Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 55
To the Chief Musician; with stringed instruments. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of David.
1 Listen to my prayer, O God, and hide not Yourself from my supplication!
2 Attend to me and answer me; I am restless and distraught in my complaint and must moan
3 [And I am distracted] at the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression and threats of the wicked; for they would cast trouble upon me, and in wrath they persecute me.
4 My heart is grievously pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fear and trembling have come upon me; horror and fright have overwhelmed me.
6 And I say, Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.
7 Yes, I would wander far away, I would lodge in the wilderness. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
8 I would hasten to escape and to find a shelter from the stormy wind and tempest.
9 Destroy [their schemes], O Lord, confuse their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go about on its walls; iniquity and mischief are in its midst.
11 Violence and ruin are within it; fraud and guile do not depart from its streets and marketplaces.
12 For it is not an enemy who reproaches and taunts me—then I might bear it; nor is it one who has hated me who insolently vaunts himself against me—then I might hide from him.
13 But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend.
14 We had sweet fellowship together and used to walk to the house of God in company.
15 Let desolations and death come suddenly upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol (the place of the dead), for evils are in their habitations, in their hearts, and their inmost part.
16 As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me.
17 Evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice.
18 He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me [so that none came near me], for they were many who strove with me.
19 God will hear and humble them, even He Who abides of old—Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!—because in them there has been no change [of heart], and they do not fear, revere, and worship God.
20 [My companion] has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; he has broken and profaned his agreement [of friendship and loyalty].
21 The words of his mouth were smoother than cream or butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.
22 Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).(A)
23 But You, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in, lean on, and confidently rely on You.
Psalm 74
A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.
1 O God, why do You cast us off forever? Why does Your anger burn and smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
2 [Earnestly] remember Your congregation which You have acquired of old, which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your heritage; remember Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.
3 Direct Your feet [quickly] to the perpetual ruins and desolations; the foe has devastated and desecrated everything in the sanctuary.
4 In the midst of Your Holy Place Your enemies have roared [with their battle cry]; they set up their own [idol] emblems for signs [of victory].
5 They seemed like men who lifted up axes upon a thicket of trees to make themselves a record.
6 And then all the carved wood of the Holy Place they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7 They have set Your sanctuary on fire; they have profaned the dwelling place of Your [a]Name by casting it to the ground.
8 They said in their hearts, Let us make havoc [of such places] altogether. They have burned up all God’s meetinghouses in the land.
9 We do not see our symbols; there is no longer any prophet, neither does any among us know for how long.
10 O God, how long is the adversary to scoff and reproach? Is the enemy to blaspheme and revile Your name forever?
11 Why do You hold back Your hand, even Your right hand? Draw it out of Your bosom and consume them [make an end of them]!
12 Yet God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You did divide the [Red] Sea by Your might; You broke the heads of the [Egyptian] dragons in the waters.(A)
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan (Egypt); You did give him as food for the creatures inhabiting the wilderness.
15 You did cleave open [the rock bringing forth] fountains and streams; You dried up mighty, ever-flowing rivers (the Jordan).(B)
16 The day is Yours, the night also is Yours; You have established the [starry] light and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the borders of the earth [the divisions of land and sea and of the nations]; You have made summer and winter.(C)
18 [Earnestly] remember how the enemy has scoffed, O Lord, and reproached You, and how a foolish and impious people has blasphemed Your name.
19 Oh, do not deliver the life of your turtledove to the wild beast (to the greedy multitude); forget not the life [of the multitude] of Your poor forever.
20 Have regard for the covenant [You made with Abraham], for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21 Oh, let not the downtrodden return in shame; let the oppressed and needy praise Your name.
22 Arise, O God, plead Your own cause; remember [earnestly] how the foolish and impious man scoffs and reproaches You day after day and all day long.
23 Do not forget the [clamoring] voices of Your adversaries, the tumult of those who rise up against You, which ascends continually.
2 How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty and splendor of Israel and has not [earnestly] remembered His footstool in the day of His anger!
2 The Lord has swallowed up all the country places and habitations of Jacob and has spared not nor pitied; He has demolished in His wrath the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has cast down to the ground the kingdom and its rulers, polluting them and depriving them of their sanctity.
