yourselves for seven men who are known to be full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint over this duty. 4 But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
5 And what was said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, who was a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, 6 whom they presented before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they placed their hands on them.
7 So the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples grew rapidly in Jerusalem, and a great number of the priests were obedient to the faith.
The Arrest of Stephen
8 Now Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. 9 Then some men rose up from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and of Asia), disputing with Stephen. 10 But they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
12 So they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and came upon him and seized him and led him to the Sanhedrin, 13 and set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. 14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses handed down to us.”
15 All who sat in the Sanhedrin, gazing at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
4 Now when the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
4 Now it was necessary that He go through Samaria. 5 So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being exhausted from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman of Samaria came there to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I shall give him will become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. So you have spoken truthfully.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you all say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.