Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 119

¹ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere, and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of God’s revealed will).

² Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart.

³ Yes, they do no unrighteousness [no willful wandering from His precepts]; they walk in His ways.^(A)

⁴ You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently.

⁵ Oh, that my ways were directed and established to observe Your statutes [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]!

⁶ Then shall I not be put to shame [by failing to inherit Your promises] when I have respect to all Your commandments.

⁷ I will praise and give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn [by sanctified experiences] Your righteous judgments [Your decisions against and punishments for particular lines of thought and conduct].

⁸ I will keep Your statutes; O forsake me not utterly.

⁹ How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed and keeping watch [on himself] according to Your word [conforming his life to it].

¹⁰ With my whole heart have I sought You, inquiring for and of You and yearning for You; Oh, let me not wander or step aside [either in ignorance or willfully] from Your commandments.^(B)

¹¹ Your word have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin against You.

¹² Blessed are You, O Lord; teach me Your statutes.

¹³ With my lips have I declared and recounted all the ordinances of Your mouth.

¹⁴ I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies as much as in all riches.

¹⁵ I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways [the paths of life marked out by Your law].^(C)

¹⁶ I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.

¹⁷ Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live; and I will observe Your word [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].^(D)

¹⁸ Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.

¹⁹ I am a stranger and a temporary resident on the earth; hide not Your commandments from me.^(E)

²⁰ My heart is breaking with the longing that it has for Your ordinances and judgments at all times.

²¹ You rebuke the proud and arrogant, the accursed ones, who err and wander from Your commandments.

²² Take away from me reproach and contempt, for I keep Your testimonies.

²³ Princes also sat and talked against me, but Your servant meditated on Your statutes.

²⁴ Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.

Psalm 12

To the Chief Musician; set [possibly] an octave below. A Psalm of David.

¹ Help, Lord! For principled and godly people are here no more; faithfulness and the faithful vanish from among the sons of men.

² To his neighbor each one speaks words without use or worth or truth; with flattering lips and double heart [deceitfully] they speak.

³ May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongues that speak proud boasting,

⁴ Those who say, With our tongues we prevail; our lips are our own [to command at our will]—who is lord and master over us?

⁵ Now will I arise, says the Lord, because the poor are oppressed, because of the groans of the needy; I will set him in safety and in the salvation for which he pants.

⁶ The words and promises of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in an earthen furnace, purified seven times over.

⁷ You will keep them and preserve them, O Lord; You will guard and keep us from this [evil] generation forever.

⁸ The wicked walk or prowl about on every side, as vileness is exalted [and baseness is rated high] among the sons of men.

Psalm 13

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ How long will You forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

² How long must I lay up cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me?

³ Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten the eyes [of my faith to behold Your face in the pitchlike darkness], lest I sleep the sleep of death,

⁴ Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am shaken.

⁵ But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation.

⁶ I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Psalm 14

To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David.

¹ The [empty-headed] fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable deeds; there is none that does good or right.^(A)

² The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any who understood, dealt wisely, and sought after God, inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him [of vital necessity].

³ They are all gone aside, they have all together become filthy; there is none that does good or right, no, not one.^(B)

⁴ Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread and who do not call on the Lord?

⁵ There they shall be in great fear [literally—dreading a dread], for God is with the generation of the [uncompromisingly] righteous (those upright and in right standing with Him).

⁶ You [evildoers] would put to shame and confound the plans of the poor and patient, but the Lord is his safe refuge.

⁷ Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord shall restore the fortunes of His people, then Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.^(C)

3 And Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her into the City of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem.

² But the people sacrificed [to God] in the high places [as the heathen did to their idols], for there was no house yet built to the ^[a]Name of the Lord.

³ Solomon loved the Lord, walking [at first] in the statutes and practices of David his father, only he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.

⁴ The king went to Gibeon [near Jerusalem, where stood the tabernacle and the bronze altar] to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. One thousand burnt offerings Solomon offered on that altar.

⁵ In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. And God said, ^[b]Ask what I shall give you.

⁶ Solomon said, You have shown to Your servant David my father great mercy and loving-kindness, according as he walked before You in faithfulness, righteousness, and uprightness of heart with You; and You have kept for him this great kindness and steadfast love, that You have given him a son to sit on his throne this day.

