Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41[a]
Thanksgiving After Sickness
1 For the leader. A psalm of David.
I
2 Blessed the one concerned for the poor;[b]
on a day of misfortune, the Lord delivers him.(A)
3 The Lord keeps and preserves him,
makes him blessed in the land,
and does not betray him to his enemies.
4 The Lord sustains him on his sickbed,
you turn down his bedding whenever he is ill.[c]
II
5 Even I have said, “Lord, take note of me;
heal me, although I have sinned against you.
6 My enemies say bad things against me:
‘When will he die and his name be forgotten?’
7 When someone comes to visit me, he speaks without sincerity.
His heart stores up malice;
when he leaves, he gossips.(B)
8 All those who hate me whisper together against me;
they imagine the worst about me:
9 ‘He has had ruin poured over him;
that one lying down will never rise again.’
10 [d]Even my trusted friend,
who ate my bread,
has raised his heel against me.(C)
III
11 “But you, Lord, take note of me to raise me up
that I may repay them.”[e]
Psalm 52[a]
The Deceitful Tongue
1 For the leader. A maskil of David, 2 when Doeg the Edomite entered and reported to Saul, saying to him: “David has entered the house of Ahimelech.”(A)
I
3 Why do you glory in what is evil, you who are mighty by the mercy of God?
All day long
4 you are thinking up intrigues;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor,
you worker of deceit.(B)
5 You love evil more than good,
lying rather than saying what is right.(C)
Selah
6 You love all the words that create confusion,
you deceitful tongue.(D)
II
7 God too will strike you down forever,
he will lay hold of you and pluck you from your tent,
uproot you from the land of the living.(E)
Selah
8 The righteous will see and they will fear;
but they will laugh at him:(F)
9 “Behold the man! He did not take God as his refuge,
but he trusted in the abundance of his wealth,
and grew powerful through his wickedness.”(G)
III
Psalm 44[a]
God’s Past Favor and Israel’s Present Need
1 For the leader. A maskil of the Korahites.
I
2 O God, we have heard with our own ears;
our ancestors have told us(A)
The deeds you did in their days,
with your own hand in days of old:
3 You rooted out nations to plant them,(B)
crushed peoples and expelled them.
4 Not with their own swords did they conquer the land,(C)
nor did their own arms bring victory;
It was your right hand, your own arm,
the light of your face for you favored them.(D)
5 You are my king and my God,(E)
who bestows victories on Jacob.
6 Through you we batter our foes;
through your name we trample our adversaries.
7 Not in my bow do I trust,
nor does my sword bring me victory.
8 You have brought us victory over our enemies,
shamed those who hate us.
9 In God we have boasted all the day long;
your name we will praise forever.
Selah
II
10 (F)But now you have rejected and disgraced us;
you do not march out with our armies.(G)
11 You make us retreat[b] before the foe;
those who hate us plunder us at will.(H)
12 You hand us over like sheep to be slaughtered,
scatter us among the nations.(I)
13 You sell your people for nothing;
you make no profit from their sale.(J)
14 You make us the reproach of our neighbors,(K)
the mockery and scorn of those around us.
15 You make us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
16 All day long my disgrace is before me;
shame has covered my face
17 At the sound of those who taunt and revile,
at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
III
18 All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten you,
nor been disloyal to your covenant.
19 [c]Our hearts have not turned back,
nor have our steps strayed from your path.
20 Yet you have left us crushed,
desolate in a place of jackals;[d](L)
you have covered us with a shadow of death.
21 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
stretched out our hands to another god,
22 Would not God have discovered this,
God who knows the secrets of the heart?
23 For you we are slain all the day long,
considered only as sheep to be slaughtered.(M)
IV
7 In the second year of Darius, on the twenty-fourth day of Shebat, the eleventh month,[a] the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
8 [b]I looked out in the night,[c] and there was a man mounted on a red horse standing in the shadows among myrtle trees; and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. 9 I asked, “What are these, my lord?”[d] Then the angel who spoke with me answered, “I will show you what these are.” 10 Then the man who was standing among the myrtle trees spoke up and said, “These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.”(A) 11 And they answered the angel of the Lord,[e] who was standing among the myrtle trees: “We have been patrolling the earth, and now the whole earth rests quietly.” 12 Then the angel of the Lord replied, “Lord of hosts, how long will you be without mercy for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that have felt your anger these seventy years?”[f](B) 13 To the angel who spoke with me, the Lord replied favorably, with comforting words.
Oracular Response. 14 The angel who spoke with me then said to me, Proclaim: Thus says the Lord of hosts:
I am jealous for Jerusalem
and for Zion[g] intensely jealous.(C)
15 I am consumed with anger
toward the complacent nations;[h]
When I was only a little angry,
they compounded the disaster.(D)
16 Therefore, thus says the Lord:
I return to Jerusalem in mercy;(E)
my house[i] will be rebuilt there(F)—oracle of the Lord of hosts—
and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.
17 Proclaim further: Thus says the Lord of hosts:
My cities will again overflow with prosperity;
the Lord will again comfort Zion,
and will again choose Jerusalem.(G)
4 John, to the seven churches in Asia:[a] grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne,(A) 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us[b] from our sins by his blood,(B) 6 who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever [and ever]. Amen.(C)
7 Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him.
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.(D)
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,”[c] says the Lord God, “the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”(E)
The First Vision.[d] 9 I, John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom, and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the island called Patmos[e] because I proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus. 10 I was caught up in spirit on the Lord’s day[f] and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, 11 which said, “Write on a scroll[g] what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.” 12 [h]Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man,[i] wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest.(F) 14 The hair of his head was as white as white wool or as snow,[j] and his eyes were like a fiery flame. 15 His feet were like polished brass refined in a furnace,[k] and his voice was like the sound of rushing water. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars.[l] A sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth, and his face shone like the sun at its brightest.(G)
17 When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead.[m] He touched me with his right hand and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last,(H) 18 the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld.[n] 19 Write down, therefore, what you have seen, and what is happening, and what will happen afterwards.[o] 20 This is the secret meaning[p] of the seven stars you saw in my right hand, and of the seven gold lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
43 (A)“When an unclean spirit goes out of a person it roams through arid regions searching for rest but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it empty, swept clean, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings back with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they move in and dwell there; and the last condition of that person is worse than the first. Thus it will be with this evil generation.”
The True Family of Jesus.[a] 46 (B)While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. 47 [Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.”][b] 48 But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
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