Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ In thee, O LORD, have I waited; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in thy righteousness.
2 Incline thine ear unto me; deliver me speedily; be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me.
3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake thou shalt lead me and guide me.
4 Thou shalt pull me out of the net that they have laid in secret for me; for thou art my strength.
5 Into thy hand shall I commit my spirit; thou shalt ransom me, O LORD God of truth.
6 I have hated those that regard lying vanities; but I wait in the LORD.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities
8 and hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; thou hast set my feet in a wide place.
9 ¶ Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: my eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
10 For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing: my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones are consumed.
11 I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to my acquaintances: those that see me without flee from me.
12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I have become like a lost vessel.
13 For I have heard the slander of many; fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
14 But I trusted in thee, O LORD; I said, Thou art my God.
15 My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those that persecute me.
16 Make thy face to shine upon thy slave; save me for thy mercies’ sake.
17 Let me not be ashamed, O LORD, for I have called upon thee; let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be cut off for Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.
19 ¶ Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for those that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for those that wait in thee before the sons of men!
20 Thou shalt keep them in the secret place of thy face from the pride of man; thou shalt keep them in the tabernacle protected from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the LORD, for he has shown me his marvellous mercy in a strong city.
22 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes; nevertheless thou hast heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.
23 O love the LORD, all ye his merciful ones, for the LORD preserves the faithful and plentifully rewards the proud doer.
24 Be of good courage and strengthen your hearts, all ye that wait in the LORD.
A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Plead my cause, O LORD, with those that strive with me; fight against those that fight against me.
2 Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up in my help.
3 Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against those that persecute me; say unto my soul; I am thy saving health.
4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul; let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.
5 Let them be as chaff before the wind, and let the angel of the LORD chase them.
6 Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.
7 For without cause they have hid their net for me in a pit, which without cause they have dug for my soul.
8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares, and let his net that he has hid catch himself; into that very destruction let him fall.
9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD; it shall rejoice in his saving health.
10 All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, who delivers the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoils him?
11 ¶ False witnesses rose up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.
12 They rewarded me evil for good until my soul was alone.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer rose up in my bosom.
14 I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother; I bowed down heavily, as one that mourns for his mother.
15 But in my adversity they rejoiced and gathered themselves together; yea, the smiters gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they tore me apart and did not cease:
16 With immature hypocritical mockers, they gnashed upon me with their teeth.
17 ¶ Lord, how long wilt thou look on? Restore my soul from their destructions, my life from the lions.
18 I will give thee thanks in the great congregation; I will praise thee among many people.
19 Let not those that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; neither let those that hate me wink with the eye without a cause.
20 For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful matters against those that are meek in the land.
21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me and said, Aha, aha, our eye has seen it.
22 This thou hast seen, O LORD; do not keep silence; O Lord, do not be far from me.
23 Stir up thyself and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord.
24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it; let them not say, We have swallowed him up.
26 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at my hurt; let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.
27 Let them shout for joy and be glad that favour my righteous cause; let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, who has pleasure in the peace of his slave.
28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.
1 ¶ In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by the hand of Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
2 Thus speaketh the LORD of the hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not yet come, the time to build the house of the LORD.
3 Then came the word of the LORD by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying,
4 Do you have time, all of you, to dwell in your panelled houses, and this house is deserted?
5 Now therefore thus hath the LORD of the hosts said; Consider your ways.
6 Ye have sown much and bring in little; ye eat, but ye are not filled; ye drink, but ye are not satisfied; ye clothe yourselves, but you are not warm; and he that is a hireling receives his wages in a bag with holes.
7 Thus hath the LORD of the hosts said, Consider your ways.
8 Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house; and I will place my will in her, and I will be glorified, said the LORD.
9 Ye look for much and find little; and when ye lock it up at home, I shall blow upon it. Why? said the LORD of the hosts. Because my house is deserted, and ye run each one of you unto his own house.
10 Therefore the rain of the heavens over you is held back, and the earth has held back her fruits.
11 And I called for a drought upon this land and upon the mountains and upon the wheat and upon the wine and upon the oil and upon that which the earth brings forth and upon the men, and upon the beasts and upon every labour of hands.
12 ¶ Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, heard the voice of the LORD their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people feared before the LORD.
13 Then spoke Haggai the ambassador of the LORD in the embassy of the LORD unto the people, saying, I am with you, said the LORD.
14 And the LORD woke up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked in the house of the LORD of the hosts, their God,
15 in the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
18 ¶ And unto the angel of the congregation {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} in Thyatira write; These things, saith the Son of God, who has his eyes like unto a flame of fire and his feet like unto brilliant metal:
19 I have known thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patience and thy works and the last to be more than the first.
20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel (who calls herself a prophetess) to teach and to seduce my slaves to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
21 And I have given her time to repent of her fornication, and she repented not.
22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed and those that commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds.
23 And I will kill her children with death, and all the congregations {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} shall know that I AM he that searches the kidneys and hearts, and I will give unto each one of you according to your works.
24 But unto you I say and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine and who have not known the depths of Satan (as they say); I will put upon you no other burden
25 But that which ye have already hold fast until I come.
26 And he that overcomes and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the Gentiles;
27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter they shall be broken to shivers, even as I received of my Father.
28 And I will give him the morning star.
29 He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the congregations. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}
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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