Book of Common Prayer
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.”
Psalm 40
I Desire to Do Your Will
(Psalm 40:13-17 parallels Psalm 70)
Heading
For the choir director. By David. A psalm.
Messiah’s Prayer of Thanks
1 I waited and waited for the Lord.
Then he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 Then he pulled me up from the deadly quicksand,
from the mud and muck.
He made my feet stand on a rock to keep my steps from slipping.
3 Then he put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear.
They will trust in the Lord.
4 How blessed is everyone who trusts in the Lord,
who does not look to the proud
or to those who turn aside to falsehood.
5 Many are the wonders you have done, O Lord my God.
No one can explain to you all your thoughts for us.[a]
If I try to speak and tell about them,
they are too many to count.
Messiah’s Willing Sacrifice
6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire.
Ears you have opened for me.[b]
You did not ask for burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come.
The book written on a scroll tells about me.
8 My God, I take pleasure in doing your will.
Your law[c] is in my heart.”
Messiah’s Preaching of Good News
9 I preach righteousness in the great assembly.
Indeed, I do not hold back my lips, O Lord, as you know.
10 I do not conceal your righteousness deep in my heart.
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not hide your mercy and your truth from the great assembly.
Messiah’s Prayer in Distress
11 Lord, you do not hold back your compassion from me.
Let your mercy and your truth always protect me,
12 although troubles without number surround me.
Punishments for my guilt have smothered me, so I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head, so my courage deserts me.
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to save me.
Lord, hurry to help me.
14 Let all who seek to end my life be frustrated and completely confused.[d]
Let everyone who desires my ruin be turned back and disgraced.
15 Let those who say to me, “Aha! We got you!” be dismayed,
because they have been put to shame.
16 But let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation always say,
“The Lord is great!”
17 Yet I am poor and needy.
May the Lord think about me.
You are my help and my deliverer.
O my God, do not delay.
Psalm 54
Ruthless Men Seek My Life
Heading
For the choir director. With stringed instruments.
A maskil by David. When the Ziphites went and said to Saul, “Isn’t David hiding himself with us?”[a]
The Plea
1 God, save me by your name.
By your power judge me justly.
2 God, hear my prayer.
Turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
The Problem
3 For strangers have risen up against me.
Ruthless men seek my life. Interlude
They pay no attention to God.
The Solution
4 Indeed, God is my helper.
The Lord is the one who preserves my life.
5 Let evil return on those who oppress me.
In your faithfulness destroy them.
The Outcome
6 I will sacrifice willingly to you.
I will praise your name, O Lord, because it is good.
7 Surely, from all my distress he has delivered me.
My eyes have looked down on my enemies.
Psalm 51
Cleanse Me From My Sin
Heading
For the choir director. A psalm by David.
When Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.[a]
David’s Plea for Forgiveness
1 Be gracious to me, God,
according to your mercy.
Erase my acts of rebellion
according to the greatness of your compassion.
2 Scrub me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
David’s Confession
3 For I admit my rebellious acts.
My sin is always in front of me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and I have done this evil in your eyes.
So you are justified when you sentence me.
You are blameless when you judge.
5 Certainly, I was guilty when I was born.
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
David’s Need for Renewal
6 Since you desire truth on the inside,
in my hidden heart you teach me wisdom.
7 Remove my sin with hyssop, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness.
Let the bones you have crushed celebrate.
9 Hide your face from my sins.
Erase all my guilty deeds.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God.
Renew an unwavering spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence.
Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
Sustain me with a willing spirit.
David’s Pledge of Renewed Service
13 I will teach rebels your ways,
and sinners will turn to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
the God who saves me.
My tongue will shout for joy about your righteousness.
15 Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you do not delight in sacrifice,
or I would give it.
You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit.
A broken and crushed heart, O God, you will not despise.
David’s Prayer for the People
18 As it pleases you, do good for Zion.
Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will be pleased with righteous sacrifices,
burnt offerings and whole offerings.
Then bulls will be offered up on your altar.
Joseph Interprets Dreams
40 Sometime after this, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt committed an offense against their lord, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. 3 He put them under custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he was responsible for them. They stayed in prison for some time.[a] 5 While they were confined in the prison, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt each had a dream. Each man had his own dream during the same night. Each man’s dream had its own meaning. 6 Joseph came to them in the morning, looked at them, and saw that they were troubled. 7 He asked Pharaoh’s officers who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so troubled today?”
8 They said to him, “We each had a dream, but there is no one who can interpret it.”
Joseph said to them, “Interpretations belong to God, don’t they? Please tell me the dreams.”
9 The chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. “In my dream, there was a vine in front of me, 10 and the vine had three branches. As I watched, it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters produced ripe grapes. 11 I had Pharaoh’s cup in my hand. I took the grapes, pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and handed the cup to Pharaoh.”
12 Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office. You will place Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, the way you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But remember me when everything is going well for you. Please show kindness to me, and mention me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this jail, 15 because I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and I also have done nothing here to deserve to be put into the dungeon.”
16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream. I saw three baskets of white bread on my head. 17 In the top basket there were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.”
18 Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from upon you and will hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh off of you.”
20 And so it was that on the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, Pharaoh had a feast prepared for all his officials, and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his officials. 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position again, and he again placed the cup into Pharaoh’s hand. 22 But he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had explained to them. 23 Nevertheless, the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives in[a] you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this world, let him become a fool so that he may become wise. 19 To be sure, the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”[b] 20 and again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise; he knows that it is worthless.”[c] 21 Therefore let no one boast about men. For all things belong to you— 22 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All things belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
The Calling of Levi (Matthew)
13 Jesus went out again along the sea. The whole crowd went to him, and he taught them. 14 As he was passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him.
15 Then when Jesus was reclining at a table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples because many of them also were following him. 16 When the experts in the law and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
A Question About Fasting
18 John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. They came and asked Jesus, “Why is it that John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
19 Jesus said to them, “The friends of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then on that day they will fast. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the patch shrinks, the new tears away from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will pour out,[a] and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.