Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 97
The Lord Reigns. Throw Away Your Idols
Introduction
1 The Lord reigns. Let the earth celebrate.
Let the many islands and coastlands rejoice.
God Will Judge
2 Clouds and deep darkness surround him.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire goes out in front of him.
It burns up his foes all around him.
4 His lightning lights up the world.
The earth sees and writhes in pain.
5 The mountains melt like wax
in the presence of the Lord,
in the presence of the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.
Warning Against Idols
7 All who serve idols are put to shame,
those who boast in “nothings.”[a]
Bow to him, all you gods![b]
His People’s Response
8 Zion hears and rejoices,
and the daughters of Judah[c] celebrate
because of your judgments, O Lord.
9 For you, O Lord, are the Most High over all the earth.
You are raised up far above all gods.
10 Let those who love the Lord hate evil.
He guards the lives of his favored ones.
He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
11 Light rises[d] for the righteous
and joy for the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous,
and give thanks as you remember his holiness.
Psalm 99
The Holy One Rules in Israel
Admonition to the Nations
1 The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble.
He is seated above the cherubim. Let the earth quake.
2 The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your name, great and awesome.
Refrain
He is holy!
Assurance to Israel
4 The King is mighty. He loves justice.
You, Lord,[a] have established fairness.
In Jacob you carried out justice and righteousness.
5 Exalt the Lord our God and bow down before his footstool.
Refrain
He is holy!
Examples From History
6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests.
Samuel was among those who call on his name.
They called on the Lord, and he answered them.
7 From within the pillar of cloud he spoke to them.
They kept his testimonies and the order that he gave them.
8 O Lord our God, you answered them.
For them you were a God who removes sin,
but you repaid them for their deeds.
Concluding Refrain
9 Exalt the Lord our God,
and bow down before his holy mountain,
because the Lord our God is holy.
Psalm 100
He Rules His People
Heading
A psalm for giving thanks.
Know That the Lord Is God
1 Shout to the Lord with joy, all the earth.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we are his.[b]
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
his courtyards with praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.[c]
5 For the Lord is good. His mercy endures forever.
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 94
The Lord Rules the Wicked
A Call for Vengeance
1 O Lord, God of vengeance,
God of vengeance, shine forth.
2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth.
Repay the proud with what they deserve.
3 How long will the wicked, O Lord,
how long will the wicked celebrate?
The Deeds of the Wicked
4 They gush. They speak arrogantly.
All the evildoers brag about themselves.
5 They crush your people, O Lord.
They oppress the people that belong to you.
6 They kill the widow and the alien.
They murder the fatherless.
7 Then they say, “The Lord[a] does not see.
The God of Jacob does not understand.”
8 Understand, you brutes among the people.
You fools, when will you become wise?
Relief for the Righteous
9 The one who planted the ear—will he not hear?
The one who formed the eye—will he not observe?
10 The one who disciplines nations—will he not rebuke them?
He is the one who teaches mankind knowledge.
11 The Lord knows the thoughts of mankind.
He knows that they are just vapor.
12 How blessed is the person whom you discipline, O Lord,
whom you teach from your law.
13 You grant him rest in days of trouble,
until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not desert his people,
and he will never forsake those who are his own.
15 Then judgment will again be based on righteousness,
and all the upright in heart will pursue it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?
17 Unless the Lord had been my helper,
my soul would soon have dwelt in silence.
18 When I said, “My foot has slipped,”
your mercy, Lord, upheld me.
19 When my worries within me were many,
your comfort brought joy to my soul.
20 Can a destructive throne be allied with you,
one that creates injustice by its decrees?
21 They band together against the life of the righteous,
and they condemn innocent blood.
22 But the Lord has become my fortress,
and my God is the rock where I take refuge.
23 Then he will repay them for their iniquity,
and he will destroy them for their wickedness.
The Lord our God will destroy them.
Psalm 95
Worship and Warning
Worship
1 Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord.
Let us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us.
2 Let us approach his presence with thanksgiving.
With music we will shout to him.
3 For the Lord is the great God
and the great King above all gods.
4 He holds the unexplored places of the earth in his hand,
and the peaks of the mountains belong to him.
5 The sea belongs to him, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down. Let us revere him.
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker,
7 for he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock in his hand.
Warning
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah,
as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers challenged me
and tested me though they had seen what I had done.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with that generation,
and I said, “They are a people who have hearts that stray.
They do not acknowledge my ways.”
11 So I swore in my anger,
“They shall never enter my resting place.”
Hezekiah King of Judah
29 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.