⁷ Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of David my father, and I am ^[c]but a lad [in wisdom and experience]; I know not how to go out (begin) or come in (finish).

⁸ Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people who cannot be counted for multitude.

⁹ So give Your servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge and rule this Your great people?^(A)

¹⁰ It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this.

¹¹ God said to him, Because you have asked this and have not asked for long life or for riches, nor for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to recognize what is just and right,

¹² Behold, I have done as you asked. I have given you a wise, discerning mind, so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall any arise after you equal to you.

¹³ I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there shall not be any among the kings equal to you all your days.

¹⁴ And if you will go My way, keep My statutes and My commandments as your father David did, then I will lengthen your days.

¹⁵ Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. He came to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.

⁹ But as [the season was well advanced, for] much time had been lost and navigation was already dangerous, for the time for the Fast [the Day of Atonement, about the beginning of October] had already gone by, Paul warned and advised them,

¹⁰ Saying, Sirs, I perceive [after careful observation] that this voyage will be attended with disaster and much heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but of our lives also.

¹¹ However, the centurion paid greater attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.

¹² And as the harbor was not well situated and so unsuitable to winter in, the majority favored the plan of putting to sea again from there, hoping somehow to reach Phoenice, a harbor of Crete facing southwest and northwest, and winter there.

¹³ So when the south wind blew softly, supposing they were gaining their object, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, hugging the coast.

¹⁴ But soon afterward a violent wind [of the character of a typhoon], called a northeaster, came bursting down from the island.

¹⁵ And when the ship was caught and was unable to head against the wind, we gave up and, letting her drift, were borne along.

¹⁶ We ran under the shelter of a small island called Cauda, where we managed with [much] difficulty to draw the [ship’s small] boat on deck and secure it.

¹⁷ After hoisting it on board, they used supports with ropes to undergird and brace the ship; then afraid that they would be driven into the Syrtis [quicksands off the north coast of Africa], they lowered the gear (sails and ropes) and so were driven along.

¹⁸ As we were being dangerously tossed about by the violence of the storm, the next day they began to throw the freight overboard;

¹⁹ And the third day they threw out with their own hands the ship’s equipment (the tackle and the furniture).

²⁰ And when neither sun nor stars were visible for many days and no small tempest kept raging about us, all hope of our being saved was finally abandoned.

²¹ Then as they had eaten nothing for a long time, Paul came forward into their midst and said, Men, you should have listened to me, and should not have put to sea from Crete and brought on this disaster and harm and misery and loss.

²² But [even] now I beg you to be in good spirits and take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you but only of the ship.

²³ For this [very] night there stood by my side an angel of the God to Whom I belong and Whom I serve and worship,

²⁴ And he said, Do not be frightened, Paul! It is necessary for you to stand before Caesar; and behold, God has given you all those who are sailing with you.

²⁵ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith (complete confidence) in God that it will be exactly as it was told me;

²⁶ But we shall have to be stranded on some island.

14 It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the chief priests and the scribes were all the while seeking to arrest [Jesus] by secrecy and deceit and put [Him] to death,

² For they kept saying, It must not be during the Feast, for fear that there might be a riot of the people.

³ And while He was in Bethany, [a guest] in the house of Simon the leper, as He was reclining [at table], a woman came with an alabaster jar of ointment (^[a]perfume) of pure nard, very costly and precious; and she broke the jar and poured [the perfume] over His head.

⁴ But there were some who were moved with indignation and said to themselves, To what purpose was the ointment (^[b]perfume) thus wasted?

⁵ For it was possible to have sold this [perfume] for more than 300 denarii [a laboring man’s wages for a year] and to have given [the money] to the poor. And they censured and reproved her.

⁶ But Jesus said, Let her alone; why are you troubling her? She has done a good and beautiful thing to Me [praiseworthy and noble].

⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you will not always have Me.^(A)

⁸ She has done what she could; she came beforehand to anoint My body for the burial.

⁹ And surely I tell you, wherever the good news (the Gospel) is proclaimed in the entire world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

¹⁰ Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the Twelve [apostles], went off to the chief priests in order to betray and hand Him over to them.

¹¹ And when they heard it, they rejoiced and were delighted, and they promised to give him money. And he [busying himself continually] sought an opportunity to betray Him.