Book of Common Prayer

78 A psalm for Asaph. O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit.

² They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be meat for the fowls of the air: the flesh of thy saints for the beasts of the earth.

³ They have poured out their blood as water, round about Jerusalem and there was none to bury them.

⁴ We are become a reproach to our neighbours: a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

⁵ How long, O Lord, wilt thou be angry for ever: shall thy zeal be kindled like a fire?

⁶ Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that have not known thee: and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.

⁷ Because they have devoured Jacob; and have laid waste his place.

⁸ Remember not our former iniquities: let thy mercies speedily prevent us, for we are become exceeding poor.

⁹ Help us, O God, our saviour: and for the glory of thy name, O Lord, deliver us: and forgive us our sins for thy name's sake:

¹⁰ Lest they should say among the Gentiles: Where is their God? And let him be made known among the nations before our eyes, By the revenging the blood of thy servants, which hath been shed:

¹¹ Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before thee. According to the greatness of thy arm, take possession of the children of them that have been put to death.

¹² And render to our neighbours sevenfold in their bosom: the reproach wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.

¹³ But we thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture, will give thanks to thee for ever. We will shew forth thy praise, unto generation and generation.

26 I am the Lord your God: you shall not make to yourselves any idol or graven thing, neither shall you erect pillars, nor set up a remarkable stone in your land, to adore it: for I am the Lord your God.

² Keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

³ If you walk in my precepts, and keep my commandments, and do them, I will give you rain in due seasons.

⁴ And the ground shall bring forth its increase, and the trees shall be filled with fruit.

⁵ The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land without fear.

⁶ I will give peace in your coasts: you shall sleep, and there shall be none to make you afraid. I will take away evil beasts: and the sword shall not pass through your quarters.

⁷ You shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall before you.

⁸ Five of yours shall pursue a hundred others, and a hundred of you ten thousand: your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

⁹ I will look on you, and make you increase: you shall be multiplied, and I will establish my covenant with you.

¹⁰ You shall eat the oldest of the old store, and, new coming on, you shall cast away the old.

¹¹ I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you, and my soul shall not cast you off.

¹² I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

¹³ I am the Lord your God: who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, that you should not serve them, and who have broken the chains of your necks, that you might go upright.

¹⁴ But if you will not hear me, nor do all my commandments,

¹⁵ If you despise my laws, and contemn my judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by me, and to make void my covenant:

¹⁶ I also will do these things to you: I will quickly visit you with poverty, and burning heat, which shall waste your eyes, and consume your lives. You shall sow your seed in vain, which shall be devoured by your enemies.

¹⁷ I will set my face against you, and you shall fall down before your enemies, and shall be made subject to them that hate you, you shall flee when no man pursueth you.

¹⁸ But if you will not yet for all this obey me: I will chastise you seven times more for your sins,

¹⁹ And I will break the pride of your stubbornness, and I will make to you the heaven above as iron, and the earth as brass:

²⁰ Your labour shall be spent in vain, the ground shall not bring forth her increase, nor the trees yield their fruit.

2 I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men:

² For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity.

³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,

⁴ Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

⁵ For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.

¹⁸ Hear you therefore the parable of the sower.

¹⁹ When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, there cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart: this is he that received the seed by the way side.

²⁰ And he that received the seed upon stony ground, is he that heareth the word, and immediately receiveth it with joy.

²¹ Yet hath he not root in himself, but is only for a time: and when there ariseth tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized.

²² And he that received the seed among thorns, is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choketh up the word, and he becometh fruitless.

²³ But he that received the seed upon good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth, and beareth fruit, and yieldeth the one an hundredfold, and another sixty, and another thirty.