Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 31
Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit
Heading
For the choir director. A psalm by David.
A Declaration of Confidence
1 In you, Lord, I have taken refuge.
Petition
Let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness deliver me.
2 Turn your ear toward me.
Hurry! Rescue me!
Be a rock where I take refuge,
a fortified place that saves me.
The Basis for Confidence
3 Yes, you are my rocky cliff and my stronghold.
For the sake of your name you will lead me and guide me.
4 You will pull me out of the net that they hid for me,
because you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit.
You have redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.
6 I hate those who keep worthless idols,
but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy,
because you saw my affliction.
You knew the distress of my soul.
8 You have not left me in the hand of the enemy.
You have made my feet stand in a wide-open space.
The Prayer for Delivery
9 Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress.
My eye grows weak with sorrow—
my soul and my body too.
10 Yes, my life is consumed by grief,
and my years by groaning.
My strength fails because of my guilt,
and my bones grow weak.
11 Because of all my foes,
I am a disgrace, especially to my neighbors.
I am dreaded by those who know me.
Those who see me on the street flee from me.
12 I have been forgotten like a dead man, gone from memory.[a]
I have become like a broken pot.
13 Yes, I hear the slander of many.
There is terror on every side.
When they conspire together against me,
they plot to take my life.
Confident Petition
14 But I—I trust in you, O Lord.
I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand.
Deliver me from the hand of my enemies
and from those who pursue me.
16 Let your face shine on your servant.
Save me in your mercy.
17 Do not allow me to be put to shame, O Lord,
because I have cried out to you.
But let the wicked be put to shame.
Let them be silent in the grave.[b]
18 Let lying lips be silenced,
those who speak against the righteous
impudently with pride and contempt.
Closing Praise
19 How great is your goodness,
which you store up for those who fear you,
which you deliver for those who take refuge in you
in the presence of the people.
20 You hide them in your presence from the schemes of man.
You conceal them in your shelter from accusing tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
because he made his mercy wonderful for me
when I was in a besieged city.
22 In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from before your eyes!”
But you heard the sound of my cry for mercy
when I cried out to you.
23 Love the Lord, all his favored ones!
The Lord preserves the faithful,
but he pays back in full the one who acts proudly.
24 Be strong, and let your heart be firm,
all you who wait confidently for the Lord.
Psalm 35
David’s Defender
Heading
By David.
Opening Prayer
1 Lord, oppose those who oppose me.
Fight against those who fight against me.
2 Put on your armor and shield.[a]
Rise up to help me.
3 Wield a spear and block the way[b] of those who pursue me.
Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”
First Petition
4 May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame.
May those who plot to harm me be turned back and dismayed.
5 May they be like chaff driven by the wind.
May an angel of the Lord drive them away.
6 May their path be dark and slippery.
May an angel of the Lord pursue them.
7 Without cause they hid their net to catch me.
Without cause they dug a pit to trap me.
8 May devastation overtake him before he knows it.
May the net which he hid catch him.
May he fall into it to his own destruction.
First Vow
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord.
It will delight in his salvation.
10 All my bones[c] will say, “Lord, who is like you?
You rescue the poor from the one too strong for him,
the poor and needy from the one who robs him.”
The Attacks of the Wicked
11 Malicious witnesses arise.
They ask me about things I do not know.
12 They repay me with evil instead of good.
They rob my soul of happiness.
13 But when they were sick, I dressed in sackcloth.
I afflicted myself with fasting.
My prayers returned unanswered.[d]
14 I walked around mourning,
as if mourning for a friend or for my brother.
I bowed down, dirty with ashes,[e]
as though mourning for my mother.
15 But when I stumbled, they were happy.
They gathered together.
Yes, attackers gathered together against me
though I did not expect it.
They ripped me and were never quiet.
16 Like profane mockers,[f] they gnashed their teeth at me.
Second Petition
17 Lord, how long will you look on?
Restore my life from their devastating attacks,
my precious life from these young lions.
Second Vow
18 I will give thanks to you in the great assembly.
In a large crowd I will praise you.
Third Petition
19 Do not let them rejoice over me—
those who are my enemies without cause.
Do not let those who hate me without reason mock me.[g]
20 For they do not speak for peace,
but they devise false accusations
against those who live quietly in the land.
21 They also open their mouths wide against me.
They say, “Ha! Ha! We see with our own eyes.”
22 Lord, you have seen all this.
Do not be silent.
Lord, do not be far from me.
23 Wake up and rise up to my defense!
My God and Lord, rise to my cause.
24 Judge me according to your righteousness,
O Lord, my God.
Do not let them rejoice over me.
25 Do not let them say in their hearts,
“Aha! Just what we wanted!”
Do not let them say,
“We have swallowed him.”
26 May those who rejoice over my trouble
be put to shame and disgrace.
May those who exalt themselves over me
be clothed with shame and contempt.
27 May those who are pleased by my acquittal
shout for joy and be glad.
May they always say, “The Lord is great.
He takes delight in the peace of his servant.”
Third Vow
28 My tongue will report your righteousness
and your praise all day long.
The Development of the Family of Terah
27 Now this is the account about the development[a] of the family of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran became the father of Lot. 28 Haran died before his father Terah. He died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, who was also the father of Iscah. 30 Sarai was barren. She had no child.
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot, who was the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, who was the wife of his son Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there. 32 The days of Terah were 205 years. Terah died in Haran.
The Call of Abram
12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to travel to the land of Canaan. Eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.”[b] Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
8 He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent there, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and proclaimed[c] the name of the Lord.
A Priest Forever
7 This Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, is the one who met Abraham as he was returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him,[a] 2 and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.[b] First, Melchizedek means “king of righteousness,” and then “king of Salem,” which is “king of peace.” 3 He is without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, and resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
4 Consider how great this man was. Even Abraham, the patriarch, gave him a tenth from the best of the spoils. 5 According to the law, those sons of Levi who received the priesthood have a command to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brother Israelites, even though they also came from Abraham’s body. 6 But here the one who was not descended from them collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises. 7 And without any question, it is the lesser who is blessed by the greater.
8 In the one case, those who are mortal collect the tenth; in the other case, the one who collects has testimony in Scripture[c] that he lives. 9 And, through Abraham, even Levi, who collects the tenth, has paid a tenth, so to speak, 10 because he was still in the body of his forefather when Melchizedek met Abraham.
11 So if everything could have been brought to its goal through the Levitical priesthood (for the people received the law on the basis of that priesthood), what further need was there for another priest to arise who was like Melchizedek, yet not said to be like Aaron? 12 For when the priesthood is changed, by necessity a change in the law also happens. 13 Yet these things are said about the one who belonged to another tribe, from which no one had served at the altar. 14 It is certainly clear that our Lord is descended from Judah. Moses said nothing about priests in connection with that tribe.
15 And this becomes even clearer if another priest arises like Melchizedek, 16 who became a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement about physical descent, but on the basis of the power of an endless[d] life. 17 For it has been testified in Scripture about him:
You are a priest forever, like Melchizedek.[e]
16 Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.”
17 “I have no husband,” the woman answered.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say, ‘I have no husband.’ 18 In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews insist that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming and now is here when the real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for those are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.