Book of Common Prayer
A special Davidic Psalm.[a]
Trust in the Face of Death
16 Keep me safe, God,
for I take refuge in you.
2 I told the Lord,
“You are my master,[b]
I have nothing good apart from you.”
3 As for the saints that are in the land,
they are noble, and all my delight is in them.
4 Those who hurry after another god[c] will have many sorrows;
I will not present[d] their drink offerings of blood,
nor will my lips speak[e] their names.
5 The Lord is my inheritance and my cup;
you support my lot.
6 The boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me;
truly, I have a beautiful heritage.
7 I will bless the Lord who has counseled me;
indeed, my conscience instructs[f] me during the night.
8 I have set the Lord before me continuously;
because he stands at my right hand, I will stand firm.[g]
9 Therefore, my heart is glad,
my whole being[h] rejoices,
and my body will dwell securely.
10 For you will not leave my soul in Sheol,[i]
you will not allow your holy one to experience corruption.[j]
11 You cause me to know the path of life;
in your presence is joyful abundance,
at your right hand there are pleasures forever.
A Davidic Prayer.
A Cry for Justice
17 Lord, hear my just plea!
Pay attention to my cry!
Listen to my prayer,
since it does not come from lying lips.
2 Justice for me will come from your presence;
your eyes see what is right.
3 When you probe my heart,
and examine me at night;
when you refine me,
you will find nothing wrong,[k]
for I have determined that I will not transgress with my mouth.
4 As for the ways of mankind,
I have, according to the words of your lips,
avoided the ways of the violent.
5 Because my steps have held fast to your paths,
my footsteps have not faltered.
6 I call upon you, for you will answer me, God.
Listen closely to me
and hear my prayer.
7 Show forth your gracious love,
save those who take refuge in you
from those who rebel against your sovereign power.[l]
8 Protect me as the most precious part of the eye;[m]
hide me under the shadow of your wings
9 from the wicked[n] who have afflicted me,
from my enemies who have surrounded me.
10 They are imprisoned by their own prosperity,[o]
they have boasted proudly with their mouth.
11 Now they have encircled our paths[p]
and are determined[q] to cast us down to the ground.
12 Like a lion they desire to rip us to pieces,
like a young lion waiting in ambush.
13 Arise, Lord,
confront them,
bring them to their knees!
Deliver me from the wicked by your sword—
14 from men, Lord, by your hand—
from men who belong to this world,
whose reward is only[r] in this[s] life.
But as for your treasured ones,
may their stomachs be full,
may their children have an abundance,
and may they leave wealth to their offspring.
15 But as for me, justified, I will behold your face;
when I awake, your presence[t] will satisfy me.
To the Director: To the tune of[a] “Doe of the Dawn”.
A Davidic Psalm.
God Delivers His Suffering Servant
22 My God! My God!
Why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far from delivering me—
from my groaning words?
2 My God, I cry out to you throughout the day,
but you do not answer;
and throughout the night,
but I have no rest.[b]
3 You are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 Our ancestors trusted in you;
they trusted and you delivered them.
5 They cried out to you and escaped;
they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
6 But as for me,
I am only a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by people.
7 Everyone who sees me mocks me;
they gape at me with open mouths
and shake their heads at me.
8 They say,[c] “Commit yourself to the Lord;
perhaps the Lord[d] will deliver him,
perhaps he will cause him to escape,
since he delights in him.”
9 Yet, you are the one who took me from the womb,
and kept me safe on my mother’s breasts.
10 I was dependent on you from birth;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11 Do not be so distant from me,
for trouble is at hand;
indeed, there is no deliverer.
12 Many bulls have surrounded me;
the vicious bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13 Their mouths are opened wide toward me,
like roaring and attacking lions.
14 I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax, melting within me.
15 My strength is dried up like broken pottery;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,[e]
and you have brought me down to the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me;
a gang of those who practice evil has encircled me.
They gouged[f] my hands and my[g] feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They look at me;
they stare at me.
18 They divide my clothing among themselves;
they cast lots for my clothing!
19 But as for you, Lord, do not be far away from me;
My Strength, come quickly to help me.
20 Deliver me from the sword;
my precious life from the power of the dog.
21 Deliver me from the mouth of the lion,
from the horns of the wild oxen.
You have answered me.
22 I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you, saying,[h]
23 “All who fear the Lord, praise him!
All the seed of Jacob, glorify him!
All the seed of Israel, fear him!
24 For he does not despise nor detest the afflicted person;
he does not hide his face from him,
but he hears him when he cries out to him.”
25 My praise in the great congregation is because of you;
I will pay my vows before those who fear you.[i]
26 The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;
those who seek the Lord will praise him,
“May you[j] live forever!”
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord;
all the families of the nations will bow in submission to the Lord.
28 Indeed, the kingdom belongs to the Lord;
he rules over the nations.
29 All the prosperous people will eat and bow down in submission.
All those who are about to go down to the grave[k]
will bow down in submission,
along with the one who can no longer keep himself alive.
30 Our[l] descendants will serve him,
and that generation will be told about the Lord.
