Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41
Even My Friend
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For the choir director. A psalm by David.
David’s Confidence of Delivery
1 How blessed is the person who understands the plight of the weak!
May the Lord deliver him in the day of trouble.
2 May the Lord guard him and keep him alive.
May he be blessed in the land.
May you not surrender him to the desire of his enemies.
3 May the Lord sustain him on his sickbed.
You raise him up from his bed.
4 I said, “Lord, have mercy on me.
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.”
The Treachery of the Conspirators
5 My enemies speak evil about me:
“When will he die and his name perish?”
6 If one comes to see me, he speaks falsely.
In his heart he collects malicious plans.
He goes out. He speaks about them in the street.
7 All who hate me whisper together against me.
They plan evil for me. They say,
8 “A deadly affliction is poured out on him.
He will never get up from the place where he lies.”
9 Even a man who was at peace with me,
a man whom I trusted, who ate my bread,
has raised up his heel to step on me.
Closing Prayer
10 But you, Lord, have mercy on me.
Raise me up, so that I can repay them.
11 From this I know that you are pleased with me:
My enemy does not triumph over me.
12 As for me—in my integrity you uphold me,
and you set me up in your presence forever.
Closing Doxology
13 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from eternity to eternity.
Amen and Amen.
Psalm 52
Your Tongue Is a Razor
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For the choir director. A maskil[a] by David.
When Doeg the Edomite went and informed Saul
and said to him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelek.”[b]
Doeg’s Sin
1 Why do you boast about evil, you hero?
The mercy of God endures all day long.
2 Your tongue plans destruction.
It is like a sharpened razor, you scheming liar.
3 You love evil rather than good. Interlude
You love lying rather than speaking what is right.
4 You lying tongue, you love every word that devours!
Doeg’s Judgment
5 But God will tear you down forever.
He will grab you and pull you out of your tent. Interlude
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 Then the righteous will see and fear.
Then they will laugh at him:
7 “Look, here is the man who did not make God his stronghold,
but trusted in the greatness of his wealth.
He grew strong by his destructive deeds!”
David’s Delivery
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
9 I will thank you forever because you have done this.
I will hope in your name in the presence of your favored ones
because it is good.
Psalm 44
Past Victory—Present Defeat
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For the choir director. By the Sons of Korah. A maskil.
Past Victory
1 God, our ears have heard.
Our fathers have told us the work you performed
in their days, in days long ago.
2 By your hand you drove out the nations,
but you planted your people.
You crushed the peoples,
but you sent your people forward.
3 For it was not by their sword
that they took possession of the land.
It was not their arm that saved them.
It was your right hand and your arm,
and the light from your face,
because you took pleasure in them.
Present Trust
4 You are the one who is my King, O God.
Command victories for Jacob.
5 Through you we drive back our foes.
Through your name we trample our adversaries.
6 For I do not trust in my bow,
and my sword does not save me.
7 But you save us from our foes,
and you put those who hate us to shame.
8 In God we make our boast all day,
and we will praise your name forever. Interlude
Present Defeat
9 But now you have rejected and humbled us,
and you do not go out with our armies.
10 You made us turn back before the foe,
and those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves.
11 You give us up for food like sheep,
and you have scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold your people for no great price,
and you have not profited from their sale.
13 You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
scorn and ridicule to those around us.
14 You have made us a laughingstock among the nations,
a reason for the peoples to shake their heads.
15 All day my disgrace is right in front of me,
and the shame on my face covers me,
16 because of the voice of the slanderer and reviler,
because of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this came on us, though we had not forgotten you.
We had not been false to your covenant.
18 Our hearts had not turned back.
Our steps had not slipped off your path.
19 But you crushed us and made us a home for jackals,
and you covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21 would not God have discovered this,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Yet for your sake we are killed all day long.
We are considered sheep to be slaughtered.
Present Plea
23 Get up! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Wake up!
Do not reject us forever.
24 Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our misery and our oppression?
25 For our souls bow down to the dust.
Our bellies cling to the earth.
26 Stand up! Help us!
Redeem us because of your mercy.
13 If you faithfully listen to my commandments that I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will provide rain for your land in season, early fall rain and late spring rain, and you will gather your grain and your new wine and your fresh oil. 15 I will provide grass in your field for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied.
16 Be careful, or your heart will be deceived and you will turn away and serve other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and he will close up the heavens. There will be no rain, the ground will not produce crops, and you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord is giving you.
18 Put these words of mine in your hearts and in your soul, and tie them on your wrists as signs and as symbols on your forehead. 19 Teach them to your children by talking about them when you sit in your house and when you travel on the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
11 So, since we know the fear of the Lord, we are trying to persuade people. Now, we are well known by God, and I hope that we are also well known in your consciences. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again, but we are giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you have a reply for those who boast about outward appearance rather than what is in the heart.
13 Actually, if we were out of our minds, it was for God. If we are in our right minds, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ compels[a] us, because we came to this conclusion: One died for all; therefore, all died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him, who died in their place and was raised again.
God Was in Christ Reconciling the World
16 As a result, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we knew Christ according to the flesh, we no longer know him that way. 17 So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come![b] 18 And all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, inasmuch as God is making an appeal through us. We urge you, on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
6 As fellow workers we also urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2 For he says:
At a favorable time I listened to you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you.[c]
Look, now is the favorable time! See, now is the day of salvation!
Do Not Cause Little Believers to Fall Into Sin
17 Jesus said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for that person if a millstone would be hung around his neck and he would be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Watch yourselves.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. 4 Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
Increase Our Faith
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”
6 The Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 Which one of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of sheep will say to him when he comes in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at the table’? 8 Won’t the master tell him instead, ‘Prepare my supper, and after you are properly dressed, serve me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink’? 9 He does not thank the servant because he did what he was commanded to do, does he? 10 So also you, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do.’”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.