Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 95
Worship and Warning
Worship
1 Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord.
Let us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us.
2 Let us approach his presence with thanksgiving.
With music we will shout to him.
3 For the Lord is the great God
and the great King above all gods.
4 He holds the unexplored places of the earth in his hand,
and the peaks of the mountains belong to him.
5 The sea belongs to him, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down. Let us revere him.
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker,
7 for he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock in his hand.
Warning
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah,
as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers challenged me
and tested me though they had seen what I had done.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with that generation,
and I said, “They are a people who have hearts that stray.
They do not acknowledge my ways.”
11 So I swore in my anger,
“They shall never enter my resting place.”
Psalm 88
Darkness Is My Friend
The Headings
A song. A psalm. By the Sons of Korah.
For the choir director. According to mahalath leannoth.[a]
A maskil[b] of Heman the Ezrahite.
Opening Plea
1 O Lord, the God who saves me, by day I cry out.
At night I cry before you.
2 May my prayer come before you.
Turn your ear to my cry.
The Problem
3 Indeed, my soul has had its fill of troubles,
and my life has arrived at the grave.
4 I am treated like those who go down to the pit.
I am like someone without strength.
5 I am turned loose with the dead.
I am like the slain who lie in the grave,
like the ones you do not remember anymore,
like those who are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the lowest pit,
in dark places, in the depths.
7 Your wrath presses against me. Interlude
You have battered me with all your breakers.
8 You have distanced my acquaintances from me.
You have made me repulsive to them.
I am shut in and I cannot get out.
9 My eyesight grows dim from affliction.
I call to you, O Lord, every day.
I spread out my hands to you.
The Darkness of Death
10 Is it for the dead that you do a miracle? Interlude
Do the spirits of the dead rise up and praise you?
11 Is your mercy declared in the tomb,
your faithfulness in decay?
12 Is your wonderful work known in the darkness?
Is your righteousness known in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I cry to you, O Lord,
and in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 Why, O Lord, do you reject my soul?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 I have been afflicted
and I have been close to death since my youth.
I have endured your terrors.
I am in despair.
16 Your rage has swept over me.
Your terrors have destroyed me.
17 All day long they surround me like water.
They have battered me completely.
18 You have distanced my loved one and friend from me.
My only friend is darkness.
Psalm 27
The Stronghold of My Life
Heading
By David.
Safe in God’s Stronghold
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers advance against me to eat my flesh,
when my foes and my enemies come against me,
it is they who will stumble and fall.
3 If an army lines up against me, my heart will not fear.
If war rises against me, even then I will keep trusting.
Happy in God’s Temple
4 One thing I ask from the Lord. This is what I seek:
that I live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord,
and to seek him in his temple.[a]
5 Yes, he will hide me in his shelter on the day of trouble.
He will hide me in his tent.
He will set me high on a rock.
6 Then my head will be lifted up above the enemies who surround me.
I will offer sacrifices at his tent with a joyful shout.
I will sing and make music to the Lord.
Confident in Prayer
7 Hear me, O Lord. With my voice I call.
Be merciful to me and answer me.
8 When you say, “Seek my face,” my heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
9 Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger.
You have been my help.
Do not reject me or forsake me, O God who saves me.
10 If my father and my mother abandoned me,
the Lord would take me in.
Walking in God’s Path
11 Lord, teach me your way,
and lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.
12 Do not give me up to the desire of my foes,
because false witnesses rise up against me,
and so do those who breathe out violence.
At Home in God’s Land
13 Unless I was confident to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living—[b]
14 Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart,
and wait for the Lord!
21 Have mercy on me.
Have mercy on me, you friends of mine,
because the hand of God has struck me.
22 Why do you pursue me the way God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?
23 Oh how I wish that my words were written down.
Oh how I wish that they were inscribed in bronze,[a]
24 that they would be engraved in rock forever
with an iron tool and letters filled with lead.
25 As for me, I know that my Redeemer[b] lives,
and that at the end of time[c] he will stand over the dust.
26 Then, even after my skin has been destroyed,
nevertheless, in my own flesh I will see God.[d]
27 I myself will see him.
My own eyes will see him, and not as a stranger.
My emotions are in turmoil[e] within me.
Some Will Enter God’s Rest
4 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be fearful that any one of you may be judged to have failed to reach it. 2 In fact, we have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did. But the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united in faith with those who did listen. 3 Indeed, we who believe are going to enter his rest.
It happened just as he vowed when he said:
So I swore an oath in my wrath,
“They will never enter my rest.”[a]
And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in this way:
And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[b]
5 And again in this statement:
They will never enter my rest.[c]
6 Therefore, since it is still the case that some do enter this rest, and yet those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not enter because of disobedience, 7 God again set a certain day, namely, “today,” when he later said through David, as quoted before:
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.[d]
8 For, if Joshua had given them rest, then God would not have spoken later about another day.
9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. 10 For the one who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God rested from his work. 11 Therefore, let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the point of dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, even being able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from him, but everything is uncovered and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we will give an account.
Jesus Is Our High Priest
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest, who has gone through the heavens, namely, Jesus the Son of God, let us continue to hold on to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. 16 So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
God Placed Our Judgment on Christ
8 So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[a] 2 For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me[b] free from the law of sin and death. 3 Indeed, what the law was unable to do, because it was weakened by the flesh, God did, when he sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal with sin.[c] God condemned sin in his flesh, 4 so that the righteous decree of the law would be fully satisfied in us who are not walking according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.[d]
Living in Harmony With the Spiritual Nature
5 To be sure, those who are in harmony with the sinful flesh think about things the way the sinful flesh does, and those in harmony with the spirit think about things the way the spirit does. 6 Now, the way the sinful flesh thinks results in death, but the way the spirit thinks results in life and peace. 7 For the mind-set of the sinful flesh is hostile to God, since it does not submit to God’s law, and in fact, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the sinful flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the sinful flesh but in the spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit lives in you. And if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit, who is dwelling in you.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.