Restoration of the Temple
3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them.
The Great Passover Celebration
30 Hezekiah sent messengers to all Israel and Judah. He also wrote letters inviting Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel. 2 The king, his officials, and the whole assembly in Jerusalem had made plans to celebrate the Passover in the second month. 3 They were not able to celebrate it at its proper time, because the priests had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number, and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem.
4 The plan seemed right in the eyes of the king and in the eyes of the whole assembly. 5 So they decided to issue a proclamation throughout Israel from Beersheba to Dan to come to observe the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, because they had not been celebrating it with large numbers of people as had been commanded. 6 Runners were sent out with letters from the hand of the king and from his officials to all Israel and Judah. Because of the command of the king, they made the following announcement:
People of Israel! Return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and he will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.
7 You must not be like your fathers or like your brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers. That is why he gave them up to desolation, as you see.
8 Now you must not be stiff-necked like your fathers. Give your hand[a] to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.
9 For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will be shown compassion in the presence of their captors and be permitted to return to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful. He will not turn his face away from you if you return to him.
10 The runners went from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and even as far as Zebulun, but people laughed at them and ridiculed them. 11 Nevertheless, some men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.
12 But in Judah the hand of God was present to give them one heart to follow the command of the king and the command of the officials, in agreement with the word of the Lord. 13 Many people gathered in Jerusalem to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month—a very great assembly.
14 They quickly removed the altars from Jerusalem. They took away all the altars for burning incense and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
15 They slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites had been put to shame, so they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the House of the Lord. 16 They took up their positions as prescribed in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The priests splashed the blood, which was given to them by the Levites, against the altar. 17 Because many of the assembly had not consecrated themselves,[b] the Levites carried out the slaughtering of the Passover lambs for everyone who was not ceremonially clean, to make them holy to the Lord.
18 A large number of the people, many of whom were from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not purified themselves, but they ate the Passover anyway, in a manner not in keeping with what is written. So Hezekiah prayed for them: “May the good Lord pardon everyone all around, 19 that is, everyone who seeks God the Lord, the God of his fathers, with all his heart, even though he does not have the ceremonial purity required by the holy place.”
20 The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.
21 The people of Israel who were present in Jerusalem observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing. The Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day with loud instruments for the Lord.
22 Hezekiah encouraged the hearts of all the Levites, who displayed wonderful skills in service of the Lord. They ate the food of the festival for the appointed seven days, presenting fellowship sacrifices and giving thanks to the Lord, the God of their fathers.
23 The entire assembly agreed to celebrate for another seven days. They gladly did it for another seven days, 24 because Hezekiah king of Judah provided one thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep for the assembly, and the officials contributed one thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep for the assembly. The priests consecrated themselves in great number.
25 The whole assembly of Judah rejoiced together with the priests, the Levites, the entire assembly from Israel, the aliens who resided in the land of Israel, and the people who lived in Judah. 26 There was great joy in Jerusalem, because since the time of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.
27 Then the levitical priests arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard. Their prayer ascended to the Lord’s holy dwelling in heaven.
32 I would like you to be free from concern. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord and thinks about how to please the Lord. 33 But the married man is concerned about the things of the world and thinks about how to please his wife, 34 and so he is divided. The unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned about the things of the Lord, so as to be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world and thinks about how to please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your own benefit, not to impose a restriction, but to encourage honorable, undistracted devotion to the Lord.
36 But if someone thinks he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin,[a] if his feelings are strong[b] and it seems necessary, he should do what he desires. It is not a sin. They should marry. 37 But if someone stands firm in his heart and is not driven by need, but has control over his own desire[c] and has decided in his own heart to keep his virgin as she is, he does well. 38 So then, he who marries his virgin[d] does well, and he who does not marry her[e] does better.
39 A wife[f] is bound to her husband for as long as he lives, but if the husband has died, she is free to be married to any man she wishes, only in the Lord. 40 But she is more blessed if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I too have God’s Spirit.
Consider the Beam in Your Own Eye
7 “Stop judging, so that you will not be judged. 2 For with whatever standard you judge, you will be judged, and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you focus on[a] the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? 4 How will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when, in fact, you have a beam in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Do Not Throw Your Pearls to Pigs
6 “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.
Keep Praying
7 “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. 9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, would give him a stone? 10 Or who, if his son asks for a fish, would give him a snake? 11 Then if you know how to give good gifts to your children, even though you are evil, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
The Golden Rule
12 “So do for others whatever you want people to do for you, because this is the Law and the Prophets.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.