Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David, the slave of the LORD, who spoke unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,
1 ¶ I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.
2 The LORD is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemies.
4 The pain of death compassed me, and the rivers of Belial made me afraid.
5 The pain of Sheol compassed me about: the snares of death came before me.
6 In my distress I called upon the LORD and cried unto my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the mountains collapsed and were removed because he was wroth.
8 Smoke went up out of his nostrils, and fire devoured out of his mouth; coals were kindled by it.
9 He lowered the heavens and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
10 And he rode upon a cherub and flew: yea, he flew upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his hiding place; in his tabernacle round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the heavens.
12 At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.
13 The LORD thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
14 He sent out his arrows and scattered them; he shot out lightnings and destroyed them.
15 Then the depths of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
16 He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, even though they were too strong for me.
18 They were ready for me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my staff.
19 He brought me forth also into a wide place; he delivered me because he delighted in me.
20 ¶ The LORD will reward me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he shall recompense me.
21 Because I have kept the ways of the LORD and did not become wicked departing in apostasy from my God.
22 For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.
23 I was perfect before him, and I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands before his eyes.
25 With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful; with a perfect man thou wilt show thyself perfect;
26 with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the perverse thou wilt show thyself adversary.
27 Therefore thou wilt save the humble people; but wilt bring down high looks.
28 For thou wilt light my fire: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.
29 ¶ For with thee I have scattered armies; and in my God I have overcome walled defenses.
30 As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is precise: a shield to all those that wait in him.
31 For who is God except the LORD? or who is a refuge except our God?
32 It is God that girds me with strength and makes my way perfect.
33 He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and sets me upon my high places.
34 He trains my hands for the battle, so that a bow of bronze shall be broken by my arms.
35 In the same manner thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand will hold me up, and thy meekness shall multiply me.
36 Thou shall enlarge my steps under me, and my knees shall not tremble.
37 I shall pursue my enemies and overtake them: neither shall I turn again until they are consumed.
38 I shall smite them, and they will not be able to rise: they shall fall under my feet.
39 For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued my enemies under me.
40 Thou hast also given me the necks of my enemies that I might destroy those that hate me.
41 They cried out, but there was no one to save them: even unto the LORD, but he did not answer them.
42 Then I beat them as small as the dust before the wind: I scattered them as the dirt in the streets.
43 Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and thou hast made me the head of the Gentiles: a people whom I did not know served me.
44 As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me: the sons of strangers submitted themselves unto me even against their will.
45 The strangers fell away and were afraid in their close places.
46 The LORD lives; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
47 It is God that avenges me and subdues the peoples under me.
48 He delivers me from my enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the one who would betray me.
49 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the Gentiles and sing praises unto thy name.
50 He gives great deliverance to his king and shows mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.
3 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3 So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed.
5 ¶ So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he threw his robe from him and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink water:
8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God; and let each one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger, that we not perish?
10 And God saw their works, because they turned from their evil way, and he repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did not do it.
4 ¶ But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 And he prayed unto the LORD and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was this not what I said when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hastened to flee unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou art a gracious God and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy, and dost repent when thou art come to take punishment.
3 Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me, for I would rather die than live.
4 Then the LORD said, Art thou so angry?
5 ¶ And Jonah went out of the city and sat towards the east side of the city, and there made him a booth and sat under it in the shade until 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 shadow over his head to deliver him from his evil. So Jonah was exceeding glad for the gourd.
7 But God also prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd so that it withered.
8 And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and wished in his soul to die and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 And God said to Jonah, Art thou so angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
10 Then the LORD said, Thou hast had pity on the gourd for which thou hast not laboured, neither didst thou make it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night:
11 And shall I not spare Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and many animals?
27 And when the fourteenth night was come as we were driven up and down in the Adriatic sea, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country
28 and sounded and found it twenty fathoms; and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again and found it fifteen fathoms.
29 Then fearing lest we should fall upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the day.
30 And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship,
31 Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.
32 Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.
33 And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take food, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have waited and continued fasting, having taken nothing.
34 Therefore I pray you to take some food, for this is for your salvation and health, for there shall not one hair fall from the head of any of you.
35 And when he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat.
36 Then they were all of good cheer, and they also took some food.
37 And we were in all, in the ship, two hundred and seventy-six souls.
38 And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the grain into the sea.
39 And when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they discovered a certain gulf with a shore, into which they decided, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship.
40 And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea and loosed the rudder bands and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind and made toward shore.
41 But falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.
42 And the soldiers’ counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out and escape.
43 But the centurion, desiring to save Paul, frustrated this counsel and commanded that those who could swim should cast themselves first into the sea and get to land;
44 and the rest, some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they were all saved by making it to land.
18 ¶ And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him, and he asked them, saying, Who do the people say that I am?
19 They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets is risen again.
20 He said unto them, But who do ye say that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God.
21 And he straitly charged them and commanded them not to tell anyone this,
22 saying, The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the princes of the priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the third day.
23 And he said to them all, If anyone will come after me, let them deny themself and take up their cross {Gr. stauros – stake} daily and follow me.
24 For whosoever desires to save his soul shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his soul for my sake, the same shall save it.
25 For what is a man advantaged if he gains the whole world, having destroyed himself or having suffered the loss of himself?
26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his Father’s and of the holy angels.
27 But I tell you in truth, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God.
Copyright © 2013, 2020 by Ransom Press International