Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 16[a]
God the Supreme Good
1 A miktam[b] of David.
Protect me, O God,
for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
3 As for the saints[c] who are in the land,
they are the noble ones,
and in them there is all my delight.
4 Those who chase after other gods
only multiply their sorrows.
Never will I pour out libations of blood to them,
nor will I take up their names[d] on my lips.
5 O Lord, you are my allotted portion and my cup;[e]
you have made my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have established a pleasant site for me;
I have truly received a wonderful inheritance.
7 I bless the Lord who offers me counsel;
even during the night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep the Lord always before me,
for with him at my right hand
I will never fall.
9 [f]Therefore, my heart is glad
and my soul rejoices;
my body too is filled with confidence.
10 For you will not abandon me to the netherworld
or allow your Holy One[g] to suffer corruption.
11 You will show me the path to life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence
and everlasting delights at your right hand.
Psalm 17[h]
Prayer in Time of Persecution
1 A prayer of David.
Hear, O Lord, my call for justice;
give heed to my cry.
Listen to the prayer of my lips,
for they are free of deceit.
2 Let my vindication issue forth from you;
let your eyes discern what is right.
3 You have probed my heart[i]
and examined me throughout the night.
You have tested me
and found no malice in me,
for I have not sinned with my mouth.
4 Despite what other people do,
I have been guided by the word of your lips[j]
and refrained from their acts of violence.
5 My steps have held fast to your paths;
my feet have not wavered.
6 I call upon you, O God, for you will answer me.
Incline your ear to me and listen to my plea.
7 Show how wonderful is your kindness,[k]
you who save those who seek protection
by taking refuge at your right hand.
8 Guard me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings[l]
9 from the wicked who treat me with violence,
from deadly enemies who surround me.
10 There is no compassion in their hearts,[m]
and arrogance issues from their mouths.
11 They track me down and begin to close in,
watching for the chance to strike me down,
12 like a lion primed to attack it prey,
like a young lion lurking in hiding.
13 Rise up, O Lord, confront them, and cast them down;[n]
deliver me from the wicked by your sword.
14 With your hand, O Lord, snatch me from such people,
from the worldly whose reward is in this life.[o]
You satisfy the hunger of those you cherish;
their children have all they desire
and leave their wealth to their little ones.
15 But in my righteousness I will see your face;[p]
when I awaken, I will be blessed by beholding you.
Psalm 22[a]
Suffering and Triumph of the Messiah
1 For the director.[b] According to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A psalm of David.
2 [c]My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why have you paid no heed to my call for help,
to my cries of anguish?
3 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I am afforded no relief.[d]
4 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
5 Our ancestors placed their trust in you;
they trusted, and you gave them deliverance.
6 They cried out to you and were saved,
they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
7 But I am a worm and not human,[e]
scorned by people and despised by my kinsmen.
8 All who see me jeer at me;
they sneer in mockery and toss their heads:[f]
9 “He relied on the Lord;
let the Lord set him free.
Let the Lord deliver him,
if he loves him.”[g]
10 [h]Yet you brought me out of the womb
and made me feel secure
upon my mother’s breast.
11 I was entrusted to your care at my birth;
from my mother’s womb, you have been my God.
12 Do not remain aloof from me,
for trouble is near
and no one can help me.
13 [i]Many bulls[j] are encircling me;
fierce bulls of Bashan are closing in on me.
14 They open wide their mouths against me
like ravening and roaring lions.
15 My strength is trickling away like water,
and all my bones are dislocated.
My heart[k] has turned to wax
and melts within me.
16 My mouth is as dry as clayware,
and my tongue sticks to my jaw;[l]
you have laid me down in the dust of death.
17 A pack of dogs surrounds me;
a band of evildoers is closing in on me.
They have pierced my hands and my feet;[m]
18 I can count all my bones.[n]
They stare at me and gloat;
19 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.[o]
20 [p]But you, O Lord, do not remain aloof from me.
O my Strength, come quickly to my aid.
21 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the grasp of the dogs.
22 Save me[q] from the lion’s mouth
and from the horns of wild oxen.
23 [r]I will proclaim your name to my family;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:[s]
24 “You who fear the Lord, praise him.
All you descendants of Jacob,[t] give him glory.
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel.
25 For he has not scorned or disregarded
the wretched man in his suffering;
he has not hidden his face[u] from him
but has heeded his call for help.”
26 I will offer my praise to you in the great assembly;
in the presence of those who fear him, I will fulfill my vows.[v]
27 [w]The poor[x] will eat and be filled;
those who seek the Lord will praise him:
“May your hearts live forever.”
28 All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations
will bow low before him.
29 For kingly power belongs to the Lord;
he is the ruler of all the nations.
30 All those who prosper on the earth will bow down before him;
all those who lie in the grave will kneel in homage.
31 [y]But I will live for the Lord,
and my descendants will serve him.
32 Future generations will be told about the Lord
so that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn
the deliverance he has accomplished.
