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.

¹² Thus hath the LORD said: As the pastor takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the sons of Israel escape that dwell in Samaria in the corner of the bed and at the border of the couch.

¹³ Hear ye, and protest in the house of Jacob, said the Lord GOD, the God of the hosts,

¹⁴ that in the day that I shall visit the rebellions of Israel upon him, I will also visit upon the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.

¹⁵ And I will smite the winter house with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and many houses shall be cut off, said the LORD.

4 ¶ Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

² The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days shall come upon you that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity in fishing boats.

³ And ye shall go forth by the breaches one after another, and ye shall be cast out of the palace, saith the LORD.

⁴ Go to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal increase the rebellion; and bring your sacrifices early in the morning and your tithes every three years:

⁵ and offer a sacrifice of praise with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free will offerings for this is the way you like it, O ye sons of Israel, said the Lord GOD.

3 ¶ Beloved, I now write unto you this second epistle, in which I alert with exhortation your pure understanding,

² that ye keep in memory the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of our commandment, that we are apostles of the Lord and Saviour,

³ ¶ knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts

⁴ and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the day in which the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵ Of course, they willingly ignore that the heavens were created of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by the word of God;

⁶ by which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished;

⁷ but the heavens, which are now, and the earth are conserved by the same word, kept unto the fire in the day of judgment and of perdition of the ungodly men.

⁸ ¶ But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day before the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day.

⁹ ¶ The Lord is not late concerning his promise, as some count lateness, but is patient with us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements, burning, shall be dissolved, and the earth and the works that are in it shall be burned up.

²³ ¶ And when he was come into the temple, the princes of the priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?

²⁴ And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you a word, which if ye tell me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁵ The baptism of John, where was it from? from heaven or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven, he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?

²⁶ But if we shall say, Of men, we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet.

²⁷ And they answered Jesus and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁸ ¶ But what do you think? A certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard.

²⁹ He answered and said, I will not, but afterward he repented and went.

³⁰ And he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, I will go, Lord, and went not.

³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go ahead of you into the kingdom of God.

³² For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not, but the publicans and the harlots believed him, and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him.