Book of Common Prayer
A Plea for Deliverance from Persecution
For the music director, according to The Lilies. Of David.[a]
69 Save me, O God,
because waters have come up to my neck.[b]
2 I sink in the mud of the deep, and there is no foothold.
I have come to watery depths,
and the torrent floods over me.
3 I am weary with my calling out; my throat is parched.
My eyes are exhausted in my waiting for my God.
4 More numerous than the hairs of my head
are those hating me without a cause.
Those who are destroying me—my enemies wrongfully[c]— are mighty.
What I did not steal, I then must restore.
5 O God, you yourself know[d] my foolishness,
and my guilty deeds are not hidden from you.
6 Let those who wait for you not be put to shame because of me,
O Lord Yahweh of hosts.
Let those who seek you not be disgraced because of me,
O God of Israel.
7 Because on account of you I have borne reproach;
disgrace has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers
and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
9 because the zeal for your house[e] has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those reproaching you have fallen on me.
10 When I wept in the fasting of my soul,
it became reproaches for me.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became for them a byword.
12 Those sitting at the gate talk about me
as also[f] the songs of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Yahweh, for a favorable time,
O God, according to the abundance of your loyal love.
Answer me with the faithfulness of your salvation.
14 Deliver me from the mud and do not let me sink.
Let me be delivered from those who hate me
and from the watery depths.
15 Do not let the torrent of waters flood over me,
or the deep swallow me,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, O Yahweh, because your loyal love is good;
according to your abundant mercies, turn to me,
17 and do not hide your face from your servant.
Because I am in trouble, answer me quickly.
18 Draw near to my soul; redeem it.
Because of my enemies, ransom me.
19 You know my reproach, my shame and my disgrace.
Fully known[g] to you are all my adversaries.
20 Reproach has broken my heart and I am sick.
And I hoped for sympathy, but there was none,
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They also gave me gall for food,[h]
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table before them be a trap,
and their times of peace a snare.
23 Let their eyes be dark so they cannot see,
and make their loins continually tremble.
24 Pour out your indignation on them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
25 Let their camp be desolate.
Let none dwell in their tents,
26 because they persecute those whom you, yourself, have struck,
and they tell of the pain of those you have wounded.
27 Add guilt on top of their guilt,[i]
and do not let them be acquitted.[j]
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
and let them not be recorded with the righteous.
29 But as for me, though I am afflicted and pained,
your salvation will protect[k] me, O God.
30 I will praise the name of God in song,
and magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 For Yahweh it will be better than an ox or bull,
horned and hoofed.[l]
32 The afflicted will see and rejoice.
O God seekers, let your heart revive,[m]
33 because Yahweh hears the needy
and does not despise his own who are prisoners.
34 Let heavens and earth praise him,
the seas and all that moves in them,
35 because God will save Zion
and build the cities of Judah,
that they may dwell there and possess it.
36 And the offspring of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will abide in it.
The Wicked and the Righteous Contrasted
A song of Asaph.[a]
73 Surely God is good to Israel,
to those pure of heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled.
My steps had nearly slipped,
3 because I envied the boastful
when I saw the well-being[b] of the wicked.
4 For there are no pains up to their death,
and their bodies are healthy.[c]
5 They do not have ordinary trouble,[d]
and they are not plagued as other people.[e]
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
an outfit of violence covers them.
7 Their eye bulges from fat.[f]
Imaginings overflow their heart.
8 They mock and speak maliciously of oppression;
they speak as though from on high.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens,
and their tongue roams the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn there,[g]
and abundant waters are slurped up by them.
11 And they say, “How does God know?”
and, “Does the Most High have knowledge?”
12 See, these are the wicked,
and they increase wealth, ever carefree.
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure,
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 And I have been plagued all day
and rebuked every morning.[h]
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
behold, I would have acted treacherously
against your children’s generation.
16 When I thought about how to understand this,
it was troubling in my eyes
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Then I understood their fate.
