Book of Common Prayer

38 O Lord, don’t punish me while you are angry! ² Your arrows have struck deep; your blows are crushing me. ^3-4 Because of your anger, my body is sick, my health is broken beneath my sins. They are like a flood, higher than my head; they are a burden too heavy to bear. ^5-6 My wounds are festering and full of pus. Because of my sins, I am bent and racked with pain. My days are filled with anguish. ⁷ My loins burn with inflammation,^[a] and my whole body is diseased. ⁸ I am exhausted and crushed; I groan in despair.^[b]

⁹ Lord, you know how I long for my health once more. You hear my every sigh. ¹⁰ My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind. ¹¹ My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance.

¹² Meanwhile my enemies are trying to kill me. They plot my ruin and spend all their waking hours planning treachery. ^13-14 But I am deaf to all their threats; I am silent before them as a man who cannot speak. I have nothing to say. ¹⁵ For I am waiting for you, O Lord my God. Come and protect me. ¹⁶ Put an end to their arrogance, these who gloat when I am cast down!

¹⁷ How constantly I find myself upon the verge of sin;^[c] this source of sorrow always stares me in the face. ¹⁸ I confess my sins; I am sorry for what I have done. ¹⁹ But my enemies persecute with vigor and continue to hate me—though I have done nothing against them to deserve it. ²⁰ They repay me evil for good and hate me for standing for the right.

²¹ Don’t leave me, Lord; don’t go away! ²² Come quickly! Help me, O my Savior.

²⁵ I am completely discouraged—I lie in the dust. Revive me by your Word. ²⁶ I told you my plans and you replied. Now give me your instructions. ²⁷ Make me understand what you want; for then I shall see your miracles.

²⁸ I weep with grief; my heart is heavy with sorrow; encourage and cheer me with your words. ^29-30 Keep me far from every wrong; help me, undeserving as I am, to obey your laws, for I have chosen to do right. ³¹ I cling to your commands and follow them as closely as I can. Lord, don’t let me make a mess of things. ³² If you will only help me to want your will, then I will follow your laws even more closely.

^33-34 Just tell me what to do and I will do it, Lord. As long as I live I’ll wholeheartedly obey. ³⁵ Make me walk along the right paths, for I know how delightful they really are.

³⁶ Help me to prefer obedience to making money! ³⁷ Turn me away from wanting any other plan than yours.^[a] Revive my heart toward you. ³⁸ Reassure me that your promises are for me, for I trust and revere you.

³⁹ How I dread being mocked for obeying, for your laws are right and good. ^40-42 I long to obey them! Therefore in fairness renew my life, for this was your promise—yes, Lord, to save me! Now spare me by your kindness and your love. Then I will have an answer for those who taunt me, for I trust your promises.

⁴³ May I never forget your words, for they are my only hope. ^44-46 Therefore I will keep on obeying you forever and forever, free within the limits of your laws. I will speak to kings about their value, and they will listen with interest and respect.

⁴⁷ How I love your laws! How I enjoy your commands! ⁴⁸ “Come, come to me,” I call to them, for I love them and will let them fill my life.

8 Then the Lord God showed me, in a vision, a basket full of ripe fruit.

² “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”

Then the Lord said, “This fruit represents my people Israel—ripe for punishment. I will not defer their punishment again. ³ The riotous sound of singing in the Temple will turn to weeping then. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence.” The Lord has spoken.

⁴ Listen, you merchants who rob the poor, trampling on the needy; ⁵ you who long for the Sabbath to end and the religious holidays to be over so you can get out and start cheating again—using your weighted scales and under-sized measures; ⁶ you who make slaves of the poor, buying them for their debt of a piece of silver or a pair of shoes, or selling them your moldy wheat:

⁷ The Lord, the Pride of Israel, has sworn: “I won’t forget your deeds! ⁸ The land will tremble as it awaits its doom, and everyone will mourn. It will rise up like the river Nile at floodtime, toss about, and sink again. ⁹ At that time I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in the daytime. ¹⁰ And I will turn your parties into times of mourning, and your songs of joy will be turned to cries of despair. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads as signs of sorrow, as if your only son had died; bitter, bitter will be that day.

¹¹ “The time is surely coming,” says the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. ¹² Men will wander everywhere from sea to sea, seeking the word of the Lord, searching, running here and going there, but will not find it. ¹³ Beautiful girls and fine young men alike will grow faint and weary, thirsting for the word of God. ¹⁴ And those who worship the idols of Samaria, Dan, and Beersheba shall fall and never rise again.”

^17-18 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead; but he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! Though I am the First and Last, the Living One who died, who is now alive forevermore, who has the keys of hell and death—don’t be afraid! ¹⁹ Write down what you have just seen and what will soon be shown to you. ²⁰ This is the meaning of the seven stars you saw in my right hand and the seven golden candlesticks: The seven stars are the leaders^[a] of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks are the churches themselves.

2 “Write a letter to the leader^[b] of the church at Ephesus and tell him this:

“I write to inform you of a message from him who walks among the churches and holds their leaders in his right hand.

“He says to you: ² I know how many good things you are doing. I have watched your hard work and your patience; I know you don’t tolerate sin among your members, and you have carefully examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but aren’t. You have found out how they lie. ³ You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

⁴ “Yet there is one thing wrong; you don’t love me as at first! ⁵ Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to me again and work as you did before; or else I will come and remove your candlestick from its place among the churches.

⁶ “But there is this about you that is good: You hate the deeds of the licentious Nicolaitans,^[c] just as I do.

⁷ “Let this message sink into the ears of anyone who listens to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: To everyone who is victorious, I will give fruit from the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God.

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds, and to his disciples, ² “You would think these Jewish leaders and these Pharisees were Moses, the way they keep making up so many laws!^{[a] 3} And of course you should obey their every whim! It may be all right to do what they say, but above anything else, don’t follow their example. For they don’t do what they tell you to do. ⁴ They load you with impossible demands that they themselves don’t even try to keep.

⁵ “Everything they do is done for show. They act holy^[b] by wearing on their arms little prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and by lengthening the memorial fringes of their robes. ⁶ And how they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the reserved pews in the synagogue! ⁷ How they enjoy the deference paid them on the streets and to be called ‘Rabbi’ and ‘Master’! ⁸ Don’t ever let anyone call you that. For only God is your Rabbi and all of you are on the same level, as brothers. ⁹ And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven should be addressed like that. ¹⁰ And don’t be called ‘Master,’ for only one is your master, even the Messiah.

¹¹ “The more lowly your service to others, the greater you are. To be the greatest, be a servant. ¹² But those who think themselves great shall be disappointed and humbled; and those who humble themselves shall be exalted.