Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 31
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 In You, O Lord, do I put my trust and seek refuge; let me never be put to shame or [have my hope in You] disappointed; deliver me in Your righteousness!
2 Bow down Your ear to me, deliver me speedily! Be my Rock of refuge, a strong Fortress to save me!
3 Yes, You are my Rock and my Fortress; therefore for Your name’s sake lead me and guide me.
4 Draw me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for You are my Strength and my Stronghold.
5 Into Your hands I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth and faithfulness.(A)
6 [You and] I abhor those who pay regard to vain idols; but I trust in, rely on, and confidently lean on the Lord.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy and steadfast love, because You have seen my affliction, You have taken note of my life’s distresses,
8 And You have not given me into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Have mercy and be gracious unto me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; with grief my eye is weakened, also my inner self and my body.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength has failed because of my iniquity, and even my bones have wasted away.
11 To all my enemies I have become a reproach, but especially to my neighbors, and a dread to my acquaintances, who flee from me on the street.
12 I am forgotten like a dead man, and out of mind; like a broken vessel am I.
13 For I have heard the slander of many; terror is on every side! While they schemed together against me, they plotted to take my life.
14 But I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, You are my God.
15 My times are in Your hands; deliver me from the hands of my foes and those who pursue me and persecute me.
16 Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me for Your mercy’s sake and in Your loving-kindness.
17 Let me not be put to shame, O Lord, or disappointed, for I am calling upon You; let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol (the place of the dead).
18 Let the lying lips be silenced, which speak insolently against the [consistently] righteous with pride and contempt.
19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear, revere, and worship You, goodness which You have wrought for those who trust and take refuge in You before the sons of men!
20 In the secret place of Your presence You hide them from the plots of men; You keep them secretly in Your pavilion from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord! For He has shown me His marvelous loving favor when I was beset as in a besieged city.
22 As for me, I said in my haste and alarm, I am cut off from before Your eyes. But You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to You for aid.
23 O love the Lord, all you His saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, and plentifully pays back him who deals haughtily.
24 Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for and hope for and expect the Lord!
Psalm 35
[A Psalm] of David.
1 Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help!
3 Draw out also the spear and javelin and close up the way of those who pursue and persecute me. Say to me, I am your deliverance!
4 Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek and require my life; let them be turned back and confounded who plan my hurt!
5 Let them be as chaff before the wind, with the [a]Angel of the Lord driving them on!
6 Let their way be through dark and slippery places, with the Angel of the Lord pursuing and afflicting them.
7 For without cause they hid for me their net; a pit of destruction without cause they dug for my life.
8 Let destruction befall [my foe] unawares; let the net he hid for me catch him; let him fall into that very destruction.
9 Then I shall be joyful in the Lord; I shall rejoice in His deliverance.
10 All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like You, You Who deliver the poor and the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, yes, the poor and the needy from him who snatches away his goods?
11 Malicious and unrighteous witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I know not.
12 They reward me evil for good to my personal bereavement.
13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting, and I prayed with head bowed on my breast.
14 I behaved as if grieving for my friend or my brother; I bowed down in sorrow, as one who bewails his mother.
15 But in my stumbling and limping they rejoiced and gathered together [against me]; the smiters (slanderers and revilers) gathered against me, and I knew them not; they ceased not to slander and revile me.
16 Like profane mockers at feasts [making sport for the price of a cake] they gnashed at me with their teeth.
17 Lord, how long will You look on [without action]? Rescue my life from their destructions, my dear and only life from the lions!
18 I will give You thanks in the great assembly; I will praise You among a mighty throng.
19 Let not those who are wrongfully my foes rejoice over me; neither let them wink with the eye who hate me without cause.(A)
20 For they do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful matters against those who are quiet in the land.
21 Yes, they open their mouths wide against me; they say, Aha! Aha! Our eyes have seen it!
22 You have seen this, O Lord; keep not silence! O Lord, be not far from me!
23 Arouse Yourself, awake to the justice due me, even to my cause, my God and my Lord!
24 Judge and vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to Your righteousness (Your rightness and justice); and let [my foes] not rejoice over me!
25 Let them not say in their hearts, Aha, that is what we wanted! Let them not say, We have swallowed him up and utterly destroyed him.
26 Let them be put to shame and confusion together who rejoice at my calamity! Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify and exalt themselves over me!
