Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 78
A Contemplative Maskil of Asaph.
1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter insightful sayings of old,
3 which we have heard and known,
what our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but will tell the coming generation
the praises of the Lord,
and His strength, and the wonderful works that He has done.
5 For He established a rule in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel,
which He commanded our fathers
that they should make them known to their children,
6 that the generation to come might know them,
even the children who are not yet born,
who will arise and declare them to their children:
7 that they might set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
but keep His commandments,
8 and they might not be as their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation that did not set their heart steadfast,
and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 The people of Ephraim, being armed with bows,
turned back in the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the covenant of God
and refused to walk in His law;
11 and they forgot His works
and the wonders that He had shown them.
12 In the sight of their ancestors He did marvelous wonders
in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and caused them to pass through,
and He made the waters to stand as a heap.
14 In the daytime He led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a light of fire.
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them abundance to drink as out of the great depths.
16 He brought streams out of the rock
and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17 They sinned yet more against Him
by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.
18 They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food that they craved.
19 They spoke against God by saying,
“Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
20 Behold, He struck the rock, so that the waters gushed out
and the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread
or provide meat for His people?”
21 Therefore the Lord heard this and was full of wrath;
a fire was kindled against Jacob,
and anger also came up against Israel,
22 because they did not believe in God
nor trust in His deliverance.
23 Yet He had commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and He rained down manna upon them to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Man ate the food of mighty angels;
He sent them bread in abundance.
26 He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by His power He brought out a south wind.
27 He rained meat on them as dust,
and winged birds as the sand of the sea;
28 and He let them fall in the midst of their camp
all around their habitations.
29 So they ate and were satisfied,
for He gave them their own desire;
30 while they were not yet filled up,
and while the meat was still in their mouths,
31 the wrath of God came upon them,
and He killed the strongest of them
and struck down the young men of Israel.
32 For all this they sinned still,
and did not believe despite His wondrous works.
33 Therefore He made their days vanish like a breath,
and their years in trouble.
34 When He killed them, then they sought Him;
they turned back and longed for God.
35 They remembered that God was their rock,
and the Most High God their redeemer.
36 Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth,
and they lied to Him with their tongues;
37 for their heart was not devoted to Him,
neither were they committed to His covenant.
38 But He being full of compassion
forgave their iniquity
and did not destroy them.
He constantly restrained His anger,
and did not stir up all His wrath;
39 for He remembered that they were but flesh,
like a wind that passes away and does not return.
40 How often they provoked Him in the wilderness
and grieved Him in the desert!
41 Yes, they tested God over and over,
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember His power,
nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy,
43 how He had performed His signs in Egypt
and His wonders in the fields of Zoan:
44 and He turned their rivers into blood,
so that they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He gave also their crops to the grasshopper
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamore trees with frost.
48 He gave up their cattle also to the hail
and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger,
wrath, indignation, and trouble,
by sending angels bringing disaster.
50 He made a path for His anger;
He did not spare them from death,
but gave their lives over to the plague,
51 And struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the first fruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 Then He led out His own people like sheep
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
53 He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 He brought them to the border of His holy land,
to the mountain that His right hand had acquired.
55 He cast out the nations also before them,
and divided for them their tribal allotments,
and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents.
56 Yet they tested and provoked the Most High God,
and did not keep His commands,
57 but turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers;
they turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked Him to anger with their high places
and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.
59 When God heard this, He was full of wrath
and greatly rejected Israel
60 so that He left the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent where He lived among people,
61 and delivered His strength to captivity
and His glory into the enemy’s hand.
62 He gave His people over also to the sword;
He was enraged with His inheritance.
63 The fire consumed their young men,
and their maidens were not given to marriage in song.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep,
and like a mighty man who shouts because of wine.
66 He routed His enemies back,
and He made them a perpetual reproach.
67 Moreover, He rejected the tent of Joseph,
and He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68 but chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which He loves.
69 He built His sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth that He has established perpetually.
70 He chose David His servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following the nursing ewes He brought him
to shepherd Jacob His people,
and Israel His inheritance.
72 So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart
and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.
11 Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, and His judgments, and His statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12 Otherwise, when you have eaten and are full and have built and occupied good houses, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, 15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water, who brought forth for you water out of the rock of flint, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might prove you, to do good for you in the end. 17 Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” 18 But you must remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to get wealth, so that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today.
19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, then I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 Just like the nations which the Lord will destroy before you, so shall you perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God.
16 Do not err, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning. 18 Of His own will He brought us forth with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.
Hearing and Doing the Word
19 Therefore, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, 20 for the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and remaining wickedness and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man viewing his natural face in a mirror. 24 He views himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in his deeds.
26 If anyone among you seems to be religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Teaching About Prayer(A)
11 He was praying in a certain place, and when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father, who is in heaven,
hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come;
Your will be done
on earth, as it is in heaven.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
5 Then He said to them, “Which of you has a friend and shall go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine on his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give you anything’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as much as he needs.
9 “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11 “If a son asks for bread from any of you who is a father, will you give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will you give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will you offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.