Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer upon: The silent dove in a distant land, Michtam of David, when the Philistines took him in Gath.
1 ¶ Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up; he oppresses me fighting me daily.
2 My enemies would daily swallow me up, for they are many that fight against me, O thou most High.
3 When I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
4 In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
5 Every day my life is filled with sorrow; all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps when they wait for my soul.
7 Shall they escape by iniquity? in thine anger cast down the peoples, O God.
8 ¶ Thou tellest my wanderings; put my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?
9 When I cry unto thee, then shall my enemies be turned back; in this I know that God is for me.
10 In God I will praise his word; in the LORD I will praise his word.
11 In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me.
12 Thy promises are upon me, O God; I will render praises unto thee.
13 For thou hast delivered my life from death; thou hast kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.
To the Overcomer upon, Do not destroy, Michtam of David, when he fled from the presence of Saul in the cave.
1 ¶ Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in thee; and in the shadow of thy wings I will make my refuge until these calamities are overpast.
2 I will cry unto God most high, unto God that performs all things for me.
3 He shall send from the heavens and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
4 My soul is among lions, and I lie even among those that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.
5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down; they have dug a pit before me, into the midst of which they are fallen themselves. Selah.
7 ¶ My heart is ready, O God, my heart is willing; I will sing and give praise.
8 Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I myself will arise early.
9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing unto thee among the nations.
10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
To the Overcomer upon, Do not destroy, Michtam of David.
1 ¶ Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of Adam?
2 Yea, in heart ye work iniquity; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stops her ear,
5 which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 ¶ Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth; break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
7 Let them melt away as waters which run continually; when he bends his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
8 As a snail which melts, let them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the fire of the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.
10 The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily there is a God that judges in the earth.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer; preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked, from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity:
3 Who whet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words
4 That they may shoot in secret at the perfect; suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not.
5 They encourage themselves in an evil matter; they attempt to hide the snares; they say, Who shall see them?
6 They search out iniquities; they perfect and put into effect that which they have invented in the inward thought of each one of them and that which they have devised in their heart.
7 ¶ But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
8 So they shall make their own council and agreements to fall upon themselves; all that see them shall flee away.
9 And all men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall understand his doing.
10 The righteous shall be glad in the LORD and shall become secure in him, and all the upright in heart shall glory in him.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm and Song of David.
1 ¶ Praise doth rest in thee, O God, in Sion and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
2 O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
3 Words of iniquity overwhelmed me, but thou shalt purge away our rebellion.
4 Blessed is the man whom thou dost choose and cause to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house even of thy holy temple.
5 With tremendous things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our saving health, who art the hope of all the ends of the earth and of those that are afar off upon the sea:
6 ¶ Thou art he who doth establish the mountains by thy strength, being girded with valour:
7 He who stills the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves and the tumult of the Gentiles.
8 They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy wonders; thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice.
9 Thou dost visit the earth, and when thou hast caused it to want, thou dost greatly enrich it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou dost prepare their grain, according to thy will.
10 Thou dost water its rows abundantly; thou dost settle its furrows; thou dost make it soft with showers of rain; thou dost bless its sprouting.
11 Thou dost crown the year with thy goodness, and thy clouds distill fatness.
12 They fall upon the habitations of the wilderness; and the hills gird themselves with happiness.
13 The plains clothe themselves with sheep, and the valleys cover themselves with grain; they give shouts of triumph, they even sing.
19 ¶ And the two angels came to Sodom at evening; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground,
2 and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your slave’s house and tarry all night and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways. And they said, No, but we will abide in the street all night.
3 And he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him and entered into his house, and he made them a banquet and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 ¶ But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter;
5 and they called unto Lot and said unto him, Where are the men who came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us that we may know them.
6 And Lot went out at the door unto them and shut the door after him
7 and said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing, for they have come under the shadow of my roof.
9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This fellow came in to sojourn and is he to lift himself up as judge? Now will we deal worse with thee than with them. And they did great violence to the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
10 Then the men put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house with them and shut the door.
11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
12 ¶ And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou anyone else here? Sons-in-law and thy sons and thy daughters and whatever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place;
13 For we will destroy this place because the cry of them is waxed great before the face of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.
14 And Lot went out and spoke unto his sons-in-law, those who were to marry his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.
15 ¶ And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand and upon the hand of his wife and upon the hand of his two daughters, the LORD being merciful unto him; and they brought him forth and set him outside the city.
17 And it came to pass as they brought them forth outside, that he said, Escape; for thy soul, do not look behind thee, neither stop thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my lords;
19 behold now, thy slave has found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast showed unto me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die.
20 Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one; Oh, let me escape there, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also that I will not overthrow the city for which thou hast spoken.
22 Make thee haste, escape there; for I cannot do anything until thou hast arrived there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23 The sun was rising upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
24 ¶ Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of the heavens;
25 and he overthrew those cities and all that plain, with all the inhabitants of those cities, and the fruit of the ground.
26 ¶ Then the wife of Lot looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 ¶ And Abraham rose up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of that plain and beheld that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
29 And it came to pass as God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the destruction when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.
11 ¶ Faith, therefore, is the substance of things waited for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, that which is seen being made of that which was not seen.
4 ¶ By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found because God had translated him, for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please God; for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.
7 By faith Noah, having received revelation of things not seen as yet, with great care prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and was made heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, being called, hearkened to go out into the place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the promised land, as in a strange country, dwelling in booths with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;
10 for he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11 By faith also Sara herself being sterile received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she believed him to be faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore there sprang even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
27 Labour not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him has God the Father sealed.
28 ¶ Then they said unto him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he has sent.
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? what dost thou work?
31 Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them of the bread from the heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from the heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from the heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he who descended from heaven and gives life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, always give us this bread.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I AM the bread of life; he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes in me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, That even though ye have seen me, ye do not believe.
37 All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and he that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from the heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father’s will who has sent me, that of all whom he has given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again in the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, That every one who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day.
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