27 Let those who favor my righteous cause and have pleasure in my uprightness shout for joy and be glad and say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, Who takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.
28 And my tongue shall talk of Your righteousness, rightness, and justice, and of [my reasons for] Your praise all the day long.
24 After Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile Jeconiah [also called Coniah and Jehoiachin] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me [in a vision] two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord.
2 One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.
3 Then the Lord said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs—the good figs very good, and the bad very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.
4 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the captives of Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
6 For I will set My eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.
7 And I will give them a heart to know (recognize, understand, and be acquainted with) Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
8 And as for the bad figs, which are so bad that they cannot be eaten, surely thus says the Lord, So will I give up Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes and the residue of Jerusalem who remains in this land and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.
9 I will even give them up to be a dismay and a horror and to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach, a byword or proverb, a taunt, and a curse in all places where I will drive them.
10 And I will send the sword, famine, and pestilence among them until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.
19 You will say to me, Why then does He still find fault and blame us [for sinning]? For who can resist and withstand His will?
20 But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and contradict and answer back to God? Will what is formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?(A)
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same mass (lump) one vessel for beauty and distinction and honorable use, and another for menial or ignoble and dishonorable use?
22 What if God, although fully intending to show [the awfulness of] His wrath and to make known His power and authority, has tolerated with much patience the vessels (objects) of [His] anger which are ripe for destruction?(B)
23 And [what if] He thus purposes to make known and show the wealth of His glory in [dealing with] the vessels (objects) of His mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory,
24 Even including ourselves whom He has called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles (heathen)?
25 Just as He says in Hosea, Those who were not My people I will call My people, and her who was not beloved [I will call] My beloved.(C)
26 And it shall be that in the very place where it was said to them, You are not My people, they shall be called sons of the living God.(D)
27 And Isaiah calls out (solemnly cries aloud) over Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, only the remnant (a small part of them) will be saved [[a]from perdition, condemnation, judgment]!
28 For the Lord will execute His sentence upon the earth [He will conclude and close His account with men completely and without delay], rigorously cutting it short in His justice.(E)
29 It is as Isaiah predicted, If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed [from which to propagate descendants], we [Israel] would have fared like Sodom and have been made like Gomorrah.(F)
30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not follow after righteousness [who did not seek salvation by right relationship to God] have attained it by faith [a righteousness imputed by God, based on and produced by faith],
31 Whereas Israel, though ever in pursuit of a law [for the securing] of righteousness (right standing with God), actually did not succeed in fulfilling the Law.(G)
32 For what reason? Because [they pursued it] not through faith, relying [instead] on the merit of their works [they did not depend on faith but on what they could do]. They have stumbled over the Stumbling Stone.(H)
33 As it is written, Behold I am laying in Zion a Stone that will make men stumble, a Rock that will make them fall; but he who believes in Him [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] shall not be put to shame nor be disappointed in his expectations.(I)
9 As He passed along, He noticed a man blind from his birth.
2 His disciples asked Him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?
3 Jesus answered, It was not that this man or his parents sinned, but he was born blind in order that the workings of God should be manifested (displayed and illustrated) in him.
4 We must work the works of Him Who sent Me and be busy with His business while it is daylight; night is coming on, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the world’s Light.
6 When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made clay (mud) with His saliva, and He spread it [as ointment] on the man’s eyes.
7 And He said to him, Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam—which means Sent. So he went and washed, and came back seeing.
8 When the neighbors and those who used to know him by sight as a beggar saw him, they said, Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?
9 Some said, It is he. Others said, No, but he looks very much like him. But he said, Yes, I am the man.
10 So they said to him, How were your eyes opened?
11 He replied, The Man called Jesus made mud and smeared it on my eyes and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and I obtained my sight!
12 They asked him, Where is He? He said, I do not know.
13 Then they conducted to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.
14 Now it was on the Sabbath day that Jesus mixed the mud and opened the man’s eyes.
15 So now again the Pharisees asked him how he received his sight. And he said to them, He smeared mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.
16 Then some of the Pharisees said, This Man [Jesus] is not from God, because He does not observe the Sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner (a bad man) do such signs and miracles? So there was a difference of opinion among them.
17 Accordingly they said to the blind man again, What do you say about Him, seeing that He opened your eyes? And he said, He is [He must be] a prophet!
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