Book of Common Prayer
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 91
The Shadow of Your Wings
The General Principle
1 One who lives in the shelter of the Most High
will stay in the shadow of the Almighty.
Application to Oneself
2 I will say to the Lord,
“My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.”
Application to Others
3 Surely he will rescue you from the fowler’s trap,
from the destructive plague.
4 With his feathers he will cover you,
and under his wings you will find refuge.
His truth will be your shield and armor.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the plague that prowls in the darkness,
nor the pestilence that destroys at noon.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe it with your eyes.
You will see the punishment of the wicked.
Application to Oneself
9 Yes, you, Lord, are my refuge!
Application to Others
If you make the Most High your shelter,
10 evil will not overtake you.
Disaster will not come near your tent.
11 Yes, he will give a command to his angels concerning you,
to guard you in all your ways.
12 They will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra.
You will trample the young lion and the serpent.
God’s Promise of Delivery
14 The Lord says,[a]
Because he clings to me, I will rescue him.
I will protect him, because he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him.
I will be with him in distress.
I will deliver him and I will honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him,
and I will let him see my salvation.
Psalm 92
It Is Good to Praise the Lord
Heading
A psalm. A song. For the Sabbath.
A Call to Praise
1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to make music to your name, O Most High,
2 to proclaim your mercy in the morning
and your faithfulness every night,
3 with a ten-stringed instrument and with a harp,
with a melody on a lyre.
The Blessings of Praise
4 Yes, you make me glad by your work, O Lord.
I sing loudly at the works of your hands.
5 How great are your works, O Lord.
Your thoughts are very deep!
The Folly and Fall of the Wicked
6 The senseless man does not know,
and the fool does not understand this—
7 when the wicked spring up like weeds,
and all evildoers bloom like flowers,
they will be destroyed forever.
Central Affirmation
8 But you are exalted forever, O Lord.
The Fall of the Wicked
9 Without a doubt your enemies, O Lord,
without a doubt your enemies will perish.
All evildoers will be scattered.
The Blessing of the Righteous
10 But you have raised my horn like that of a wild ox.[b]
I am drenched with fresh oil.[c]
11 My eyes have looked in triumph over my adversaries.
When evildoers rise against me, my ears hear their defeat.
12 The righteous will shoot up like a palm tree.
They will grow tall like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 Planted in the house of the Lord,
they will shoot up in the courtyards of our God.
14 They will still produce fruit in old age.
They will stay fresh and green.
Closing Praise
15 Yes, they can proclaim, “The Lord is upright.
He is my Rock, and he does no wrong.”
28 After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.[a]
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams.
Your young men will see visions.
29 Even on the servants, both male and female,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show warning signs in the heavens and on the earth:
blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the great and terrifying day of the Lord.
32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.[b]
So on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance,
as the Lord has promised, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.
The Promise of Judgment Against the Nations
2 I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.[e]
There I will enter into judgment against them
for the sake of my possession, my people Israel,
whom they scattered among the nations.
The nations also divided up my land.
3 They cast lots for my people
and traded boys to pay prostitutes.
They sold girls for wine so that they could drink.
4 Tell me, what do you have against me,
Tyre and Sidon, and all you regions of Philistia?
Are you repaying me for something I have done?
If you are paying me back,
I will swiftly and speedily repay onto your own heads what you have done,
5 because you took my silver and my gold,
and you carried off my best treasures to your temples.
6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks,
in order to send them far from their own borders.
7 See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them,
and I will make what you have done return on your own heads.
8 I will sell your sons and daughters into the hands of the people of Judah,
and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.[f]
Yes, the Lord has spoken.
Receive and Do What God’s Word Says
16 Do not be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, who does not change or shift like a shadow.[a] 18 Just as he planned, he gave us birth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of firstfruits of his creations.
19 Remember this,[b] my dear brothers: Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. 20 Certainly, a man’s anger does not bring about what is right before God. 21 So after getting rid of all moral filthiness and overflowing wickedness, receive with humility the word planted in you. It is able to save your souls.
22 Be people who do what the word says, not people who only hear it. Such people are deceiving themselves. 23 In fact, if anyone hears the word and does not do what it says, he is like a man who carefully looks at his own natural face in a mirror. 24 Indeed, he carefully looks at himself; then, he goes away and immediately forgets what he looked like. 25 But the one who looks carefully into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues to do so—since he does not hear and forget but actually does what it says—that person will be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone considers himself to be religious but deceives his own heart because he does not bridle his tongue, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled in the sight of God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
The Shrewd Manager
16 Jesus also said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager who was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 The rich man called him in and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be manager.’
3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, since my master is taking away the management position from me? I am not strong enough to dig. I am ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from my position as manager, people will receive me into their houses.’
5 “He called each one of his master’s debtors to him. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘Six hundred gallons[a] of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write three hundred.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘Six hundred bushels[b] of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and write four hundred and eighty.’
8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children[c] of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation[d] than the children of the light are. 9 I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon,[e] so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into the eternal dwellings.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.