Book of Common Prayer
78 Hear my doctrine, O my people. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable. I will declare high sentences of old
3 which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children; but to the generation to come we will show the praise of the LORD, His power also, and His wonderful works that He has done.
5 How He established a testimony in Jacob and ordained a Law in Israel. Which He commanded our fathers that they should teach their children,
6 so that the posterity might know it and the children which should be born should stand up and declare it to their children.
7 So that they might set their hope on God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His Commandments.
8 So that they not be as their fathers (a disobedient and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set their heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God).
9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and shooting with the bow, turned back on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep the Covenant of God, but refused to walk in His Law,
11 and forgot His acts and His wonderful works that He had shown them.
12 He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt (in the field of Zoan).
13 He divided the sea and led them through. He also made the waters to stand as a heap.
14 Also, in the daytime, He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.
15 He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink, as with the great depths.
16 He also brought floods out of the stony rock, making the waters descend like the rivers.
17 But, they still sinned against Him and provoked the Highest in the wilderness
18 and tempted God in their hearts, requiring food for their lust.
19 They also spoke against God, saying, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
20 “Behold, He struck the rock so that the water gushed out and the streams overflowed. Can He also give bread, or prepare flesh for His people?”
21 Therefore, the LORD heard and was angry, and the fire was kindled in Jacob; and wrath also came upon Israel
22 because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His help.
23 Still, He had commanded the clouds above, and had opened the doors of Heaven,
24 and had rained down manna upon them to eat and had given them of the wheat of Heaven.
25 Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food enough.
26 He caused the east wind to pass in the sky; and through His power He brought in the south wind.
27 He also rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the sea.
28 And He made it fall in the midst of their camp, all around their habitations.
29 So they ate and were well-filled; for He gave them their desire.
30 They were not turned from their lusts. The food was still in their mouths
31 when the wrath of God came upon them and slew the strongest of them and struck down the chosen men of Israel.
32 In spite of all this, they still sinned and did not believe His wondrous works.
33 Therefore, He ended their days in futility, and their years in dismay.
34 And when He slew them, they sought Him; and they returned and sought God earnestly.
35 And they remembered that God was their strength, and the Most High God their Redeemer.
36 But they flattered Him with their mouth and lied to Him with their tongue.
37 For their heart was not upright with Him; nor were they faithful in His Covenant.
38 Yet, He, being merciful, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; but oftentimes called back His anger and did not stir up all His wrath.
39 For He remembered that they were flesh, a wind that passes and does not come again.
40 How often did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the desert?
41 Indeed, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
42 They remembered neither His hand nor the day when He delivered them from the enemy
43 nor Him Who set His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the field of Zoan.
44 Who turned their rivers into blood, and their floods, so that they could not drink.
45 He sent a swarm of flies among them which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them.
46 He also gave their fruits to the caterpillar, and their labor to the grasshopper.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their wild fig trees with the hailstone.
48 He also gave their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to the thunderbolts.
49 He cast upon them the fierceness of His anger, indignation and wrath, and troubled them by sending out evil angels.
50 He made a path for His anger. He did not spare their soul from death but gave their life to the pestilence.
51 He struck all the firstborn in Egypt, even the beginning of their strength, in the tabernacles of Ham.
52 But, He made His people go out like sheep and led them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 Indeed, He carried them out safely, and they did not fear; and the sea covered their enemies.
54 And He brought them to the borders of His Sanctuary, to this Mountain which His right hand purchased.
55 He also cast out the heathen before them and caused them to fall to the lot of His inheritance; and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tabernacles.
56 Yet, they tempted and provoked the Most High God and did not keep His testimonies.
57 But they turned back and dealt falsely, like their fathers. They turned like a deceitful bow.
58 And they provoked Him to anger with their high places and moved Him to wrath with their graven images.
59 God heard this and was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;
60 so that He abandoned the habitation of Shiloh, the Tabernacle where He dwelt among men,
61 and delivered His power into captivity, and His beauty into the enemy’s hand.
62 And He gave up His people to the sword and was angry with His inheritance.
63 The fire devoured their chosen men, and their maids were not praised.
64 Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows did not lament.
65 But the LORD awakened, as one out of sleep, as a strong man who cries out after wine,
66 and drove His enemies backwards and put them to a perpetual shame.
67 Yet, He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 But He chose the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which He loved.
69 And He built His Sanctuary as a high palace, like the Earth, which He established forever.
70 He also chose David, His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.
71 Even from behind the ewes with young. He brought him to feed His people in Jacob, and His inheritance in Israel.
72 So, he fed them according to the simplicity of his heart and guided them by the discretion of his hands. A Psalm committed to Asaph
59 Behold, the LORD’s Hand is not shortened, that it cannot save. Nor is His Ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
2 But your iniquities have put separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden His Face from you, so that He will not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue has murmured iniquity.
4 No man calls for justice. No man contends for truth. They trust in vanity and speak vain things. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.
5 They hatch viper’s eggs and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs, dies. And that which is stepped on breaks out into a serpent.
6 Their webs shall be no garment. Nor shall they cover themselves with their labors. Their works are works of iniquity. And the work of cruelty is in their hands.
7 Their feet turn to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are wicked thoughts. Desolation and destruction are in their paths.
8 The way of peace they do not know. And there is no justice in their ways. They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever goes in there shall not know peace.
9 Therefore judgment is far from us. Nor does justice come near to us. We wait for light, but lo, it is darkness, for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as one without eyes. We stumble at the noon day as in the twilight, in solitary places, as dead men.
11 We roar all like bears and mourn like doves. We look for judgment, but there is none, for health, but it is far from us.
12 For our trespasses are many before You. And our sins testify against us. For our trespasses are with us. And we know our iniquities
13 in trespassing and lying against the LORD. And we have departed away from our God, have spoken of cruelty and rebellion, conceiving and uttering false matters out of the heart.
14 Therefore, judgment has turned backward. And justice stands far off. For truth has fallen in the street, and truth cannot enter.
15 Yea, truth fails. And he who refrains from evil makes himself a prey. And when the LORD saw it, it displeased Him that there was no judgment.
1 Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 I thank God, Whom I serve with pure conscience (as my forefathers did), remembering you in my prayers night and day, without ceasing;
4 desiring to see you, mindful of your tears, so that I may be filled with joy
5 when I call to remembrance the sincere faith that is in you (which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and assuredly dwells in you also).
6 Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you by the laying on of my hands.
7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of self-control.
8 Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me (His prisoner). But share in the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God.
9 He has saved us and called us with a holy calling - not according to our works - but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us through Christ Jesus before the world was;
10 but is now revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel,
11 for which I am appointed a preacher and Apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.
12 For this reason I also suffer these things. But I am not ashamed. For I know Whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that Day.
13 Keep the true pattern of the wholesome words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.
14 Keep that worthy thing which was committed to you through the Holy Ghost, Who dwells in us.
42 “And whoever shall cause one of these little ones who believes in Me to stumble, it were better for him if a millstone were hanged around his neck and that he were cast into the sea.
43 “So if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed, than to have two hands and go into Hell; into the fire that never shall be quenched,
44 ‘Where their worm dies not, and the fire never goes out.’
45 “Likewise, if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, than to have two feet and be cast into Hell; into the fire that never shall be quenched,
46 ‘Where their worm dies not, and the fire never goes out.’
47 “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to go into the Kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into Hell fire,
48 ‘Where their worm dies not, and the fire never goes out.’
49 “For everyone shall be salted with fire. And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.
50 “Salt is good, but if the salt is tasteless, with what shall it be seasoned? Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another.”
© 2019, 2024 by Five Talents Audio. All rights reserved.