Book of Common Prayer
Prayer for Help against Persecutors.
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
70 O God, come quickly to save me;
O Lord, come quickly to help me!
2
Let those be ashamed and humiliated
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back and humiliated
Who delight in my hurt.
3
Let them be turned back because of their shame and disgrace
Who say, “Aha, aha!”
4
May all those who seek You [as life’s first priority] rejoice and be glad in You;
May those who love Your salvation say continually,
“Let God be magnified!”
5
But I am afflicted and needy;
Come quickly to me, O God!
You are my help and my rescuer;
O Lord, do not delay.
Prayer of an Old Man for Rescue.
71 In you, O Lord, I have put my trust and confidently taken refuge;
Let me never be [a]put to shame.
2
In Your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
Incline Your ear to me and save me.
3
Be to me a rock of refuge and a sheltering stronghold to which I may continually come;
You have given the commandment to save me,
For You are my rock and my fortress.
4
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked (godless),
From the grasp of the unrighteous and ruthless man.
5
For You are my hope;
O Lord God, You are my trust and the source of my confidence from my youth.
6
Upon You have I relied and been sustained from my birth;
You are He who took me from my mother’s womb and You have been my benefactor from that day.
My praise is continually of You.
7
I am as a wonder to many,
For You are my strong refuge.
8
My mouth is filled with Your praise
And with Your glory all day long.
9
Do not cast me off nor send me away in the time of old age;
Do not abandon me when my strength fails and I am weak.
10
For my enemies have spoken against me;
Those who watch for my life have consulted together,
11
Saying, “God has abandoned him;
Pursue and seize him, for there is no one to rescue him.”
12
O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, come quickly to help me!
13
Let those who attack my life be ashamed and consumed;
Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor, who seek to injure me.
14
But as for me, I will wait and hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.
15
My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness
And of Your [deeds of] salvation all day long,
For their number is more than I know.
16
I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord God [and in His strength];
I will make mention of Your righteousness, Yours alone.
17
O God, You have taught me from my youth,
And I still declare Your wondrous works and miraculous deeds.
18
And even when I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not abandon me,
Until I declare Your [mighty] strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to come.
19
Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the [height of the] heavens,
You who have done great things;
O God, who is like You, [who is Your equal]?
20
You who have shown [b]me many troubles and distresses
Will revive and renew me again,
And will bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
21
May You increase my greatness (honor)
And turn to comfort me.
22
I will also praise You with the harp,
Your truth and faithfulness, O my God;
To You I will sing praises with the lyre,
O Holy One of Israel.
23
My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to You,
And my soul, which You have redeemed.
24
My tongue also will speak of Your righteousness all day long;
For they are ashamed, for they are humiliated who seek my injury.
An Appeal against the Devastation of the Land by the Enemy.
A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.
74 O God, why have You rejected us forever?
Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture?
2
Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old,
Which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance;
Remember Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.
3
Turn your footsteps [quickly] toward the perpetual ruins;
The enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary.
4
In the midst of Your meeting place Your enemies have roared [with their battle cry];
They have set up their own emblems for signs [of victory].
5
It seems as if one had lifted up
An axe in a forest of trees [to set a record of destruction].
6
And now all the carved work [of the meeting place]
They smash with hatchets and hammers.
7
They have burned Your sanctuary to the ground;
They have profaned the dwelling place of Your [a]name.
8
They said in their heart, “Let us completely subdue them.”
They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
9
We do not see our symbols;
There is no longer any prophet [to guide us],
Nor does any among us know for how long.
10
O God, how long will the adversary scoff?
Is the enemy to revile Your name forever?
11
Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand [from judging the enemy]?
Remove Your hand from Your chest, destroy them!
12
Yet God is my King of old,
Working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13
You divided the [Red] Sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the [b]sea monsters in the waters.(A)
14
You crushed the heads of [c]Leviathan (Egypt);
You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.(B)
15
You broke open fountains and streams;
You dried up ever-flowing rivers.(C)
16
The day is Yours, the night also is Yours;
You have established and prepared the [heavenly] light and the sun.
17
You have defined and established all the borders of the earth [the divisions of land and sea and of the nations];
You have made summer and winter.(D)
18
Remember this, O Lord, the enemy has scoffed,
And a foolish and impious people has spurned Your name.
19
Oh, do not hand over the soul of your turtledove to the wild beast;
Do not forget the life of Your afflicted forever.
20
Consider the covenant [You made with Abraham],
For the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21
Let not the oppressed return dishonored;
Let the afflicted and needy praise Your name.
22
Arise, O God, plead Your own cause;
Remember how the foolish man scoffs at You all day long.
23
Do not forget the [clamoring] voices of Your adversaries,
The uproar of those who rise against You, which ascends continually [to Your ears].
26 ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination [using omens or witchcraft] or soothsaying. 27 You shall not trim and round off the side-growth of [the hair on] your heads, nor mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body [in mourning] for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.
29 ‘Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land will not fall to prostitution and become full of wickedness. 30 You shall keep My Sabbaths and revere My sanctuary. I am the Lord.
31 ‘Do not turn to mediums [who pretend to consult the dead] or to spiritists [who have spirits of divination]; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.
32 ‘You shall rise before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; I am the Lord.
33 ‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress or mistreat him. 34 But the stranger who resides with you shall be to you like someone native-born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
35 ‘You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight or quantity. 36 You shall have just and accurate balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just [a]hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 You shall observe and keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and do them. I am the Lord.’”
Thanksgiving for Faith and Perseverance
1 Paul, Silvanus (Silas), and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being] from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We ought always and indeed are morally obligated [as those in debt] to give thanks to God for you, [a]brothers and sisters, as is fitting, because your faith is growing ever greater, and the [unselfish] [b]love of each one of you toward one another is continually increasing. 4 Therefore, we speak of you with pride among the churches of God for your steadfastness [your unflinching endurance, and patience] and your firm faith in the midst of all the persecution and [crushing] distress which you endure. 5 This is a positive proof of the righteous judgment of God [a sign of His fair verdict], so that you will be considered worthy of His kingdom, for which indeed you are suffering. 6 For after all it is only just for God to repay with distress those who distress you, 7 and to give relief to you who are so distressed and to us as well when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in a flame of fire, 8 dealing out [full and complete] vengeance to those who do not [seek to] know God and to those who ignore and refuse to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus [by choosing not to respond to Him]. 9 These people will pay the penalty and endure the punishment of [c]everlasting destruction, banished from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day [that is, glorified through the changed lives of those who have accepted Him as Savior and have been set apart for His purpose], and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed and trusted [and confirmed in your lives]. 11 With this in view, we constantly pray for you, that our God will count you worthy of your calling [to faith] and with [His] power fulfill every desire for goodness, and complete [your] every work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you [by what you do], and you in Him, according to the [precious] grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Cure for Anxiety
25 “Therefore I tell you, stop being worried or anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted) about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, as to what you will wear. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?(A) 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow [seed] nor reap [the harvest] nor gather [the crops] into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by worrying can add one [a]hour to [the length of] his life?(B) 28 And why are you worried about clothes? See how the lilies and wildflowers of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin [wool to make clothing], 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory and splendor dressed himself like one of these.(C) 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive and green today and tomorrow is [cut and] thrown [as fuel] into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Therefore do not worry or be anxious (perpetually uneasy, distracted), saying, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ 32 For the [pagan] Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; [but do not worry,] for your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right—the attitude and character of God], and all these things will be given to you also.
34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
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