Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 45[a]
Nuptial Ode for the Messianic King
1 For the director.[b] According to “Lilies.” A maskil of the sons of Korah. A love song.
2 [c]My heart[d] is moved by a noble theme
as I sing my poem to the king;
my tongue is like the pen of a skillful scribe.
3 You are the most handsome of men;[e]
grace has anointed your lips,
for God has blessed you forever.
4 Gird your sword upon your thigh, O warrior,
and advance in splendor and majesty.
5 Ride on triumphantly in truth, humility, and justice;
may your right hand perform wondrous deeds.
6 Your arrows are sharp;
nations will lie beneath your feet;
the enemies of the king will lose heart.[f]
7 Your throne, O God,[g] will last forever and ever;
the scepter of your kingdom will be a scepter of justice.
8 You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has established you above your fellow kings
by anointing you with the oil of gladness.
9 [h]All your robes are fragrant
with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
from palaces of ivory
stringed instruments bring joy to your heart.
10 Daughters of kings[i] are among your women in waiting;
at your right hand is your queen
adorned in gold of Ophir.
11 My daughter, listen carefully to my words
and follow them diligently.
Forget your people and your father’s house;[j]
12 then the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord,
13 bow down before him.
The Daughter of Tyre[k] will bring you gifts,
people of wealth will seek your favor.
14 Within the palace the king’s daughter is adorned
in robes threaded with gold.
15 In embroidered garments she is led to the king,
followed by her virgin companions,
who are also led to you.,[l]
16 They are brought in with joy and gladness
as they enter the palace of the king.
17 Your[m] sons will take the place of your ancestors;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
18 I will extol your name through all generations;
therefore, the nations will praise you forever and ever.[n]
Psalm 47[a]
The Lord, King of All Nations
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of the sons of Korah.
2 All you peoples, clap your hands,[c]
shout to God with cries of gladness.
3 For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome;
he is the great King over all the earth.
4 He subdued nations under us
and brought peoples under our feet.
5 He chose our inheritance for us,
the pride of Jacob,[d] whom he loved. Selah
6 [e]God has ascended amid shouts of joy;
the Lord, amid the sound of trumpets.
7 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
8 For God is the King of the entire earth;
sing hymns of praise to him.
9 God reigns over all the nations;
God is seated on his holy throne.
10 The princes of the nations assemble
with the people of the God of Abraham;
for the rulers[f] of the earth belong to God,
and he is exalted on high.
Psalm 48[g]
Thanksgiving for the Deliverance of God’s People
1 A psalm of the sons of Korah.[h] A song.
2 Great is the Lord and worthy of high praise
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain,[i] 3 towering in its beauty,
is the joy of the entire earth.
Mount Zion, the true heights of the north,[j]
is the city of the great King.
4 God is in her citadels
and has revealed himself as her fortress.[k]
5 [l]For the kings conspired together
and came onward in unison.
6 As soon as they beheld her, they were astounded;
filled with panic, they fled.
7 They were seized with trembling,
with pains like those of a woman in labor,
8 as though a wind from the east[m]
were breaking up the ships of Tarshish.
9 What we had heard,
we have now beheld for ourselves[n]
in the city of the Lord of hosts,
in the city of our God
that he established to endure forever. Selah
10 O God, as we stand in the midst of your temple,
we will meditate on your kindness.[o]
11 Like your name,[p] O God,
your praise extends to the ends of the earth.
Your right hand is filled with righteousness;
12 let Mount Zion rejoice.
Let the towns of Judah exult
in your saving judgments.[q]
13 [r]Walk around Zion; pass throughout her;
count the number of her towers.
14 Take careful note of her ramparts,
walk through her citadels,
so that you may recount for future generations
15 that such is God;
our God forever and ever,
he will be our guide eternally.[s]
4 After the Lord, your God, has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It was because of my righteousness that the Lord brought me in to take possession of this land.” It is because of the wickedness of the nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the sincerity of your heart that you are going to take possession of their land. Rather, it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord, your God, will drive them out before you, fulfilling the promise that he made to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked[a] people.
The Golden Calf. 7 Remember, and never forget, how you angered the Lord, your God, in the wilderness from the day that you left the land of Egypt until the day that you arrived here. You have always been rebellious. 8 At Horeb you made the Lord so angry that the Lord was angry enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed up upon the mountain for forty days and forty nights, neither eating food nor drinking water. 10 The Lord gave me two stone tablets on which the finger of God had written all of the things that the Lord had said to you on the mountain from the midst of the flames on the day of the assembly. 11 At the end of forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord said to me, “Arise, hurry down, for your people whom you brought forth out of Egypt has become perverse. They have quickly turned aside from the path that I had directed them to follow and they have made a molten image for themselves.”
A High Priest for Humanity[a]
Chapter 3
Christ’s Fidelity Is Superior to That of Moses.[b] 1 Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly calling, concentrate your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in God’s household.
3 However, he is deserving of a greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house is more honored than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all is God.
5 Now Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s household, testifying to the things that would later be revealed, 6 whereas Christ was faithful as a son watching over his house. And we are that house if we hold firm to our confidence and take pride in our hope.
The “Today” of God.[c] 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 harden not your hearts as at the rebellion,
in the day of testing in the desert,
9 where your ancestors tried me and tested me
though they had seen what I could do 10 for forty years.
As a result I became angered with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts have always gone astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, I swore in my anger,
‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ”
Worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth[a]
The Mystery of the New Temple
Jesus Casts the Merchants Out of the Temple.[b]13 When the time of the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, including the sheep and the cattle. He also overturned the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins, 16 and to those who were selling the doves he ordered, “Take them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” 17 His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 The Jews then challenged him, “What sign can you show us to justify your doing this?” 19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews responded, “This temple has taken forty-six years to build, and you are going to raise it up in three days!” 21 But the temple he was talking about was the temple of his body. 22 After he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
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