Book of Common Prayer
To the Director: A Davidic Psalm.
When Things Go Wrong
41 Blessed is the one who is considerate of the destitute;[a]
the Lord will deliver him when the times are evil.
2 The Lord will protect him and keep him alive;
he will be blessed in the land;
and he will not be handed over to the desires of his enemies.
3 The Lord will uphold him even on his sickbed;
you will transform his bed of illness into health.
4 As for me, I said,
“Lord, be gracious to me!
Heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
5 As for my enemies, with malice they said,
“When will he die and memory of[b] his name perish?”
6 The one who comes to visit me speaks lies;
in his heart he thinks slanderous things about me
and goes around spreading them.
7 As for all who hate me,
they whisper together against me;
they desire to do me harm.
8 They say, “Wickedness is entrenched in him.
Once he is brought low,
he will not rise again.”
9 As for my best friend,
the one in whom I trusted,
the one who ate my bread,
even he has insulted[c] me!
10 But you, Lord, be gracious to me and raise me up
so that I may pay them back!
11 In this way I will know that you are pleased with me,
and that my enemies will not shout in triumph over me.
12 As for me, you will maintain my just cause,
and you will cause me to stand in your presence forever.
13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
from eternity to eternity.
Amen and amen!
To the Director: A Davidic instruction[a] about Doeg, the Edomite, when he went to Saul and told him, “David went to the house of Abimelech.”
A Rebuke to the Deceitful
52 Why do you make evil
the foundation of your boasting, mighty one?[b]
God’s gracious love never ceases.[c]
2 Your tongue, like a sharp razor, devises wicked things
and crafts treachery.
3 You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking uprightly.
4 You love all words that destroy, you deceitful tongue!
5 But God will tear you down forever;
he will take you away,
even snatching you out of your tent!
He will uproot you from the land of the living.
6 The righteous will fear when they see this,
but then they will laugh at him, saying,
7 “Look, here is a young man who refused to make God his strength;
instead, he trusted in his great wealth
and made his wickedness his strength.
8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the gracious love of God forever and ever.
9 Therefore I will praise you forever
because of what you did;
I will proclaim that your name is good
in the midst of your faithful ones.
To the Director: An instruction[a] of the Sons of Korah.
A Prayer in Times of Defeat
44 God, we heard it with our ears;
our ancestors told us about what you did in their day—
a long time ago.
2 With your hand you expelled the nations
and established our ancestors.[b]
You afflicted nations
and cast them out.
3 It was not with their sword that they inherited the land,
nor did their own arm deliver them.
But it was by your power,[c] your strength,
and by the light of your face;
because you were pleased with them.
4 You are my king, God,
command[d] victories[e] for Jacob.
5 Through you we will knock down our oppressors;
through your name we will tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I place no confidence in my bow,
nor will my sword deliver me.
7 For you delivered us from our oppressors
and put to shame those who hate us.
8 We will praise God all day long;
and to your name we will give thanks forever.
9 However, you cast us off and made us ashamed!
You did not even march with our armies!
10 You made us retreat from our oppressors.
Our enemies ransacked us.
11 You handed us over to be slaughtered like sheep
and you scattered us among the nations.
12 You sold out your people for nothing,
and made no profit at that price.
13 You made us a laughing stock to our neighbors,
a source of mockery and derision to those around us.
14 You made us an object lesson among the nations;
people shake their heads at us.[f]
15 My dishonor tortures[g] me continuously;[h]
the shame on my face overwhelms[i] me
16 because of the voice of the one who mocks and reviles,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this came upon us,
yet we did not forsake you,
and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant;
18 Our hearts have not turned away;
our steps have not swerved from your path.
19 Nevertheless, you crushed us in the lair of jackals,
and covered us in deep darkness.[j]
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or lifted our hands to a foreign god,
21 wouldn’t God find out
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 For your sake we are being killed all day long.
We are thought of as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Wake up! Why are you asleep, Lord?
Get up! Don’t cast us off forever!
24 Why are you hiding your face?
Why are you ignoring our affliction and oppression?
25 For we[k] have collapsed in the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26 Arise! Deliver us!
Redeem us according to your gracious love!
God the Creator and Redeemer
48 “Listen to this, house of Jacob,
you who are called by the name of Israel,
and who have come forth from Judah’s loins;[a]
you who swear oaths in the name of the Lord
and invoke the God of Israel—
but not in truth, nor in good faith.
