Book of Common Prayer
A song of Asaph.
The Acceptable Sacrifice
50 God, the Lord,[a] has spoken.
He has summoned the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting place.
2 From Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God has shined forth.
3 Our God has appeared and he has not been silent;
a devouring fire blazed before him,
and a mighty storm swirled around him.
4 He summoned the heavens above
and the earth below,[b]
to sit in judgment on his people.
5 “Assemble before me, my saints,
who have entered into my covenant by sacrifice.”
6 The heavens revealed his justice,
for God is himself the judge.
7 “Listen, my people,
for I am making a pronouncement:
Israel, I, God, your God, am testifying against you.
8 I do not rebuke you because of your sacrifices;
indeed, your burnt offerings are continuously before me.
9 I will no longer accept a sacrificial[c] bull from your household;
nor goats from your pens.
10 Indeed, every animal of the forest is mine,
even the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds in the mountains;
indeed, everything that moves in the field is mine.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you;
for the world is mine along with everything in it.
13 Why should I eat the flesh of oxen
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a thanksgiving praise;
pay your vows to the Most High.
15 Call on me in the day of distress;
I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
16 As for the wicked, God says,
“How dare you recite my statutes
or speak about my covenant with your lips!
17 You hate instruction
and toss my words behind you.
18 When you see a thief, you befriend him,
and you keep company with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth free reign for evil,
and your tongue devises deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother;
you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things you did, and I kept silent,
because you assumed that I was like you.
But now I am going to rebuke you,
and I will set forth my case before your very own eyes.”
22 Consider this, you who have forgotten God—
Otherwise, I will tear you in pieces
and there will be no deliverer:
23 Whoever offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me,
and I will reveal the salvation of God
to whomever continues in my way.”[d]
To the Director: A special Davidic psalm[a] to the tune of[b] “Do Not Destroy,” when Saul sent men to watch the house in order to kill him.
A Prayer for Deliverance and Justice
59 Save me from my enemies, my God!
Keep me safe from those who rise up against me.
2 Save me from those who practice evil;
deliver me from bloodthirsty men.
3 Look, they lie in ambush for my life;
these violent men gather together against me,
but not because of any transgression or sin of mine, Lord.
4 Without any fault on my part,
they rush together and prepare themselves.
Get up!
Come help me!
Pay attention!
5 You, Lord God of the Heavenly Armies, God of Israel,
stir yourself up to punish all the nations.
Show no mercy to those wicked transgressors.
6 At night they return like howling dogs;
they prowl around the city.
7 Look what pours out of their mouths!
They use their lips like swords,
saying[c] “Who will hear us?”
8 But you, Lord, will laugh at them;
you will mock all the nations.
9 My Strength, I will watch for you,
for God is my fortress.
10 My God of Gracious Love will meet me;
God will enable me to see what happens[d] to my enemies.
11 Don’t kill them!
Otherwise, my people may forget.
By your power make them stumble around;
bring them down low,
Lord, our Shield.
12 The sin of their mouth is the word on their lips.
They will be caught in their own conceit;
for they speak curses and lies.
13 Go ahead and destroy them in anger!
Wipe them out,
and they will know to the ends of the earth
that God rules over Jacob.[e]
14 At night they return like howling dogs;
they prowl around the city.
15 They scavenge for food.
If they find nothing,
they become hungry and growl.
16 But I will sing of your power
and in the morning I will shout for joy about your gracious love.
For you have been a fortress for me;
and a refuge when I am distressed.[f]
17 My Strength, I will sing praises to you,
for you, God of Gracious Love, are my fortress.
To the Director: A special Davidic psalm to the tune of[g] “Lily of The Covenant,” for teaching about his battle with Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah, when Joab returned and attacked 12,000 Edomites in the Salt Valley.[h]
A Prayer for God’s Help against Adversaries
60 God, you have cast us off;
you have breached our defenses
and you have become enraged.
Return to us!
2 You made the earth quake;
you broke it open.
Repair its fractures,
because it has shifted.
3 You made your people go through hard times;
you had us drink wine that makes us stagger.
4 But you have given a banner to those who fear you,
so they may display it in honor of truth.[i]
5 So your loved ones may be delivered,
save us by your power[j]
and answer us quickly!
6 Then God spoke in his holiness,
“I will rejoice—
I will divide Shechem;
I will portion out the Succoth Valley.
