Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 101
A Psalm of David.
1 I will sing of mercy and justice;
to You, O Lord, I will sing.
2 I will consider the path that is blameless.
When will You come to me?
I will walk within my house
with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing
before my eyes.
I hate the work of those who turn aside;
it shall not have part of me.
4 A perverted heart shall be far from me;
I will not know anything wicked.
5 Whoever privately slanders his neighbor,
him I will destroy;
whoever has a haughty look and a proud heart
I will not endure.
6 My eyes shall be favorable to the faithful in the land,
that they may live with me;
he who walks in a blameless manner,
he shall serve me.
7 He who practices deceit
shall not dwell within my house;
he who tells lies
shall not remain in my sight.
8 Every morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
that I may cut off all wicked doers
from the city of the Lord.
Psalm 109
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Do not remain silent,
O God of my praise!
2 For the mouth of the wicked and deceitful
are opened against me;
they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They encircled me with words of hatred
and fought against me without cause.
4 In return for my love they are my adversaries,
but I give myself to prayer.
5 They have rewarded me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned,
and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.
8 Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be wandering beggars;
let them seek their bread far from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has;
let the strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
neither let there be any to pity his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually,
that the Lord may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness,
but pursued the poor and needy and broken-hearted
to their death.
17 As he loved cursing,
so let it come over him;
as he did not delight in blessing,
so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like a garment,
so let it soak into him like water,
and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment that covers him,
and a belt that he continually wears.
20 Let this be the reward of my adversaries from the Lord,
and of those who speak evil against my soul.
21 But You, O God my Lord,
work on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow in the evening;
I am tossed as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting,
and my body is thin with no fat.
25 I am a reproach to my accusers;
when they look upon me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to Your mercy,
27 that they may know that this is by Your hand,
that You, O Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but You will bless;
when they arise, let them be ashamed,
but let Your servant rejoice.
29 Let my adversaries be clothed with shame,
and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace like a cloak.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
indeed, I will praise Him among the multitude.
ע Ayin
121 I have done what is right and just;
do not abandon me to my oppressors.
122 Be true to Your servant for good;
let not the proud ones oppress me.
123 My eyes long for Your deliverance
and for the promise of Your righteousness.
124 Deal with Your servant according to Your mercy,
and teach me Your statutes.
125 I am Your servant; grant me understanding,
that I may know Your testimonies.
126 It is time for You, O Lord, to act,
for they have broken Your law.
127 Therefore I love Your commandments
above gold, even fine gold.
128 For I follow all Your precepts to be right,
and I hate every false way.
פ Pe
129 Your testimonies are wonderful;
therefore my soul keeps them.
130 The giving of Your words gives light;
it grants understanding to the simple.
131 I opened my mouth and panted,
for I long for Your commandments.
132 Look upon me, and be merciful to me,
as You are for those who love Your name.
133 Order my steps according to Your word,
and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
134 Deliver me from the oppression of man,
so I will keep Your precepts.
135 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant,
and teach me Your statutes.
136 Rivers of waters run down my eyes,
because people do not keep Your law.
צ Tsadhe
137 You are righteous, O Lord,
and upright are Your judgments.
138 You have set Your testimonies in righteousness
and faithfulness.
139 My zeal has consumed me,
because my enemies have forgotten Your words.
140 Your word is pure and true;
therefore Your servant loves it.
141 I am small and despised,
yet I do not forget Your precepts.
142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
and Your law is true.
143 Trouble and anguish have discovered me,
but Your commandments are my delight.
144 The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting;
grant me understanding, and I shall live.
A Prayer of Penitence
15 Look down from heaven and see,
from Your holy and glorious habitation.
Where are Your zeal and Your strength?
The stirrings of Your heart and Your mercies toward me are restrained.
16 For You are our Father,
though Abraham is ignorant of us
and Israel does not recognize us.
You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer;
Your name is from everlasting.
17 O Lord, why have You made us to err from Your ways
and hardened our heart from fearing You?
Return for Your servants’ sake,
the tribes of Your inheritance.
18 Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while;
our adversaries have trodden it down.
19 We have become
as those over whom You have never ruled,
as those who were not called by Your name.
64 Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might shake at Your presence,
2 as when the melting fire burns,
as the fire causes the waters to boil,
to make Your name known to Your adversaries,
that the nations may tremble at Your presence!
3 When You did awesome things for which we did not look,
You came down; the mountains quaked at Your presence.
4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard,
nor perceived by ear,
neither has the eye seen a God besides You,
who acts for the one who waits for Him.
5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
those who remember You in Your ways.
Indeed, You were angry, for we had sinned;
in our sins we remained a long time,
and shall we be saved?
6 But we all are as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousness is as filthy rags;
and we all fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
7 There is no one who calls on Your name,
who stirs up himself to take hold of You;
for You have hidden Your face from us
and have consumed us because of our iniquities.
8 But now, O Lord, You are our Father;
we are the clay, and You are our potter;
and we all are the work of Your hand.
9 Do not be wrathful beyond measure, O Lord,
nor remember iniquity forever;
look upon us, we pray,
we all are Your people.
Qualifications of Overseers
3 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good work. 2 An overseer then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, sober, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy for money, but patient, not argumentative, not covetous; 4 and one who manages his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. 5 For if a man does not know how to manage his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? 6 He must not be newly converted, so that he does not become prideful and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover he must have a good reputation among those who are outsiders, so that he does not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Qualifications of Deacons
8 Likewise deacons must be serious, not insincere, not given to much wine, not greedy, 9 keeping the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. 10 And let them first be tested; then, being found blameless, let them serve as deacons.
11 Likewise, their wives must be serious, not slanderers, sober, and faithful in all things.
12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, managing their children and their own houses well. 13 For those who have served well in the office of deacon purchase for themselves good standing and great boldness in the faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
The Mystery of Our Religion
14 I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you shortly, 15 but if I am delayed, you might know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 16 Without question, great is the mystery of godliness:
God was revealed in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit,
seen by angels,
preached to the Gentiles,
believed on in the world,
taken up into glory.
The Question of Jesus’ Authority(A)
27 They came again to Jerusalem, and as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, 28 and said, “By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority to do them?”
29 Jesus answered them, “I will also ask of you one question. Answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer Me.”
31 They debated among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But if we say, ‘From men’ ”—they feared the people, for everyone held John to be a real prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”
Jesus answered them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
The Parable of the Vineyard and the Vinedressers(B)
12 He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and rented it to vinedressers, and went to a far country. 2 At harvest time he sent a servant to the vinedressers to receive from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant to them. They threw stones at him, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled. 5 Still he sent another, and they killed him. And there were many others. Some they beat, and some they killed.
6 “Having yet his one well-beloved son, he sent him last to them, saying, ‘They will revere my son.’
7 “But those vinedressers said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill the vinedressers and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:
‘The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
11 This was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’[a]?”
12 Then they tried to seize Him, but feared the people, for they knew that He had spoken the parable against them. So they left Him and went their way.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.