Book of Common Prayer
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
1 ¶ Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O LORD.
2 Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my life; let them be turned backward and put to confusion that desire my hurt.
3 Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, aha.
4 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee, and let such as love thy saving health say continually, Let God be magnified.
5 But I am poor and destitute; make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.
1 ¶ In thee, O LORD, have I waited; let me not be forever put to shame.
2 Deliver me in thy righteousness and cause me to escape; incline thine ear unto me and save me.
3 Be thou my strong habitation unto which I may continually resort; thou hast given a commandment that I should be saved because thou art my rock and my fortress.
4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the perverse and violent man.
5 For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD; thou art my security from my youth.
6 By thee have I been sustained from the womb; thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels; my praise has been continually of thee.
7 I am as a wonder unto many, but thou art my strong refuge.
8 Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy glory all the day.
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails.
10 For my enemies speak against me, and those that lay in wait for my soul take counsel together,
11 saying, God has forsaken him; persecute and take him for there is no one to deliver him.
12 O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste for my help.
13 Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.
14 ¶ But I will continually wait and will add upon all thy praise.
15 My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the numbers thereof.
16 I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.
17 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth and until now; I shall manifest thy wondrous works.
18 Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not until I have showed the strength of thy arm unto the next generation and thy power to every one that is to come,
19 and thy righteousness, O God, unto excellence because thou hast done great things; O God, who is like unto thee!
20 Thou who hast caused me to see great and sore troubles, shalt return and quicken me and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
21 Thou shalt increase my greatness and comfort me on every side.
22 I will also praise thee with an instrument of the psaltery, O my God; unto thee will I sing thy truth with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing praises unto thee and my soul, which thou hast ransomed.
24 In the same manner my tongue shall talk of thy righteousness every day, for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt.
Maschil of Asaph.
1 ¶ O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? Why does thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?
2 Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed, this Mount Zion, in which thou hast dwelt.
3 Lift up thy feet unto the eternal desolations, unto every enemy who has done wickedly in the sanctuary.
4 Thine enemies have roared in the midst of thy assemblies; they set up their own banners for signs.
5 Renowned, as one on the way to heaven, he who lifted up axes upon the thick trees for the work of the sanctuary.
6 But now they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and hammers.
7 They have set fire to thy sanctuaries; they have defiled the tabernacle of thy name in the earth.
8 They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them at once; they have burned up all the meeting places of the people of God in the earth.
9 We no longer see our own banners; there is no longer any prophet: neither is there among us any that knows. How long shall this be?
10 O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?
11 Why dost thou withdraw thy hand, even thy right hand? Why dost thou hide it in thy bosom.
12 ¶ For God is my King from of old, he who works saving health in the midst of the earth.
13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength; thou didst break the heads of the dragons in the waters.
14 Thou didst break the heads of leviathan in pieces and didst give him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
15 Thou didst cleave the fountain and the river; thou didst dry up mighty rivers.
16 The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the light and the sun.
17 Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.
18 ¶ Remember this, that the enemy has spoken against the LORD and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name.
19 O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the beasts; forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.
20 Have respect unto the covenant; for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.
21 O let not the oppressed return ashamed; the poor and destitute shall praise thy name.
22 Arise, O God, plead thine own cause; remember how the foolish man reproaches thee daily.
23 Forget not the voices of thine enemies; the tumult of those that rise up against thee increases continually.
4 ¶ And when Saul’s son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled.
2 And Saul’s son had two men that were captains of companies; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon, a Beerothite, of the sons of Benjamin (for Beeroth also was reckoned to Benjamin;
3 and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and were sojourners there until this day).
4 And Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son that was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and it came to pass as she made haste to flee that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.
5 And the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth, who lay on a bed at noon.
6 And they came there into the midst of the house as though they were wheat merchants, and they smote him under the fifth rib; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.
7 For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, and they smote him, and slew him and beheaded him and took his head and walked all night through the plain.
8 And they brought the head of Ishbosheth unto David to Hebron and said to the king, Behold the head of Ishbosheth the son of Saul thy enemy, who sought thy life, and the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day of Saul and of his seed.
9 ¶ And David answered Rechab and Baanah, his brother, the sons of Rimmon, the Beerothite, and said unto them, As the LORD lives, who has ransomed my soul out of all adversity,
10 when one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him and slew him in Ziklag as a reward for his tidings.
11 How much more unto wicked men who have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? Shall I not, therefore, now require his blood of your hand and remove you from the earth?
12 Then David commanded his young men, and they slew them and cut off their hands and their feet and hung them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.
25 ¶ But at midnight as Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them,
26 then suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.
27 And the keeper of the prison, awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled.
28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.
29 Then he called for a light and came inside and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas
30 and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
32 And they spoke unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.
33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.
34 And when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
35 ¶ And when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants, saying, Let those men go.
36 And the keeper of the prison made these words known unto Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore depart and go in peace.
37 But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out in secret? no indeed; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.
38 And the sergeants returned and told these words unto the magistrates; and they feared when they heard that they were Romans.
39 And they came and besought them, and bringing them out, asked them to depart out of the city.
40 And leaving the prison, they entered into the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed.
7 ¶ Then came together unto him the Pharisees and some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem,
2 who upon seeing some of his disciples eat bread with common, that is to say, with unwashed, hands, they condemned them.
3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews, unless they wash their hands often, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.
4 And when they come from the market, unless they wash, they eat not. And there are many other things which they took upon themselves to hold such as the washing of cups and pots, brasen vessels and of tables.)
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why do thy disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat bread with unwashed hands?
6 He answered and said unto them, Well has Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
7 Howbeit in vain do they honor me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he also said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother, and, Whosoever curses father or mother shall most definitely die.
11 But ye say, It is enough if a man shall say to his father or mother, It is all Corban, (that is to say, my gift to God) whatever with which thou mightest be profited by me.
12 And ye suffer him to do no more for his father or for his mother,
13 invalidating the word of God with your tradition, which ye have given; and many such like things do ye.
14 And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you and understand;
15 there is nothing from outside the man that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are what defile the man.
16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
17 And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.
18 And he said unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not understand that anything from outside that enters into the man cannot defile him?
19 Because it enters not into his heart, but into the belly, and the man goes out to the privy and purges all foods.
20 For he had said that it is what comes out of the man that defiles the man.
21 For from within, out of the heart of men, come forth the evil thoughts, the adulteries, the fornications, the murders,
22 the thefts, the covetousness, the wickedness, the deceit, the lasciviousness, the evil eye, the slander, the pride, the unwiseness:
23 all these evil things come out from within and defile the man.
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