31 They will come and declare his righteousness
to a people yet to be born;
indeed, he has accomplished it!
A Lament for Israel
5 “Hear this accusation[a] that I am bringing against you:
‘A dirge, house of Israel:
2 Fallen is Israel the virgin—never to rise again!
She is abandoned on her own land,
with no one to raise her up.’
3 “For this is what the Lord God says:
‘The city that is sending out a thousand
will have a hundred left;
The city[b] that is sending out a hundred
will have ten left of the house of Israel.’”
Seek God, and Live
4 “For this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel:
‘Seek me and live,
5 but don’t seek Bethel.
Don’t go to Gilgal,
and don’t pass over to Beer-sheba.
Because Gilgal will surely go into captivity,[c]
and Bethel will come to nothing.
6 ‘Seek the Lord and live!
Otherwise, he may break out like a fire in the house of Joseph
and devour Bethel,[d]
and there will be no one to extinguish it.
7 Those of you who are making justice taste bitter,[e]
and who have thrown righteousness to the ground:
8 Seek[f] the one who fashions the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns the deep darkness[g] into morning,
who darkens day into night,
who calls out to the waters of the sea,
pouring them out onto the surface of the earth—
the Lord is his name.
9 It is he who is raining sudden destruction
upon the strong like lightning,[h]
so that ruin comes upon the fortress.
10 They have hated those who are presenting their cases in court,[i]
detesting the one who speaks truthfully.
11 ‘Therefore, since you trample the poor continuously,
taxing his grain,
building houses of stone in which you won’t live
and planting fine vineyards from which you won’t drink—
12 and because I know that your transgressions are many,
and your sins are numerous
as you oppose the righteous,
taking bribes as a ransom,
and turning away the poor in court[j]—
13 therefore the prudent person remains silent at such a time,
for the time is evil.
14 ‘Pursue good and not evil,
so that you may live,
and this is what will happen:[k]
The Lord God of the Heavenly Armies will be with you,
as you have been claiming.
15 Hate evil and love good,
and establish justice in court—[l]
perhaps the Lord, the God of the Heavenly Armies,
will be gracious to the survivors of Joseph.’”
16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of the Heavenly Armies, the Lord, says:
Greetings
1 From: Jude, a servant of Jesus the Messiah,[a] and yet a brother of James.
To: Those who have been called, who are loved[b] by God the Father and kept safe by Jesus, the Messiah.[c]
2 May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance!
Warning about False Teachers
3 Dear friends, although I was eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write to you and urge you to continue your vigorous defense of the faith that was passed down to the saints once and for all. 4 For some people have slipped in among you unnoticed. They were written about long ago as being deserving of this condemnation because they are ungodly. They turn the grace of our God into uncontrollable lust and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus the Messiah.[d]
5 Now I want to remind you, even though you are fully aware of these things, that the Lord who once saved his people from the land of Egypt later destroyed those who did not believe. 6 He has also held in eternal chains those angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their assigned place. They are held in deepest darkness for judgment on the great day.[e] 7 Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities near them, which like them committed sexual sins and pursued homosexual activities,[f] serve as an example of the punishment of eternal fire.
8 In a similar way, these dreamers also defile their flesh, reject the Lord’s authority,[g] and slander his glorious beings. 9 Even the archangel Michael, when he argued with the Devil and fought over the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him. Instead, he said, “May the Lord rebuke you!”[h] 10 Whatever these people do not understand, they slander. Like irrational animals, they are destroyed by the very things they know by instinct. 11 How terrible it will be for them! For they lived like Cain did[i], rushed headlong into Balaam’s error to make a profit, and destroyed themselves, as happened[j] in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These people are stains on your love feasts.[k] They feast with you without any sense of awe.[l] They are shepherds who care only for themselves. They are waterless clouds blown about by the winds. They are autumn trees that are fruitless, totally[m] dead, and uprooted. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their own shame. They are wandering stars for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.
14 Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied about these people when he said,
“Look! The Lord has come with countless thousands of his holy ones. 15 He will judge all people and convict everyone of all the ungodly things that they have done in such an ungodly way, including all the harsh things that these ungodly sinners have said about him.”[n]
16 These people are complainers and faultfinders, following their own desires. They say arrogant things and flatter people in order to take advantage of them.
The Parable about a Banquet(A)
22 Again Jesus spoke to them in parables. He said, 2 “The kingdom from[a] heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to call those who had been invited to the wedding, but they refused to come. 4 So[b] he sent other servants after saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look! I’ve prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened calves have been slaughtered. Everything is ready. Come to the wedding!”’ 5 But they paid no attention to this and went away, one to his farm, another to his business. 6 The rest grabbed the king’s[c] servants, treated them brutally, and then killed them. 7 Then the king became outraged. He sent his troops, and they destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 “Then he told his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 So go into the roads leading out of town and invite as many people as you can find to the wedding.’ 10 Those servants went out into the streets and brought in everyone they found, evil and good alike, and the wedding hall was packed with guests.
11 “When the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man[d] was speechless. 13 Then the king told his servants, ‘Tie his hands and feet, and throw him into the darkness outside!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,[e] 14 because many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.