Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 119
1 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere, and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of God’s revealed will).
2 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart.
3 Yes, they do no unrighteousness [no willful wandering from His precepts]; they walk in His ways.(A)
4 You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently.
5 Oh, that my ways were directed and established to observe Your statutes [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]!
6 Then shall I not be put to shame [by failing to inherit Your promises] when I have respect to all Your commandments.
7 I will praise and give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn [by sanctified experiences] Your righteous judgments [Your decisions against and punishments for particular lines of thought and conduct].
8 I will keep Your statutes; O forsake me not utterly.
9 How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed and keeping watch [on himself] according to Your word [conforming his life to it].
10 With my whole heart have I sought You, inquiring for and of You and yearning for You; Oh, let me not wander or step aside [either in ignorance or willfully] from Your commandments.(B)
11 Your word have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin against You.
12 Blessed are You, O Lord; teach me Your statutes.
13 With my lips have I declared and recounted all the ordinances of Your mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways [the paths of life marked out by Your law].(C)
16 I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.
17 Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live; and I will observe Your word [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].(D)
18 Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.
19 I am a stranger and a temporary resident on the earth; hide not Your commandments from me.(E)
20 My heart is breaking with the longing that it has for Your ordinances and judgments at all times.
21 You rebuke the proud and arrogant, the accursed ones, who err and wander from Your commandments.
22 Take away from me reproach and contempt, for I keep Your testimonies.
23 Princes also sat and talked against me, but Your servant meditated on Your statutes.
24 Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.
Psalm 12
To the Chief Musician; set [possibly] an octave below. A Psalm of David.
1 Help, Lord! For principled and godly people are here no more; faithfulness and the faithful vanish from among the sons of men.
2 To his neighbor each one speaks words without use or worth or truth; with flattering lips and double heart [deceitfully] they speak.
3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongues that speak proud boasting,
4 Those who say, With our tongues we prevail; our lips are our own [to command at our will]—who is lord and master over us?
5 Now will I arise, says the Lord, because the poor are oppressed, because of the groans of the needy; I will set him in safety and in the salvation for which he pants.
6 The words and promises of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in an earthen furnace, purified seven times over.
7 You will keep them and preserve them, O Lord; You will guard and keep us from this [evil] generation forever.
8 The wicked walk or prowl about on every side, as vileness is exalted [and baseness is rated high] among the sons of men.
Psalm 13
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 How long will You forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
2 How long must I lay up cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me?
3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten the eyes [of my faith to behold Your face in the pitchlike darkness], lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am shaken.
5 But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.
Psalm 14
To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David.
1 The [empty-headed] fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable deeds; there is none that does good or right.(A)
2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any who understood, dealt wisely, and sought after God, inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him [of vital necessity].
3 They are all gone aside, they have all together become filthy; there is none that does good or right, no, not one.(B)
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread and who do not call on the Lord?
5 There they shall be in great fear [literally—dreading a dread], for God is with the generation of the [uncompromisingly] righteous (those upright and in right standing with Him).
6 You [evildoers] would put to shame and confound the plans of the poor and patient, but the Lord is his safe refuge.
7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord shall restore the fortunes of His people, then Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.(C)
1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel [still] on the [east] side of the Jordan [River] in the wilderness, in the Arabah [the deep valley running north and south from the eastern arm of the Red Sea to beyond the Dead Sea], over near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
2 It is [only] eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea [on Canaan’s border; yet Israel took forty years to get beyond it].
3 And in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the Israelites according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them,
4 After He had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth [and] Edrei.
5 Beyond (east of) the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying,
6 The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have dwelt long enough on this mountain.
7 Turn and take up your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the South (the Negeb), and on the coast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
8 Behold, I have set the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them.
9 I said to you at that time, I am not able to bear you alone.
10 The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are this day as the stars of the heavens for multitude.
11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as He has promised you!
12 How can I bear alone the weariness and pressure and burden of you and your strife?
13 Choose wise, understanding, experienced, and respected men according to your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.
14 And you answered me, The thing which you have spoken is good for us to do.
15 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise, experienced, and respected men, and made them heads over you, commanders of thousands, and hundreds, and fifties, and tens, and officers according to your tribes.
16 And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the cases between your brethren and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger or sojourner who is with him.
17 You shall not be partial in judgment; but you shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.
18 And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.
9 I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; my conscience [enlightened and prompted] by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with me
2 That I have bitter grief and incessant anguish in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off and banished from Christ for the sake of my brethren and instead of them, my natural kinsmen and my fellow countrymen.(A)
4 For they are Israelites, and to them belong God’s adoption [as a nation] and the glorious Presence (Shekinah). With them were the special covenants made, to them was the Law given. To them [the temple] worship was revealed and [God’s own] promises announced.(B)
5 To them belong the patriarchs, and as far as His natural descent was concerned, from them is the Christ, Who is exalted and supreme over all, God, blessed forever! Amen (so let it be).
6 However, it is not as though God’s Word had failed [coming to nothing]. For it is not everybody who is a descendant of Jacob (Israel) who belongs to [the true] Israel.
7 And they are not all the children of Abraham because they are by blood his descendants. No, [the promise was] Your descendants will be called and counted through the line of Isaac [though Abraham had an older son].(C)
8 That is to say, it is not the children of the body [of Abraham] who are made God’s children, but it is the offspring to whom the promise applies that shall be counted [as Abraham’s true] descendants.
9 For this is what the promise said, About this time [next year] will I return and Sarah shall have a son.(D)
10 And not only that, but this too: Rebecca conceived [two sons under exactly the same circumstances] by our forefather Isaac,
11 And the children were yet unborn and had so far done nothing either good or evil. Even so, in order further to carry out God’s purpose of selection (election, choice), which depends not on works or what men can do, but on Him Who calls [them],
12 It was said to her that the elder [son] should serve the younger [son].(E)
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (held in [a]relative disregard in comparison with My feeling for Jacob).(F)
14 What shall we conclude then? Is there injustice upon God’s part? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion (pity) on whom I will have compassion.(G)
16 So then [God’s gift] is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God’s mercy. [It depends not on one’s own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God’s having mercy on him.]
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for this very purpose of displaying My power in [dealing with] you, so that My name may be proclaimed the whole world over.
18 So then He has mercy on whomever He wills (chooses) and He hardens (makes stubborn and unyielding the heart of) whomever He wills.
27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you are like tombs that have been whitewashed, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything impure.
28 Just so, you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright but inside you are full of pretense and lawlessness and iniquity.(A)
29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
30 Saying, If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have aided them in shedding the blood of the prophets.
31 Thus you are testifying against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ sins to the brim [so [a]that nothing may be wanting to a full measure].
33 You serpents! You spawn of vipers! How can you escape the [b]penalty to be suffered in hell (Gehenna)?
34 Because of this, take notice: I am sending you prophets and wise men (interpreters and teachers) and scribes (men learned in the Mosaic Law and the Prophets); some of them you will kill, even crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue and persecute from town to town,
35 So that upon your heads may come all the blood of the righteous ([c]those who correspond to the divine standard of right) shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar [of burnt offering].(B)
36 Truly I declare to you, all these [[d]evil, calamitous times] will come upon this generation.(C)
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, murdering the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a mother fowl gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused!
38 Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate (abandoned and left destitute of God’s help).(D)
39 For I declare to you, you will not see Me again until you say, Blessed (magnified in worship, adored, and exalted) is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!(E)
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