Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 45
For the Music Director. To the melody of “Lilies.” A Contemplative Maskil of the sons of Korah. A love song.
1 My heart is overflowing with a good thought;
I am speaking my works for the king;
my tongue is the pen of a skilled scribe.
2 You are fairer than all the sons of men;
favor is poured on your lips;
therefore God has blessed you forever.
3 Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one,
with your splendor and your majesty.
4 In your majesty ride prosperously
because of truth and meekness and righteousness;
and your right hand will teach you awesome things.
5 Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies;
peoples will fall under you.
6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
the scepter of Your kingdom is an upright scepter.
7 You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, anointed you
with the oil of gladness above your companions.
8 All your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
from the ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad.
9 Kings’ daughters are among your honorable women;
at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10 Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear;
forget your own people, and your father’s house,
11 and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him.
12 The daughter of Tyre will be there with a gift;
even the rich among the people will entreat your favor.
13 The royal daughter is all glorious within her chamber;
her clothing is plaited gold.
14 She shall be brought to the king in embroidered garments;
the virgins, her companions who follow her,
shall be brought to you.
15 With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought;
they shall enter into the king’s palace.
16 Your sons shall succeed your fathers;
you will make them princes in all the land.
17 I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
therefore the people will praise you forever and ever.
Psalm 47
For the Music Director. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 Clap your hands, all you people!
Shout to God with a joyful voice.
2 For the Lord Most High is awesome;
He is a great King over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us,
and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our inheritance for us,
the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah
5 God went up with a shout,
the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7 For God is the King of all the earth;
sing praises with understanding.
8 God reigns over the nations;
God sits on His holy throne.
9 The princes of peoples are gathered together,
even the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
He is greatly exalted.
Psalm 48
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God, in His holy mountain.
2 Beautiful in elevation,
the joy of the whole earth,
is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north,
the city of the great King.
3 God is known in her citadels
as a refuge.
4 For the kings were assembled,
they passed by together.
5 They saw it, and so they were astounded;
they were alarmed, they hurried away.
6 Trembling seized them there,
and pain like a woman in labor;
7 You break the ships of Tarshish
with an east wind.
8 As we have heard,
so have we seen
in the city of the Lord of Hosts,
in the city of our God;
God will establish it forever. Selah
9 We have thought of Your lovingkindness, O God,
in the midst of Your temple.
10 According to Your name, O God,
so is Your praise to the ends of the earth;
Your right hand is full of righteousness.
11 May Mount Zion rejoice,
may the daughters of Judah be glad,
because of Your judgments.
12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her;
count her towers;
13 mark well her bulwarks;
consider her citadels;
that you may tell it to the generation following.
14 For this God is our God forever and ever;
He will be our guide even to death.
4 Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, “On account of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,” but it is because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is driving them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you enter to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess on account of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.
The Golden Calf
7 Remember, and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. 10 The Lord delivered to me two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God, and on them was written all the words which the Lord spoke to you at the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
11 At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They are quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molded image for themselves.”
Jesus Superior to Moses
3 Therefore, holy brothers, partakers in a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Jesus Christ, 2 who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses was faithful in all His house. 3 For the One was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, in that He who builds the house has more honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the One who builds all things is God. 5 Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, testifying about those things that were to be spoken later. 6 But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a Son, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm to the end.
A Rest for God’s People
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as in the rebellion,
on the day of temptation in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers tested Me and tried Me
and saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
and they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”[a]
The Cleansing of the Temple(A)
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers sitting there. 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. He poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. 16 He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house will consume Me.”[a]
18 Then the Jews said to Him, “What sign do You show us, seeing that You do these things?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21 But He was speaking concerning the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them. And they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.