7 Gilead belongs to me,
and Manasseh is mine.
Ephraim is my helmet,
and Judah my scepter.
8 Moab is my wash basin;
over Edom I will throw my shoes;
over Philistia I will celebrate my triumph.”
9 Who will lead me to the fortified city?
Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Aren’t you the one, God, who has cast us off?
Didn’t you refuse, God, to accompany our armies?
Deliverance of Israel from Egypt
114 When Israel came out of Egypt—
the household of Jacob from a people of foreign speech—
2 Judah became his sanctuary
and Israel his place of dominion.
3 The sea saw this[a] and fled,
the Jordan River[b] ran backwards,
4 the mountains skipped like rams,
and the hills like lambs.
5 What happened to you, sea, that you fled?
Jordan, that you ran backwards?
6 Mountains, that you skipped like rams?
And you hills, that you skipped[c] like lambs?
7 Tremble then, earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool of water,
the flinty rock into flowing springs.
The Impotence of Idols
115 Not to us, Lord, not to us,
but to your name be given glory
on account of your gracious love and faithfulness.
2 Why should the nations ask
“Where now is their God?”
3 when our God is in the heavens
and he does whatever he desires?
4 Their idols are silver and gold,
crafted by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak;
they have eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear;
they have noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot touch;
feet, but cannot walk;
they cannot even groan with their throats.
8 Those who craft them will become like them,
as will all those who trust in them.
9 Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their helper and shield.
10 House of Aaron, trust in the Lord!
He is their helper and shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!
He is their helper and shield.
12 The Lord remembers and blesses us.
He will indeed bless the house of Israel;
he will bless the house of Aaron.
13 He will bless those who fear the Lord,
both the important and the insignificant together.
14 May the Lord add to your numbers—
to you and to your descendants.
15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
who made the heavens and the earth.
16 The highest heavens[d] belong to the Lord,
but he gave the earth to human beings.
17 Neither can the dead praise the Lord,
nor those who go down into the silence of death.[e]
18 But we will bless the Lord
from now to eternity.
Hallelujah!
8 See to it that no one enslaves you through philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the basic principles of the world,[a] and not according to the Messiah,[b] 9 because all the essence[c] of deity inhabits him in bodily form. 10 And you have been filled by him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In union with him you were also circumcised with a circumcision performed without human[d] hands by stripping off the corrupt nature by the circumcision performed by the Messiah.[e] 12 When you were buried with the Messiah[f] in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 Even when you were dead because of your offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God[g] made you alive with him when he forgave us all of our offenses, 14 having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross. 15 And when he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.[h]
16 Therefore, let no one judge you in matters of food and drink or with respect to a festival, a New Moon, or Sabbath days.[i] 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the reality[j] belongs to the Messiah.[k] 18 Let no one who delights in humility and the worship of angels cheat you out of the prize by rejoicing about what he has seen.[l] Such a person is puffed up for no reason by his carnal mind. 19 He does not hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, which is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God enables it.
The New Life in the Messiah
20 If you have died with the Messiah[m] to the basic principles of the world,[n] why are you submitting to its decrees as though you still lived in the world? 21 “Don’t handle this! Don’t taste or touch that!” 22 All of these things will be destroyed as they are used, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 These things have the appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, humility, and harsh treatment of the body, but they have no value against self-indulgence.
39 He also told them a parable: “One blind person can’t lead another blind person, can he? Both will fall into a ditch, won’t they? 40 A disciple is not better than his teacher. But everyone who is fully-trained will be like his teacher.
41 “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you don’t see the beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
A Tree is Known by Its Fruit(A)
43 “A good tree doesn’t produce rotten fruit, and a rotten tree doesn’t produce good fruit, 44 because every tree is known by its own fruit. People[a] don’t gather figs from thorny plants or pick grapes from a thorn bush. 45 A good person produces good from the good treasure of his heart, and an evil person produces evil from an evil treasure, because the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.”
The Two Foundations(B)
46 “Why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but don’t do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 They are like a person building a house, who dug a deep hole to lay the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the floodwaters pushed against that house but couldn’t shake it, because it had been founded on the rock.[b] 49 But the person who hears what I say[c] but doesn’t act on it is like someone who built a house on the ground without any foundation. When the floodwaters pushed against it, that house[d] quickly collapsed, and the resulting destruction of that house was extensive.”
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