18 Surely you set them on slippery places.
You cause them to fall onto ruin.[i]
19 How they become a desolation in a moment!
They come to a complete end by terrors.
20 Like a dream upon awakening,
when you wake up, O Lord,
you will despise their fleeting form.[j]
21 When my heart was embittered
and I felt stabbed in my kidneys,
22 then I was brutish and ignorant.
With you I was like the beasts.
23 But I am continually with you;
you have hold of my right hand.
24 You will guide me with your advice,
and afterward you will take me into honor.[k]
25 Whom do I have in the heavens except you?
And with you I have no other desire on earth.
26 My flesh and heart failed,
but God is the strength[l] of my heart and my reward forever.
27 For indeed, those distancing themselves from you will be ruined.
You destroy each who abandons you for harlotry.
28 But as for me, the approach to God is for my good.
I have set the Lord Yahweh as my refuge,
in order to tell all your works.
6 And Joseph died and all of his brothers and all of that generation. 7 And the Israelites[a] were fruitful and multiplied and were many and were very, very numerous, and the land was filled with them.
8 And a new king rose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the Israelites[b] are greater and more numerous than us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, lest they become many, and when war happens, they also will join our enemies and will fight against us and go up from the land.” 11 And they appointed commanders of forced labor over them in order to oppress them with their forced labor,[c] and they built storage cities for Pharaoh—Pithom and Rameses. 12 And as he oppressed them, so they became many, and so they spread out, and the Egyptians were afraid because of the presence of the Israelites.[d] 13 And the Egyptians ruthlessly compelled the Israelites[e] to work. 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard work with mortar and with bricks and with all sorts of work in the field—with all their work in which they ruthlessly enslaved them.
15 And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—of whom the name of the one was Shiphrah and the name of the second was Puah— 16 and he said, “When you help the Hebrews give birth, you will look upon the pairs of testicles; if he is a son, you will put him to death, and if she is a daughter, she will live.” 17 But the midwives feared God, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had said to them. They let the boys live. 18 And the king of Egypt summoned the midwives, and he said to them, “Why have you done this thing and let the boys live?” 19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, because they are vigorous; before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.” 20 And God did the midwives good, and the Israelite people became many and were very numerous. 21 And so[f] because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.[g] 22 And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you will throw into the Nile, and every daughter you will let live.”
Unity in the Midst of Diversity
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, although they[a] are many, are one body, thus also Christ. 13 For by[b] one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free persons, and all were made to drink one Spirit. 14 For the body is not one member, but many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” not because of this is it not a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body, not because of this is it not a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body just as he wanted. 19 And if they all were one member, where would the body be? 20 But now there are many members, but one body.
21 Now the eye is not able to say to the hand, “I do not have need of you,” or again, the head to the feet, “I do not have need of you.” 22 But by much more the members of the body which are thought to be weaker are necessary, 23 and the parts of the body which we think to be less honorable, these we clothe with more abundant honor, and our unpresentable parts come to have more abundant presentability, 24 but our presentable parts do not have need of this. Yet God composed the body by giving more abundant honor to the part which lacked it, 25 in order that there not be a division in the body, but the members would have the same concern for one another. 26 And if one member suffers, all the members suffer together; if a member[c] is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Peter’s Confession at Caesarea Philippi
27 And Jesus and his disciples went out to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, saying, “John the Baptist, and others Elijah, and others that you are one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and[a] said to him, “You are the Christ!” 30 And he warned them that they should tell no one about him.
Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection
31 And he began to teach them that it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer many things and to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be killed, and after three days to rise. 32 And he was speaking openly about the subject, and Peter took him aside and[b] began to rebuke him. 33 But turning around and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan, because you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but the things of people!”
Taking Up One’s Cross to Follow Jesus
34 And summoning the crowd together with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to come[c] after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life on account of me and of the gospel will save it. 36 For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 37 For what can a person give in exchange for his life? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
9 And he said to them, “Truly I say to you, that there are some of those standing here who will never experience death until they see the kingdom of God having come with power.”
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