Book of Common Prayer
God Reigns
93 The Lord reigns! He is clothed in majesty;
the Lord is clothed,
and he is girded[a] with strength.
Indeed, the world is well established,
and cannot be shaken.
2 Your throne has been established since time immemorial;
you are king from eternity.
3 The rivers have flooded, Lord;
the rivers have spoken aloud,
the rivers have lifted up their crushing waves.
4 More than the sound of surging waters—
the majestic waves of the sea—
the Lord on high is majestic.
5 Your decrees are very trustworthy,
and holiness always befits your house, Lord.
Give Glory to the Lord
96 Sing a new song to the Lord!
Sing to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Sing to the Lord!
Bless his name!
Proclaim his deliverance every day!
3 Declare his glory among the nations
and his awesome deeds among all the peoples!
4 For the Lord is great,
and greatly to be praised;
he is awesome above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Splendor and majesty are before him;
might and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the Lord, you families of peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name,
bring an offering and enter his courts!
9 Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Declare among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”
Indeed, he established the world so that it will not falter.
He will judge people fairly.
11 The heavens will be glad
and the earth will rejoice;
even the sea and everything that fills it will roar.[a]
12 The field and all that is in it will rejoice;
then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
13 in the Lord’s presence,
because he is coming;
indeed, he will come to judge the earth.
He will judge the world fairly
and its people reliably.
By David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away. So David[a] left.
Learning about God’s Deliverance
34 [b]I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise will be in my mouth continuously.
2 My soul will glorify the Lord;
the humble will hear about it and rejoice.
3 Magnify the Lord with me!
Let us lift up his name together!
4 I sought the Lord and he answered me;
he delivered me from all of my fears.
5 Look to him and be radiant;
and you[c] will not be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard
and delivered him from all of his distress.
7 The angel of the Lord surrounds those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good!
How blessed is the person who trusts in him!
9 Fear the Lord, you holy ones of his;
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 Young lions lack and go hungry,
but those who seek the Lord will never lack any good thing.
11 Come, children, listen to me,
and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Who among you[d] desires life,
and wants long life in order to see good?
13 Then keep your tongue from doing evil
and your lips from spreading lies.
14 Avoid evil and do good!
Seek peace and pursue it!
15 The[e] Lord looks on the righteous,
and he listens to their cries.
16 The face of the Lord is set against those who do evil,
and he will remove people’s recollection of them from the earth.
17 The Lord hears those who cry out,
and he delivers them from all their distress.
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,
and he delivers those whose spirit has been crushed.
19 A righteous person will have many troubles,
but the Lord will deliver him from them all.
20 God[f] protects all his bones;
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil will kill the wicked;
those who hate the righteous will be held guilty.
22 The Lord redeems the lives of his servants;
and none of those who trust in him will be held guilty.
9 This is what the Lord of the Heavenly Armies says:
“Let them glean the remnant of Israel
as thoroughly as they would the vine.
Pass your hand over them like grape gatherers
over the branches.
10 To whom will I speak and give a warning
so they’ll listen?
Look, their ears are closed,[a]
and they cannot hear.
Look, this message from the Lord is contemptible to them;
they don’t delight in it.
11 I’m full of the wrath of the Lord,
and I’m tired of holding it back.
Pour it out on the children in the street
and on the groups of young men gathered together.
Indeed, both husband and wife will be caught in it,
the old and the very old.
12 Their houses will be turned over to others—
their fields and wives together—
when I stretch out my hand against
those who live in the land,”
declares the Lord.
13 “Indeed, from the least important to the most important,
they’re all greedy for dishonest gain.
From prophet to priest,
they all act deceitfully.
14 They treated my people’s wound superficially, telling them,
‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed because they did
what was repugnant to God?[b]
They were not ashamed at all—
they don’t even know how to blush!
Therefore they’ll fall with those who fall.
When I punish them, they’ll be brought down,”
says the Lord.
Morality in Sexual Matters
12 Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not allow anything to control me. 13 Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will make them both unnecessary. The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 God raised the Lord, and by his power he will also raise us.
15 You know that your bodies belong to the Messiah,[a] don’t you? Should I take what belongs to the Messiah[b] and unite them with a prostitute? Certainly not! 16 You know that the person who unites himself with a prostitute becomes one body with her, don’t you? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”[c] 17 But the person who unites himself with the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
18 Keep on running away from sexual immorality. Any other[d] sin that a person commits is outside his body, but the person who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 You know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, don’t you? You do not belong to yourselves, 20 because you were bought for a price. Therefore, glorify God with your bodies.
Jesus Heals a Demon-Possessed Man(A)
5 They arrived at the other side of the sea in the territory of the Gerasenes.[a] 2 Just as Jesus[b] stepped out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him. 3 He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, not even with a chain. 4 He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but had snapped the chains apart and broken the shackles in pieces. No one could tame him. 5 He kept screaming night and day among the tombs and on the mountainsides, and kept cutting himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell down in front of him, 7 screaming in a loud voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you in the name of[c] God never to torment me!”
8 Jesus[d] had been saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 Then Jesus[e] asked him, “What’s your name?”
He told him, “My name is Legion,[f] because there are many of us.” 10 He kept pleading with Jesus[g] not to send them out of that region.
11 Now a large herd of pigs was grazing on a hillside nearby. 12 So the demons[h] begged him, “Send us among the pigs, so that we can go into them!” 13 So he let them do this. The unclean spirits came out of the man[i] and went into the pigs, and the herd of about 2,000 rushed down a steep slope into the sea and drowned there.[j]
14 Now when those who had been taking care of the pigs ran away, they reported what had happened[k] in the city and countryside. So the people[l] went to see what had happened. 15 When they came to Jesus and saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there dressed and in his right mind, they were frightened. 16 The people who had seen it told them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. 17 So they began to beg Jesus[m] to leave their territory.
18 As Jesus[n] was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed kept begging him to let him go with him. 19 But Jesus[o] wouldn’t let him. Instead, he told him, “Go home to your family, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been to you.” 20 So the man[p] left and began proclaiming in the Decapolis[q] how much Jesus had done for him. And everyone was utterly amazed.
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