Book of Common Prayer
ALEPH.
1 ¶ Blessed are those who walk in the perfect way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are those that keep his testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart.
3 For those who do no iniquity walk in his ways.
4 ¶ Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were ordered to keep thy statutes!
6 Then I shall not be ashamed, when I have insight unto all thy commandments.
7 ¶ I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
8 I will keep thy statutes; O do not utterly forsake me.
BETH.
9 ¶ With what shall a young man cleanse his way? when he shall keep thy word.
10 ¶ With my whole heart I have sought thee; O let me not err from thy commandments.
11 ¶ Thy spoken word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
12 ¶ Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
13 ¶ With my lips I have declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as above all riches.
15 I will meditate in thy precepts and consider thy ways.
16 I will delight myself in thy statutes; I will not forget thy words.
GIMEL.
17 ¶ Deal bountifully with thy slave that I may live and keep thy word.
18 ¶ Open my eyes, and I shall behold the wonders of thy law.
19 ¶ I am a stranger in the earth; hide not thy commandments from me.
20 ¶ My soul is broken from desiring thy judgments at all times.
21 ¶ Thou hast reprehended the proud; cursed are those who err from thy commandments.
22 ¶ Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies.
23 ¶ Princes also sat and spoke against me as thy slave spoke according to thy statutes.
24 ¶ For thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors.
To the Overcomer upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Help, LORD; for the merciful man ceases, for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
2 Each one speaks vanity with his neighbour: they speak with flattering lips and with a double heart.
3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things:
4 Who have said, With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5 For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, saith the LORD; I will set in safety the one whom the wicked one has ensnared.
6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
8 The wicked press in on every side when the vilest men are exalted.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
6 I will sing unto the LORD because he has dealt bountifully with me.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is no one that does good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is no one that does good, no, not one.
4 ¶ The workers of iniquity certainly know this; those who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD.
5 There they were in great fear: for God is with the nation of the righteous.
6 Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor because the LORD is his hope.
7 Oh that the saving health of Israel were come out of Zion! When the LORD turns back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
1 ¶ These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.)
3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke unto the sons of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had commanded him regarding them;
4 after he had slain Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, who dwelt at Astaroth in Edrei;
5 on this side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses resolved to declare this law, saying,
6 The LORD our God spoke unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount;
7 turn and take your journey and go to the mount of the Amorite and unto all the places nearby, in the plain, in the hills, and in the valleys and to the Negev and by the sea side to the land of the Canaanite and unto Lebanon unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
8 Behold, I have given the land in your presence; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give unto them and to their seed after them.
9 ¶ And I spoke unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone;
10 the LORD your God has multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.
11 Let the LORD God of your fathers add upon you a thousand times so many more as ye are and bless you, as he has promised!
12 How can I myself alone bear your troubles and your burdens and your strife?
13 Give me from among you, of your tribes, wise and understanding and expert men, and I will make them the head over you.
14 And ye answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.
15 So I took the principals of your tribes, wise men and experts, and made them princes over you, princes over thousands and princes over hundreds and princes over fifties and princes over tens and officers among your tribes.
16 And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with him.
17 Ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.
18 And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do.
9 ¶ I say the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,
2 that I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart.
3 For I could wish that myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, those who are my kinsmen according to the flesh,
4 who are Israelites, to whom pertains the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises,
5 whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh is the Christ, who is God over all things, blessed for all the ages. Amen.
6 ¶ Not as though the word of God has been deficient. For not all the descendants of Israel are Israelites;
7 neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are all sons, but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
8 That is, Those who are sons of the flesh, these are not the sons of God; but those who are sons of the promise are counted in the generation.
9 For the word of the promise is this, At this time I will come, and Sara shall have a son.
10 And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac
11 (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand: not of works, but of him that calls),
12 it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14 ¶ What shall we say then? Is there injustice in God? No, in no wise.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that has mercy.
17 For the scripture saith of Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he hardens whom he will.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whitewashed sepulchres, who indeed appear beautiful outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the sepulchres of the righteous
30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 Therefore ye are witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 ¶ Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, {Gr. stauroo – Hang on a stake} and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city,
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye murdered between the temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that didst kill the prophets and stone those who are sent unto thee, how often I desired to gather thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me from now on until ye shall say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.
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