Chapter 5
Funereal Chant
1 Listen to these words that I utter against you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
2 She has fallen, to rise no more,
the virgin Israel.
She lies forsaken on her own soil,
with no one to raise her up.
3 For thus says the Lord God:
The city that marched out to war with a thousand
will be left with a hundred;
and the one that marched out with a hundred
will have only ten left.
4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
If you seek me, you will survive,
5 but do not go to Bethel.
Do not journey to Gilgal,
and do not cross over to Beer-sheba.
For Gilgal will surely be led into exile,
and Bethel shall come to nothing.
6 Seek the Lord and you will live,
or else, like a fire,
he will sweep through the house of Joseph,
with no one able to quench the flames.
Hymn to God the Creator
8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns heavy darkness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the surface of the earth,
9 who brings destruction on the strong
and ruin upon the fortress:
the Lord is his name.
7 Woe to those who turn justice to wormwood
and thrust righteousness to the ground.
Because You Crush the Weak
10 They hate the one who preaches justice at the city gate
and abhor the one who speaks the truth.
11 Therefore, because you have trampled upon the poor
and extorted levies on their wheat,
even though you have built houses of hewn stone,
you will never live in them;
although you have planted pleasant vineyards,
you will never drink their wine.
12 For I know how many are your crimes
and how monstrous are your sins.
You oppress the innocent, accept bribes,
and push aside the destitute at the gates.
13 Therefore, the prudent man keeps silent in such a situation,
for it is an evil period.
Seek the Good So That You Will Live
14 Seek good and not evil,
so that you may live.
Then the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you
as you claim he is.
15 Hate evil and love good,
and let justice prevail at the city gate.
Then it is possible that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will show mercy to the remnant of Joseph.[a]
16 The Countryside Is Devastated. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of hosts, the Almighty, has to say:
In every public square there will be lamentation;
in every street they will cry out, “Alas! Alas!”
They will summon the farmers to wail,
and the professional mourners to lament.
17 There will be wailing in every vineyard,
for I will pass through your midst,
says the Lord.
Salutation. 1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James,[a] to those who have been called, who are dear to God the Father and have been kept safe by Jesus Christ: 2 may mercy, peace, and love be granted you in abundance.
Benefits of Being a Christian. 3 Beloved, I was just at the point of writing to you about the salvation we share, when it became necessary for me to write and urge you to fight earnestly for the faith that was once and for all entrusted to the saints.[b] 4 For certain men have infiltrated your ranks, people who long ago were designated for condemnation.[c] These godless persons pervert the grace of our God into an excuse for immorality and disown our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Character and Doom of the False Teachers.[d] 5 Although you already know all this, allow me to remind you that the Lord, who once delivered the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who refused to believe.[e] 6 Remember also that the angels, who were dissatisfied with the dominion that had been assigned to them and abandoned their proper dwelling place, have been kept bound by him in darkness with eternal chains until the judgment of the great Day.[f] 7 And do not fail to remember Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities, which in a similar way indulged in sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who undergo the punishment of eternal fire.[g]
8 In the same way, these dreamers defile their bodies, make light of authority, and insult celestial beings.[h] 9 Even the archangel Michael, when he engaged in an argument with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but instead said: “May the Lord rebuke you!”[i] 10 However, these people pour abuse on anything they do not understand, and the very things that they know by instinct, like irrational animals, lead to their destruction.
11 Woe to them! They have followed in the footsteps of Cain; they have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for the sake of gain; and they have perished in the rebellion of Korah.[j] 12 [k]They are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without fear. They are shepherds who feed only themselves. They are like clouds blown about by winds without giving rain, or like trees in autumn barren and uprooted and so twice dead. 13 They are like wild sea waves whose foam reflects their shameless deeds, or like wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness is stored up forever. 14 [l]Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, also prophesied against them when he said, “Behold, the Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his saints, 15 to pronounce judgment on humanity and to convict all the ungodly for all the godless deeds that each has impiously committed and for all the defiant words spoken against him by godless sinners.” 16 These are grumblers and fault-finders. They indulge their own passions,[m] and their mouths are full of bombastic talk as they flatter others in order to achieve their own ends.
Chapter 22
The Parable of the Wedding Banquet.[a] 1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent forth his servants to summon those who had been invited to the banquet, but they refused to come. 4 Then he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, my banquet has been prepared, my oxen and my fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.” ’
5 “But they ignored his invitation. One went off to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.
7 “The king was enraged, and he sent forth his troops who destroyed those murderers and burned their city to the ground. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy of that honor. 9 Go forth, therefore, to the main roads and invite everyone you can find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 The servants went forth into the streets and gathered together everyone they could find, good and bad alike. And so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 [b]“But when the king came in to greet the guests, he noticed one man who was not properly dressed for a wedding. 12 ‘My friend,’ he said to him, ‘how did you gain entrance here without a wedding garment?’ The man was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet and cast him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”[c]
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