Book of Common Prayer
To the Director: A Davidic Psalm.
When Things Go Wrong
41 Blessed is the one who is considerate of the destitute;[a]
the Lord will deliver him when the times are evil.
2 The Lord will protect him and keep him alive;
he will be blessed in the land;
and he will not be handed over to the desires of his enemies.
3 The Lord will uphold him even on his sickbed;
you will transform his bed of illness into health.
4 As for me, I said,
“Lord, be gracious to me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
5 As for my enemies, with malice they said,
“When will he die and memory of[b] his name perish?”
6 The one who comes to visit me speaks lies;
in his heart he thinks slanderous things about me
and goes around spreading them.
7 As for all who hate me,
they whisper together against me;
they desire to do me harm.
8 They say, “Wickedness is entrenched in him.
Once he is brought low,
he will not rise again.”
9 As for my best friend,
the one in whom I trusted,
the one who ate my bread,
even he has insulted[c] me!
10 But you, Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up
so that I may pay them back!
11 In this way I will know that you are pleased with me,
and that my enemies will not shout in triumph over me.
12 As for me, you will maintain my just cause,
and you will cause me to stand in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
from eternity to eternity.
Amen and amen!
To the Director: A Davidic instruction[a] about Doeg, the Edomite, when he went to Saul and told him, “David went to the house of Abimelech.”
A Rebuke to the Deceitful
52 Why do you make evil
the foundation of your boasting, mighty one?[b]
God’s gracious love never ceases.[c]
2 Your tongue, like a sharp razor, devises wicked things
and crafts treachery.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking uprightly.
4 You love all words that destroy, you deceitful tongue!
5 But God will tear you down forever;
he will take you away,
even snatching you out of your tent!
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will fear when they see this,
but then they will laugh at him, saying,
7 “Look, here is a young man who refused to make God his strength;
instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and made his wickedness his strength.
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the gracious love of God forever and ever.
9 Therefore I will praise you forever
because of what you did;
I will proclaim that your name is good
in the midst of your faithful ones.
To the Director: An instruction[a] of the Sons of Korah.
A Prayer in Times of Defeat
44 God, we heard it with our ears;
our ancestors told us about what you did in their day—
a long time ago.
2 With your hand you expelled the nations
and established our ancestors.[b]
You afflicted nations
and cast them out.
3 It was not with their sword that they inherited the land,
nor did their own arm deliver them.
But it was by your power,[c] your strength,
and by the light of your face;
because you were pleased with them.
4 You are my king, God,
command[d] victories[e] for Jacob.
5 Through you we will knock down our oppressors;
through your name we will tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I place no confidence in my bow,
nor will my sword deliver me.
7 For you delivered us from our oppressors
and put to shame those who hate us.
8 We will praise God all day long;
and to your name we will give thanks forever.
9 However, you cast us off and made us ashamed!
You did not even march with our armies!
10 You made us retreat from our oppressors.
Our enemies ransacked us.
11 You handed us over to be slaughtered like sheep
and you scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold out your people for nothing,
and made no profit at that price.
13 You made us a laughing stock to our neighbors,
a source of mockery and derision to those around us.
14 You made us an object lesson among the nations;
people shake their heads at us.[f]
15 My dishonor tortures[g] me continuously;[h]
the shame on my face overwhelms[i] me
16 because of the voice of the one who mocks and reviles,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this came upon us,
yet we did not forsake you,
and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant;
18 Our hearts have not turned away;
our steps have not swerved from your path.
19 Nevertheless, you crushed us in the lair of jackals,
and covered us in deep darkness.[j]
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or lifted our hands to a foreign god,
21 wouldn’t God find out
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 For your sake we are being killed all day long.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Wake up! Why are you asleep, Lord?
Get up! Don’t cast us off forever!
24 Why are you hiding your face?
Why are you ignoring our affliction and oppression?
25 For we[k] have collapsed in the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Arise! Deliver us!
Redeem us according to your gracious love!
Joseph’s Life before His Captivity
37 Jacob continued to live in the land they were occupying, where his father had journeyed in the territory of Canaan. 2 This is a record of Jacob’s descendants.
When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was helping his brothers tend their flocks. He was a young man at that time, as were the children of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. But Joseph would come back and tell his father that his brothers were doing bad things. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his brothers, since he was born to him in his old age, so he had made a richly-embroidered[a] tunic for him. 4 When Joseph’s[b] brothers realized that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him so much that they were unable to speak politely to him.
Joseph’s Dreams
5 Right about this time, Joseph had a dream and then told it to his brothers. As a result, his brothers hated him all the more! 6 “Let me tell you about this dream that I had!” he said. 7 “We were tying sheaves together out in the middle of the fields, when all of a sudden, my sheaf stood up erect! And then your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf!”
8 At this, his brothers replied, “Do you really think you’re going to rule us or lord it over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his interpretations of them.
9 But then he had another dream, and he proceeded to tell his brothers about that one, too. “I had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven of the stars were bowing down before me!”
10 When Joseph told his father about this, his father rebuked him and asked him, “What kind of dream is that? Will I, your mother, and your brothers really come to you and bow down to the ground in front of you?” 11 As a result, his brothers became more envious of him. But his father kept thinking about all of this.
Paul Greets the Church in Corinth
1 From:[a] Paul, called to be an apostle of the Messiah[b] Jesus[c] by the will of God, and from our brother Sosthenes.
2 To: God’s church in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified by the Messiah[d] Jesus and called to be holy,[e] together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah[f]—their Lord[g] and ours.
3 May grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah,[h] be yours!
You are Rich
4 I always thank my[i] God for you because of the grace of God given you by the Messiah[j] Jesus. 5 For by him you have become rich in every way—in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6 while our testimony about the Messiah[k] has been confirmed among you. 7 Therefore, you don’t lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus the Messiah[l] to be revealed. 8 He will keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the Day of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.[m] 9 Faithful is the God by whom you were called into fellowship with his Son Jesus the Messiah,[n] our Lord.
Divisions in the Church
10 Brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah,[o] I urge all of you to be in agreement[p] and not to have divisions among you, so that you may be perfectly united in your understanding and opinions. 11 My brothers, some members of Chloe’s family have made it clear to me that there are quarrels among you. 12 This is what I mean: Each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,”[q] or “I belong to the Messiah.”[r]
13 Is the Messiah[s] divided? Paul wasn’t crucified for you, was he? You weren’t baptized in Paul’s name, were you? 14 I thank God[t] that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (Oh yes, I also baptized the family of Stephanas. Beyond that, I’m not sure whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For the Messiah[u] did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent wisdom, so the cross of the Messiah[v] won’t be emptied of its power.
The Messiah is God’s Power and Wisdom
18 For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject.”[w]
John the Baptist Prepares the Way for Jesus(A)
1 This is[a] the beginning of the gospel of Jesus the Messiah,[b] the Son of God.[c] 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
“See! I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way.[d]
3 He is a voice calling out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way for the Lord![e]
Make his paths straight!’”[f]
4 John was baptizing in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism about repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 People from[g] the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were flocking to him, being baptized by him while they confessed their sins. 6 Now John was dressed in camel’s hair with[h] a leather belt around his waist. He ate grasshoppers[i] and wild honey. 7 He kept proclaiming, “The one who is coming after me is stronger than I am, and I am not worthy to bend down and untie his sandal straps. 8 I baptized you with[j] water, but it is he who will baptize you with[k] the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus is Baptized(B)
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 Then a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am pleased with you!”
Jesus is Tempted by Satan(C)
12 At once the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was among wild animals, and angels were ministering to him.
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