Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 18
To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said:
1 I love You fervently and devotedly, O Lord, my Strength.
2 The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my keen and firm Strength in Whom I will trust and take refuge, my Shield, and the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower.(A)
3 I will call upon the Lord, Who is to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.(B)
4 The cords or bands of death surrounded me, and the streams of ungodliness and the torrents of ruin terrified me.
5 The cords of Sheol (the place of the dead) surrounded me; the snares of death confronted and came upon me.
6 In my distress [when seemingly closed in] I called upon the Lord and cried to my God; He heard my voice out of His temple (heavenly dwelling place), and my cry came before Him, into His [very] ears.
7 Then the earth quaked and rocked, the foundations also of the mountains trembled; they moved and were shaken because He was indignant and angry.
8 There went up smoke from His nostrils; and lightning out of His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it.
9 He bowed the heavens also and came down; and thick darkness was under His feet.
10 And He rode upon a cherub [a storm] and flew [swiftly]; yes, He sped on with the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His secret hiding place; as His pavilion (His canopy) round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
12 Out of the brightness before Him there broke forth through His thick clouds hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered from the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, amid hailstones and coals of fire.
14 And He sent out His arrows and scattered them; and He flashed forth lightnings and put them to rout.
15 Then the beds of the sea appeared and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
16 He reached from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated and abhorred me, for they were too strong for me.
18 They confronted and came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay and support.
19 He brought me forth also into a large place; He was delivering me because He was pleased with me and delighted in me.
20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness (my conscious integrity and sincerity with Him); according to the cleanness of my hands has He recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His ordinances were before me, and I put not away His statutes from me.
23 I was upright before Him and blameless with Him, ever [on guard] to keep myself free from my sin and guilt.
24 Therefore has the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness (my uprightness and right standing with Him), according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.
25 With the kind and merciful You will show Yourself kind and merciful, with an upright man You will show Yourself upright,
26 With the pure You will show Yourself pure, and with the perverse You will show Yourself contrary.
27 For You deliver an afflicted and humble people but will bring down those with haughty looks.
28 For You cause my lamp to be lighted and to shine; the Lord my God illumines my darkness.
29 For by You I can run through a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.
30 As for God, His way is perfect! The word of the Lord is tested and tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him.
31 For who is God except the Lord? Or who is the Rock save our God,
32 The God who girds me with strength and makes my way perfect?
33 He makes my feet like hinds’ feet [able to stand firmly or make progress on the dangerous heights of testing and trouble]; He sets me securely upon my high places.
34 He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand has held me up; Your gentleness and condescension have made me great.
36 You have given plenty of room for my steps under me, that my feet would not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them; neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
38 I smote them so that they were not able to rise; they fell wounded under my feet.
39 For You have girded me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me and caused to bow down those who rose up against me.
40 You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me.
41 They cried [for help], but there was none to deliver—even unto the Lord, but He answered them not.
42 Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind; I emptied them out as the dirt and mire of the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the strivings of the people; You made me the head of the nations; a people I had not known served me.
44 As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me; foreigners submitted themselves cringingly and yielded feigned obedience to me.
45 Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their caves or strongholds.
46 The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted,
47 The God Who avenges me and subdues peoples under me,
48 Who delivers me from my enemies; yes, You lift me up above those who rise up against me; You deliver me from the man of violence.
49 Therefore will I give thanks and extol You, O Lord, among the nations, and sing praises to Your name.(C)
50 Great deliverances and triumphs gives He to His king; and He shows mercy and steadfast love to His anointed, to David and his offspring forever.(D)
3 And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach and cry out to it the preaching that I tell you.
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city of three days’ journey [sixty miles in circumference].
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
5 So the people of Nineveh believed in God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth [in penitent mourning], from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came to the king of Nineveh [of all that had happened to Jonah, and his terrifying message from God], and he arose from his throne and he laid his robe aside, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed nor drink water.
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who can tell, God may turn and revoke His sentence against us [when we have met His terms], and turn away from His fierce anger so that we perish not.(A)
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God revoked His [sentence of] evil that He had said that He would do to them and He did not do it [for He was comforted and eased concerning them].
4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, I pray You, O Lord, is not this just what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and [when sinners turn to You and meet Your conditions] You revoke the [sentence of] evil against them.(B)
3 Therefore now, O Lord, I beseech You, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 Then said the Lord, Do you do well to be angry?
5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, and he made a booth there for himself. He sat there under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city.
6 And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil situation. So Jonah was exceedingly glad [to have the protection] of the gourd.
7 But God prepared a cutworm when the morning dawned the next day, and it smote the gourd so that it withered.
8 And when the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah so that he fainted and wished in himself to die and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry for the loss of the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die!
10 Then said the Lord, You have had pity on the gourd, for which you have not labored nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons not [yet old enough to] know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle [not accountable for sin]?
27 The fourteenth night had come and we were drifting and being driven about in the Adriatic Sea, when about midnight the sailors began to suspect that they were drawing near to some land.
28 So they took soundings and found twenty fathoms, and a little farther on they sounded again and found fifteen fathoms.
29 Then fearing that we might fall off [our course] onto rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and kept wishing for daybreak to come.
30 And as the sailors were trying to escape [secretly] from the ship and were lowering the small boat into the sea, pretending that they were going to lay out anchors from the bow,
31 Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, Unless these men remain in the ship, you cannot be saved.
32 Then the soldiers cut away the ropes that held the small boat, and let it fall and drift away.
33 While they waited until it should become day, Paul entreated them all to take some food, saying, This is the fourteenth day that you have been continually in suspense and on the alert without food, having eaten nothing.
34 So I urge (warn, exhort, encourage, advise) you to take some food [for your safety]—it will give you strength; for not a hair is to perish from the head of any one of you.
35 Having said these words, he took bread and, giving thanks to God before them all, he broke it and began to eat.
36 Then they all became more cheerful and were encouraged and took food themselves.
37 All told there were 276 souls of us in the ship.
38 And after they had eaten sufficiently, [they proceeded] to lighten the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea.
39 Now when it was day [and they saw the land], they did not recognize it, but they noticed a bay with a beach on which they [taking counsel] purposed to run the ship ashore if they possibly could.
40 So they cut the cables and severed the anchors and left them in the sea; at the same time unlashing the ropes that held the rudders and hoisting the foresail to the wind, they headed for the beach.
41 But striking a crosscurrent (a place open to two seas) they ran the ship aground. The prow stuck fast and remained immovable, and the stern began to break up under the violent force of the waves.
42 It was the counsel of the soldiers to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim to land and escape;
43 But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, prevented their carrying out their purpose. He commanded those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and make for the shore,
44 And the rest on heavy boards or pieces of the vessel. And so it was that all escaped safely to land.
18 Now it occurred that as Jesus was praying privately, the disciples were with Him, and He asked them, Who do men say that I am?
19 And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, that one of the ancient prophets has come back to life.
20 And He said to them, But who do you [yourselves] say that I am? And Peter replied, The Christ of God!
21 But He strictly charged and sharply commanded them [[a]under penalty] to tell this to no one [no one, [b]whoever he might be],
22 Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be [[c]deliberately] disapproved and repudiated and rejected on the part of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death and on the third day be raised [again].
23 And He said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [[d]disown himself, [e]forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, [f]refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [[g]cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also].
24 For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [[h]from the penalty of eternal death].
25 For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and ruins or forfeits (loses) himself?
26 Because whoever is ashamed of Me and of My teachings, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in the [[i]threefold] glory (the splendor and majesty) of Himself and of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 However I tell you truly, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.
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