Book of Common Prayer
78 Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old,
3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done.
5 For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded to our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
6 that the generation to come might know them, even the children who should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children,
7 that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments;
8 and so might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in His law;
11 they forgot His works and His wonders that He had shown them.
12 Marvelous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and caused them to pass through; and He made the waters to stand as a heap.
14 In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.
15 He cleaved the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.
16 He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17 And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
18 And they tempted God in their heart by asking for meat for their lust.
19 Yea, they spoke against God: they said, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
20 Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His people?”
21 Therefore the Lord heard this and was wroth; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also rose up against Israel,
22 because they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation,
23 though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.
25 Man ate angels’ food; He sent them meat to the full.
26 He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by His power He brought in the south wind.
27 He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea.
28 And He let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations.
29 So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire.
30 But they were not estranged from their lust; but while their meat was yet in their mouths,
31 the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
32 For all this, they sinned still and believed not in His wondrous works.
33 Therefore their days did He consume in vanity, and their years in trouble.
34 When He slew them, then they sought Him; and they returned and inquired early after God.
35 And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God, their redeemer.
36 Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied unto Him with their tongues.
37 For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they steadfast in His covenant.
38 But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not. Yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath;
39 for He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passeth away and cometh not again.
40 How oft did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert!
41 Yea, they turned back and tested God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
42 They remembered not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy,
43 how He had wrought His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the field of Zoan,
44 and had turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink.
45 He sent divers sorts of flies among them which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them.
46 He gave also their harvest unto the caterpillar, and their labor unto the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost.
48 He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them.
50 He made a path to His anger; He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
51 and smote all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham.
52 But He made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 And He led them on safely, so that they feared not; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 And He brought them to the border of His sanctuary, even to this mountain, which His right hand had purchased.
55 He cast out the heathen also before them, and apportioned them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56 Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God and kept not His testimonies,
57 but turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers; they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and loved Him to jealousy with their graven images.
59 When God heard this, He was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel,
60 so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He had placed among men,
61 and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy’s hand.
62 He gave His people over also unto the sword, and was wroth with His inheritance.
63 The fire consumed their young men, and their maidens were not given to marriage.
64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine.
66 And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts, and laid upon them a perpetual reproach.
67 Moreover He refused the tabernacle of Joseph and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
68 but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved.
69 And He built His sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which He hath established for ever.
70 He also chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following the ewes great with young He brought him to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance.
72 So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
5 Now it came to pass on the third day that Esther put on her royal apparel and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, opposite the king’s house; and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, opposite the gate of the house.
2 And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the scepter.
3 Then said the king unto her, “What wish thou, Queen Esther? And what is thy request? It shall be even given thee, to the half of the kingdom.”
4 And Esther answered, “If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him.”
5 Then the king said, “Cause Haman to make haste, that he may do as Esther hath said.” So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared.
6 And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, “What is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee. And what is thy request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.”
7 Then answered Esther and said, “My petition and my request is:
8 If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said.”
9 Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart; but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he stood not up nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai.
10 Nevertheless Haman refrained himself; and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife.
11 And Haman told them of the glory of his riches and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.
12 Haman said moreover, “Yea, Esther the queen let no man but myself come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared, and tomorrow am I invited unto her also with the king.
13 Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”
14 Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, “Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and tomorrow speak thou unto the king, that Mordecai may be hanged thereon. Then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet.” And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made.
12 And when Gallio was deputy of Achaia, the Jews with one accord began an insurrection against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat,
13 saying, “This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.”
14 And when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would have it that I should bear with you.
15 But if it be a question of words and names and your own law, look ye to it; for I will not be judge of such matters.”
16 And he drove them from the judgment seat.
17 Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the judgment seat. But Gallio was concerned about none of those things.
18 And Paul after this tarried there yet a good while, and then took his leave of the brethren and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila, having shorn his head at Cenchrea, for he had made a vow.
19 And he came to Ephesus and left them there, but he himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
20 When they desired him to tarry a longer time with them, he consented not,
21 but bade them farewell, saying, “I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem, but I will return again unto you, if God wills.” And he sailed from Ephesus.
22 And when he had landed at Caesarea and had gone up and saluted the church, he went down to Antioch.
23 And after he had spent some time there, he departed and went through all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples.
24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25 This man was instructed in the Way of the Lord; and being fervent in the Spirit, he spoke and taught diligently the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.
26 And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla had heard him, they took him unto them and expounded unto him the Way of God more perfectly.
27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he had come, he helped them much who had believed through grace;
28 for he mightily refuted the Jews (and that publicly), showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
15 And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts whether John was the Christ or not,
16 John answered, saying unto them all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I cometh, the straps of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
17 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable.”
18 And with many other exhortations preached he unto the people.
19 But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done,
20 added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.
21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized. And while He prayed the heaven was opened,
22 and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from Heaven, which said, “Thou Art My Beloved Son; In Thee I Am Well Pleased.”
Copyright © 1994 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc.