Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 118
1 Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good,
because His mercy endures forever.
2 Let Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the Lord say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
5 I called upon the Lord from my distress;
the Lord answered me and set me in an open place.
6 The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.
What can people do to me?
7 The Lord is on my side to help me;
I shall look in triumph upon those who hate me.
8 It is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in man.
9 It is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in princes.
10 All nations encircled me,
but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
11 They circled me; indeed, they surrounded me,
but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
12 They circled me like bees;
they went forth as a fire over thorns,
but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.
13 You have pushed against me, that I was falling,
but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord is my strength and song;
He has become my salvation.
15 The voice of rejoicing and salvation
is in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the Lord is valiant.
16 The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
the right hand of the Lord is valiant.”
17 I shall not die, but I shall live
and declare the works of the Lord.
18 The Lord has severely chastened me,
but He has not given me over unto death.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through.
21 I will thank You that You have heard me
and have become my deliverance.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
23 This is what the Lord has done;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the Lord has made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save us, we ask You, O Lord;
O Lord, we ask You, send now success.
26 Blessed be he that comes in the name of the Lord:
we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
27 The Lord is God,
and He has shown us His light;
bind the sacrifice with cords,
even unto the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will praise You;
You are my God, I will exalt You.
29 Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good,
for His mercy endures forever.
Psalm 145
A Psalm of Praise. Of David.
1 I will exalt you, my God and King,
and I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless You,
and I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and His greatness is unfathomable.
4 One generation shall praise Your works to another
and shall declare Your mighty acts.
5 I will speak of the glorious honor of Your majesty
and of Your wondrous works.
6 They shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts,
and I will declare Your greatness.
7 They shall abundantly declare the fame of Your great goodness
and shall sing of Your righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
slow to anger, and great in mercy.
9 The Lord is good to all,
and His compassion is over all His works.
10 All Your works shall praise You, O Lord,
and Your godly ones shall bless You.
11 They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom
and talk of Your power,
12 to make known to people His mighty acts,
and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14 The Lord upholds all who fall,
and raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all wait upon You,
and You give them their food in due season.
16 You open Your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways
and loving in all His works.
18 The Lord is near to all those who call upon Him,
to all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and will save them.
20 The Lord preserves all those who love Him,
but all the wicked He will destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord,
and let all people bless His holy name
forever and ever.
The Bronze Serpent
4 They journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, and the soul of the people was very discouraged because of the way. 5 The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread or water, and our soul loathes this worthless manna.”
6 So the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many children of Israel died. 7 So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, and He will take away the serpents from us.” And Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and put it on a pole, and it will be, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, will live.” 9 Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the bronze serpent he lived.
King Sihon Defeated
21 Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,
22 “Let me pass through your land. We will not turn into the fields nor into the vineyards. We will not drink of the waters of the well. But we will go along by the king’s highway until we are past your borders.”
23 Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border. But Sihon gathered all his people together and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and he came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. 24 Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and possessed his land from Arnon to Jabbok, all the way to the children of Ammon, because the border of the children of Ammon was strong. 25 Israel took all these cities, and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages. 26 Because Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, to Arnon.
27 Therefore they that speak in proverbs say:
“Come into Heshbon; let it be built,
and let the city of Sihon be established,
28 because a fire went out of Heshbon,
a flame from the city of Sihon;
it has devoured Ar of Moab
and the masters of the high places of Arnon.
29 Woe to you, Moab!
You have perished, O people of Chemosh!
He has made his sons fugitives,
and his daughters captives,
to Sihon king of the Amorites.
30 “We have overthrown them;
Heshbon is perished to Dibon,
and we have desolated them to Nophah,
which reaches to Medeba.”
31 Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites.
King Og Defeated
32 Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they took its villages and drove out the Amorites who were there. 33 They turned and went up by the way of Bashan, and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.
34 The Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him because into your hand I have given him, and all his people, and his land, and you will do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.”
35 So they killed him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was not a survivor left to him alive, and they possessed his land.
12 Therefore many of them believed, including honorable Greek women and many Greek men.
13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also, stirring up the crowds. 14 The brothers immediately sent Paul away to the sea. But Silas and Timothy remained there. 15 Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and departed with instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him quickly.
Paul in Athens
16 While Paul waited for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 Therefore he disputed in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to there. 18 Then some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What will this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection to them. 19 They took hold of him and led him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? 20 For you are bringing strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” 21 For all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing else, but either telling or hearing something new.
22 Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. 23 For as I passed by and looked up at your objects of worship, I found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Whom you therefore unknowingly worship, Him I proclaim to you.
24 “God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by hands. 25 Nor is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives all men life and breath and all things. 26 He has made from one blood every nation of men to live on the entire face of the earth, having appointed fixed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they should seek the Lord so perhaps they might reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Deity is like gold or silver or stone or an engraved work of art or an image of the reflection of man. 30 God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent. 31 For He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed, having given assurance of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed. But others said, “We will hear you again concerning this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed. Among them were Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Healing a Woman on the Sabbath
10 He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years and was bent over and could not straighten herself up. 12 When Jesus saw her, He called her and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” 13 Then He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and said to the people, “There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come and be healed on those days, but not on the Sabbath day.”
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? 16 Then should not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan has bound these eighteen years, be loosed from this bondage on the Sabbath?”
17 When He said this, all His adversaries were ashamed. And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.