Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 25[a]
Prayer for Guidance and Help
1 [b]Of David.
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
2 in you, O my God, I trust.
Do not let me be put to shame,
or permit my enemies to gloat over me.
3 No one who places his hope in you
will ever be put to shame,
but shame will be the lot of all
who break faith without justification.
4 [c]Make your ways known to me, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and instruct me,
for you are God, my Savior,
and in you I hope all the day long.
6 Be mindful, O Lord, that mercy and kindness
have been yours from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth
or my many transgressions,
but remember me in your kindness,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.
8 [d]Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore, he instructs sinners in his ways.
9 He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them the path to follow.
10 The ways of the Lord[e] are kindness and truth
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
11 For the sake of your name,[f] O Lord,
pardon my iniquity, great though it be.
12 Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord?
He will be shown the path he should choose.[g]
13 He will enjoy lasting prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.[h]
14 The Lord manifests himself to those who fear him,[i]
and he makes his covenant known to them.
15 My eyes are ever upon the Lord,
for he alone can free my feet from the snare.
16 [j]Turn to me and have mercy on me,
for I am alone and afflicted.
17 Relieve the anguish of my heart[k]
and free me from my distress.
18 Look upon my affliction and suffering,
and forgive all my sins.
19 Consider how numerous are my enemies,
and how fierce is their hatred of me.
20 Preserve my life and deliver me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I seek refuge in you.
21 Let integrity and virtue preserve me,
for in you I place my hope.
22 Redeem[l] Israel, O God,
from all its troubles.
Psalms 9–10[a]
Psalm 9[b]
Thanksgiving for the Triumph of Justice
1 For the director.[c] According to Muth Labben. A psalm of David.
2 I will offer praise to you, O Lord,
with my whole heart;
I will recount all your wondrous deeds.[d]
3 I will rejoice and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name,[e] O Most High.
4 For my enemies have turned back;
in your presence they stumble and perish.
5 But you have upheld my just cause,
you who are seated on your throne as a righteous judge.
6 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked,
erasing their name forever and ever.
7 The enemies have suffered endless ruin;
their cities have been utterly destroyed,
and not even their memory remains.
8 The Lord is enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for judgment.
9 He governs the world in righteousness
and judges the peoples with equity.
10 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a refuge in times of distress.
11 Those who revere your name place their trust in you,
for you never abandon those who seek you, O Lord.
12 Sing praise to the Lord enthroned in Zion;[f]
proclaim to the nations his wondrous deeds.
13 For the avenger of blood remembers them;
he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
14 Have mercy on me, O Lord;
behold how my enemies afflict me,
you who save me from the gates of death.
15 Then I will recount all your praises
and rejoice in your salvation
at the gates of the Daughter of Zion.[g]
16 [h]The nations have fallen into the pit they made;
their feet have been caught in the snare they laid.
17 The Lord has made himself known and rendered judgment;
the wicked are ensnared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion,[i] Selah
18 The wicked will depart into the netherworld,
all the nations that turned away from God.
19 But the needy will not be forgotten forever,
nor will the hope of the afflicted ever come to naught.
20 Rise up, O Lord! Do not let man triumph;
let the nations be judged before you.
21 Strike them with fear, O Lord;
let the nations know that they are mere mortals. Selah
Psalm 15[a]
The Righteous: Guests of God
1 A psalm of David.
O Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may abide on your holy mountain?[b]
2 [c]The one who leads a blameless life
and does what is right,
who speaks the truth from the heart
3 and does not slander anyone,
who does not harm a friend
and does not scorn a neighbor,
4 who looks with disdain on the wicked
but honors those who fear the Lord,
who abides by his oath,
no matter what the cost,
5 who does not charge interest on a loan
and refuses to accept a bribe against the innocent.
Whoever does these things
will never fall.
6 After forty days had gone by, Noah opened the window that he had made in the ark 7 and released a raven to see if the waters had completely dried up. It flew back and forth until the waters upon the earth dried up. 8 Noah then released a dove, to see if the waters had drained from the surface of the earth, 9 but the dove, not finding any place to land, returned to the ark (for the waters still covered the surface of the earth). He reached out and caught the dove and brought it back into the ark.
10 After waiting another seven days, he once again released the dove from the ark. 11 It returned to him toward the evening. In its beak it had a sprig from an olive tree. Noah understood that the waters had receded from the earth. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove. It did not return to him.
13 In the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters dried up upon the earth. Noah removed the covering from the ark and, behold, the surface of the earth was dry. 14 In the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, the entire surface of the earth was dry.
15 God commanded Noah, 16 “Leave the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives. 17 Take all the animals of every species with you, birds, cattle, all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, take them all with you. Let them spread out upon the earth. May they be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.”
18 Noah left the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives.
19 All the living creatures and all the wild animals, all the birds and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, each according to its kind, all left the ark.
20 Noah built an altar to the Lord, took every kind of clean animal and some of every kind of clean bird, and he offered them as burnt offerings upon the altar.
21 The Lord smelled the pleasant odor and said to himself, “I will never again curse the land because of humankind, for the instinct of every human heart is evil from its youth. I will never again destroy every living creature.
22 “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
shall not cease.”
14 A Compassionate High Priest.[a] Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our profession of faith. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every respect as we are, but without sinning. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace when we are in need of help.
Chapter 5
1 Every high priest is taken from among men to represent them in their dealings with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.[b] 2 He is able to deal patiently with those who are ignorant and misguided, since he himself is subject to weakness. 3 And as a result of this, he must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. 4 Moreover, one does not assume this position of honor on his own initiative, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 Even Christ did not confer upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. Rather, he was appointed by the one who said to him:
“You are my Son;
this day I have begotten you.”
6 And he says in another place:
“You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
The Mystery of the New Covenant
23 Jesus in Jerusalem.[a]While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many people saw the signs he was performing and came to believe in his name. 24 However, Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he fully understood them all. 25 He did not need evidence from others about man, for he clearly understood men.
Chapter 3
Nicodemus Goes To Visit Jesus. 1 There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus,[b] a member of the Jewish ruling council, 2 who came to Jesus at night. “Rabbi,” he said, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one would be able to perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.” 3 Jesus replied,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
no one can see the kingdom of God[c]
without being born from above.”
4 Nicodemus asked, “How can a man be born again once he is old? Is it possible for him to enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus said,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless he is born of water and the Spirit.[d]
6 What is born of the flesh is flesh,
and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 “You should not be astonished when I say,
‘You must be born from above.’
8 The wind blows where it chooses,
and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know where it comes from
or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 “How is this possible?” asked Nicodemus. 10 Jesus responded, “You are a teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?
11 “Amen, amen, I say to you,
we speak of what we know
and we testify to what we have seen,
and yet you do not accept our testimony.
12 If I tell you about earthly things
and you do not believe,
how will you believe
when I speak to you about heavenly things?
Jesus Christ, Savior and Judge[e]
13 “No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who descended from heaven,
the Son of Man.
14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,[f]
15 in order that everyone who believes in him
may have eternal life.
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