3 He has broken off in His fierce anger every horn (means of defense) of Israel. He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. And He has burned amidst Jacob like a flaming fire consuming all around.
4 He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has stood with His right hand set like a foe and has slain all the delights and pride of the eye; on and in the tent of the Daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire.
5 The Lord has become like an enemy; He has destroyed Israel. He has destroyed all its palaces, has laid in ruins its strongholds, and has multiplied in the Daughter of Judah groaning and moaning and lamentation.
6 And He has violently broken down His temple like a booth or hedge of a garden; He has destroyed the place of His appointed assembly. The Lord has caused the solemn appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion and has spurned and rejected in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has scorned, rejected, and cast off His altar; He has abhorred and disowned His sanctuary. He has given into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces [and high buildings]; they have raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on a day of a solemn appointed feast.
8 The Lord purposed to lay in ruins the [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion. He marked it off by measuring line; He restrained not His hand from destroying. He made rampart and wall lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are [exiled] among the nations; the law is no more; her prophets also obtain no vision from the Lord.
14 Your prophets have predicted for you falsehood and delusion and foolish things; and they have not exposed your iniquity and guilt to avert your captivity [by causing you to repent]. But they have divined and declared to you false and deceptive prophecies, worthless and misleading.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city which was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?
16 All your enemies have opened wide their mouths against you; they scornfully hiss and gnash their teeth. They cry, We have swallowed her up! Certainly this is the day we have looked for; we have it, we see it!
17 The Lord has done what He planned; He has carried out and finished His word which He threatened and decreed [a]in the days of old. He has demolished without pity; He has made the enemy rejoice over you and has exalted the might of your foes.(A)
23 But I call upon God as my soul’s witness: it was to avoid hurting you that I refrained from coming to Corinth—
24 Not that we have dominion [over you] and lord it over your faith, but [rather that we work with you as] fellow laborers [to promote] your joy, for in [your] faith ([a]in your strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through Whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God) you stand firm.
2 But I definitely made up my mind not to grieve you with another painful and distressing visit.
2 For if I cause you pain [with merited rebuke], who is there to provide me enjoyment but the [very] one whom I have grieved and made sad?
3 And I wrote the same to you so that when I came, I might not be myself pained by those who are the [very] ones who ought to make me glad, for I trusted in you all and felt confident that my joy would be shared by all of you.
4 For I wrote you out of great sorrow and deep distress [with mental torture and anxiety] of heart, [yes, and] with many tears, not to cause you pain but in order to make you realize the overflowing love that I continue increasingly to have for you.
5 But if someone [the one among you who committed incest] has caused [all this] grief and pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, [he has distressed] all of you.
6 For such a one this censure by the majority [which he has received is] sufficient [punishment].
7 So [instead of further rebuke, now] you should rather turn and [graciously] forgive and comfort and encourage [him], to keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow and despair.
8 I therefore beg you to reinstate him in your affections and assure him of your love for him;
9 For this was my purpose in writing you, to test your attitude and see if you would stand the test, whether you are obedient and altogether agreeable [to following my orders] in everything.
10 If you forgive anyone anything, I too forgive that one; and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sakes in the presence [and with the approval] of Christ (the Messiah),
11 To keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions.
12 And [Jesus] started to speak to them in parables [with comparisons and illustrations]. A man planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower and let it out [for rent] to vinedressers and went into another country.
2 When the season came, he sent a bond servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
3 But they took him and beat him and sent him away without anything.
4 Again he sent to them another bond servant, and they stoned him and wounded him in the head and treated him shamefully [sending him away with insults].
5 And he sent another, and that one they killed; then many others—some they beat, and some they put to death.
6 He had still one left [to send], a beloved son; last of all he sent him to them, saying, They will respect my son.
7 But those tenants said to one another, Here is the heir; come on, let us put him to death, and [then] the inheritance will be ours.
8 And they took him and killed him, and threw [his body] outside the vineyard.
9 Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.
10 Have you not even read this [passage of] Scripture: The very Stone which [[a]after putting It to the test] the builders rejected has become the Head of the corner [Cornerstone];
11 This is from the Lord and is His doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?(A)
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