Book of Common Prayer
A Poem by David.
16 Preserve me, God, for I take refuge in you.
2 My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord.
Apart from you I have no good thing.”
3 As for the saints who are in the earth,
they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god.
Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer,
nor take their names on my lips.
5 Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup.
You made my lot secure.
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
7 I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel.
Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.
8 I have set Yahweh always before me.
Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices.
My body shall also dwell in safety.
10 For you will not leave my soul in Sheol,[a]
neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.
11 You will show me the path of life.
In your presence is fullness of joy.
In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
A Prayer by David.
17 Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea.
Give ear to my prayer that doesn’t go out of deceitful lips.
2 Let my sentence come out of your presence.
Let your eyes look on equity.
3 You have proved my heart.
You have visited me in the night.
You have tried me, and found nothing.
I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.
4 As for the deeds of men, by the word of your lips,
I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.
5 My steps have held fast to your paths.
My feet have not slipped.
6 I have called on you, for you will answer me, God.
Turn your ear to me.
Hear my speech.
7 Show your marvelous loving kindness,
you who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.
8 Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of your wings,
9 from the wicked who oppress me,
my deadly enemies, who surround me.
10 They close up their callous hearts.
With their mouth they speak proudly.
11 They have now surrounded us in our steps.
They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth.
12 He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey,
as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
13 Arise, Yahweh, confront him.
Cast him down.
Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,
14 from men by your hand, Yahweh,
from men of the world, whose portion is in this life.
You fill the belly of your cherished ones.
Your sons have plenty,
and they store up wealth for their children.
15 As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness.
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David.
22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
2 My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer;
in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But you are holy,
you who inhabit the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in you.
They trusted, and you delivered them.
5 They cried to you, and were delivered.
They trusted in you, and were not disappointed.
6 But I am a worm, and no man;
a reproach of men, and despised by the people.
7 All those who see me mock me.
They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,
8 “He trusts in Yahweh.
Let him deliver him.
Let him rescue him, since he delights in him.”
9 But you brought me out of the womb.
You made me trust while at my mother’s breasts.
10 I was thrown on you from my mother’s womb.
You are my God since my mother bore me.
11 Don’t be far from me, for trouble is near.
For there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls have surrounded me.
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13 They open their mouths wide against me,
lions tearing prey and roaring.
14 I am poured out like water.
All my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax.
It is melted within me.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You have brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me.
A company of evildoers have enclosed me.
They have pierced my hands and feet.[a]
17 I can count all of my bones.
They look and stare at me.
18 They divide my garments among them.
They cast lots for my clothing.
19 But don’t be far off, Yahweh.
You are my help. Hurry to help me!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion’s mouth!
Yes, you have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.
22 I will declare your name to my brothers.
Among the assembly, I will praise you.
23 You who fear Yahweh, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him!
Stand in awe of him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,
neither has he hidden his face from him;
but when he cried to him, he heard.
25 My praise of you comes in the great assembly.
I will pay my vows before those who fear him.
26 The humble shall eat and be satisfied.
They shall praise Yahweh who seek after him.
Let your hearts live forever.
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Yahweh.
All the relatives of the nations shall worship before you.
28 For the kingdom is Yahweh’s.
He is the ruler over the nations.
29 All the rich ones of the earth shall eat and worship.
All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him,
even he who can’t keep his soul alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him.
Future generations shall be told about the Lord.
31 They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born,
for he has done it.
5 Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:
2 “The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She shall rise no more.
She is cast down on her land;
there is no one to raise her up.”
3 For the Lord Yahweh says:
“The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left,
and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
4 For Yahweh says to the house of Israel:
“Seek me, and you will live;
5 but don’t seek Bethel,
nor enter into Gilgal,
and don’t pass to Beersheba;
for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
and Bethel shall come to nothing.
6 Seek Yahweh, and you will live,
lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.
7 You who turn justice to wormwood,
and cast down righteousness to the earth!
8 Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion,
and turns the shadow of death into the morning,
and makes the day dark with night;
who calls for the waters of the sea,
and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,
9 who brings sudden destruction on the strong,
so that destruction comes on the fortress.
10 They hate him who reproves in the gate,
and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.
11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat,
you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them.
You have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your offenses,
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the just,
who take a bribe,
and who turn away the needy in the courts.
13 Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time,
for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good, and not evil,
that you may live;
and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you,
as you say.
15 Hate evil, love good,
and establish justice in the courts.
It may be that Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
16 Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says:
“Wailing will be in all the wide ways.
They will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They will call the farmer to mourning,
and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
17 In all vineyards there will be wailing,
for I will pass through the middle of you,” says Yahweh.
1 Jude,[a] a servant of Jesus Christ,[b] and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
3 Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe. 6 Angels who didn’t keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. 8 Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings. 9 But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these speak evil of whatever things they don’t know. They are destroyed in these things that they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason. 11 Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13 wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. 14 About these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold,[c] the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16 These are murmurers and complainers, walking after their lusts—and their mouth speaks proud things—showing respect of persons to gain advantage.
22 Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who made a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner. My cattle and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding feast!”’ 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise; 6 and the rest grabbed his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. 9 Go therefore to the intersections of the highways, and as many as you may find, invite to the wedding feast.’ 10 Those servants went out into the highways and gathered together as many as they found, both bad and good. The wedding was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who didn’t have on wedding clothing, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here not wearing wedding clothing?’ He was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.’ 14 For many are called, but few chosen.”
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