2 For they name themselves after the holy city,
and rely on the God of Israel—
the Lord of the Heavenly Armies is his name.
3 I foretold the former things long ago;
it[b] went forth from my mouth,
and I disclosed them;
Suddenly, I acted,
and they came to pass.
4 Because I knew[c] that you are obstinate,
and because your neck is an iron sinew,
and your forehead is bronze,
5 I told you these things long ago;
I announced them to you before they happened
so that you couldn’t say, ‘My idol did them;
my[d] carved image or metal idol ordained them.’
6 “You have heard—now look at them all!
How[e] can you not admit them?
From now on, I’ll make you hear new things,
hidden things that you have not known.
7 They are created now, and not long ago;
you didn’t hear them before today,
so you cannot say, ‘Yes, I knew them.’
8 And[f] neither had you heard, nor did you understand,
nor did you open[g] your ear long ago.[h]
Indeed, I knew that[i] you would act very deceitfully,
and they would call[j] you a rebel from birth.
9 I defer my anger for my name’s sake,
and as my first act[k] I’m restraining it for you,
so as not to cut you off.
10 Look, I have refined you, but not like silver;
I have purified[l] you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake—Yes, for my own sake!—I’m doing it;
indeed, how can I be profaned?[m]
Furthermore, I won’t give my glory to another.”
Greetings from Paul
1 From:[a] Paul—an apostle not sent[b] from men or by a man, but by Jesus the Messiah,[c] and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me.
To: The churches in Galatia.
3 May grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah,[d] be yours! 4 He gave himself for our sins in order to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. 5 To him be the glory forever and ever! Amen.
There is No Other Gospel
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of the Messiah[e] and, instead, are following[f] a different gospel, 7 not that another one really exists. To be sure, there are certain people who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel about the Messiah.[g] 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you[h] a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that person be condemned! 9 What we have told you in the past I am now telling you again: If anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that person be condemned! 10 Am I now trying to win the approval of people or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be the Messiah’s[i] servant.[j]
Jesus Himself Gave Paul His Message
11 For[k] I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin. 12 For I did not receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but it was revealed to me by Jesus the Messiah.[l] 13 For you have heard about my earlier life in Judaism—how I kept violently persecuting God’s church and was trying to destroy it. 14 I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, because I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.
15 But when God, who set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son to me so that I might proclaim him among the gentiles, I did not confer with another human being[m] at any time, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see[n] those who were apostles before me. Instead, I went away to Arabia and then came back to Damascus.
Jesus Heals a Woman and Resurrects a Girl(A)
21 When Jesus again had crossed to the other side in a boat,[a] a large crowd gathered around him by the seashore. 22 Then a synagogue leader named Jairus arrived. When he saw Jesus,[b] he fell at his feet 23 and begged him urgently, saying, “My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may get well and live.” 24 So Jesus[c] went with him. A huge crowd kept following him and jostling him.
25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years. 26 Although she had endured a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all of her money, she had not been helped at all, but rather grew worse. 27 Since she had heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his robe, 28 because she had been saying, “If I can just touch his robe, I will get well.” 29 Her bleeding stopped at once, and she felt in her body that she was healed from her illness.
30 Immediately Jesus became aware that power had gone out of him. So he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 His disciples asked him, “You see the crowd jostling you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 But he kept looking around to look at the woman who had done this. 33 So the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came forward fearfully, fell down trembling in front of him, and told him the whole truth.
34 He told her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness.”
35 While he was still speaking, some people[d] came from the synagogue leader’s home[e] and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore?”
36 But when Jesus heard[f] what they said, he told the synagogue leader, “Stop being afraid! Just keep on believing.” 37 Jesus[g] allowed no one to go further with him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus[h] saw mass confusion. People[i] were crying and sobbing loudly. 39 He entered the house[j] and asked them, “Why all this confusion and crying? The child isn’t dead. She’s sleeping.” 40 They laughed and laughed at him. But when he had driven all of them outside, he took the child’s father and mother, along with the men who were with him, and went into the room[k] where the child was.
41 He took her by the hand and told her, “Talitha koum,”[l] which means, “Young lady, I tell you, get up!” 42 The young lady got up at once and started to walk. She was twelve years old. Instantly they were overcome with astonishment. 43 But Jesus[m] strictly ordered them not to let anyone know about this. He also told them to give her something to eat.
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