Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 2
1 Why do the nations gather together?
Why do their people devise useless plots?
2 Kings take their stands.
Rulers make plans together
against Yahweh and against his Mashiach[a] by saying,
3 “Let’s break apart their chains
and shake off their ropes.”
4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs.
Adonay makes fun of them.
5 Then he speaks to them in his anger.
In his burning anger he terrifies them by saying,
6 “I have installed my own king on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will announce Yahweh’s decree.
He said to me:
“You are my Son.
Today I have become your Father.
8 Ask me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance
and the ends of the earth as your own possession.
9 You will break them with an iron scepter.
You will smash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Now, you kings, act wisely.
Be warned, you rulers of the earth!
11 Serve Yahweh with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, or he will become angry
and you will die on your way
because his anger will burst into flames.
Blessed is everyone who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 85
For the choir director; a psalm by Korah’s descendants.
1 You favored your land, O Yahweh.
You restored the fortunes of Jacob.
2 You removed your people’s guilt.
You pardoned all their sins. Selah
3 You laid aside all your fury.
You turned away from your burning anger.
4 Restore us, O Elohim, our savior.
Put an end to your anger against us.
5 Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you ever let go of your anger in the generations to come?
6 Won’t you restore our lives again
so that your people may find joy in you?
7 Show us your mercy, O Yahweh,
by giving us your salvation.
8 I want to hear what El Yahweh says,
because he promises peace to his people, to his godly ones.
But they must not go back to their stupidity.
9 Indeed, his salvation is near those who fear him,
and his glory will remain in our land.
10 Mercy and truth have met.
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
11 Truth sprouts from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
12 Yahweh will certainly give us what is good,
and our land will produce crops.
13 Righteousness will go ahead of him
and make a path for his steps.
Psalm 110
A psalm by David.
1 Yahweh said to my Lord,
“Sit in the highest position in heaven
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 Yahweh will extend your powerful scepter from Zion.
Rule your enemies who surround you.
3 Your people will volunteer when you call up your army.
Your young people will come to you in holy splendor
like dew in the early morning.[a]
4 Yahweh has taken an oath and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever, in the way Melchizedek was a priest.”
5 Adonay is at your right side.
He will crush kings on the day of his anger.
6 He will pass judgment on the nations
and fill them with dead bodies.
Throughout the earth he will crush their heads.
7 He will drink from the brook along the road.
He will hold his head high.
Psalm 132
A song for going up to worship.
1 O Yahweh, remember David and all the hardships he endured.
2 Remember how he swore an oath to Yahweh
and made this vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
3 “I will not step inside my house,
4 get into my bed, shut my eyes, or close my eyelids
5 until I find a place for Yahweh,
a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
6 Now, we have heard about the ark of the promise being in Ephrathah.
We have found it in Jaar.
7 Let’s go to his dwelling place.
Let’s worship at his footstool.
8 O Yahweh, arise, and come to your resting place
with the ark of your power.
9 Clothe your priests with righteousness.
Let your godly ones sing with joy.
10 For the sake of your servant David,
do not reject your anointed one.
11 Yahweh swore an oath to David.
This is a truth he will not take back:
“I will set one of your own descendants on your throne.
12 If your sons are faithful to my promise[a]
and my written instructions that I will teach them,
then their descendants will also sit on your throne forever.”
13 Yahweh has chosen Zion.
He wants it for his home.
14 “This will be my resting place forever.
Here I will sit enthroned because I want Zion.
15 I will certainly bless all that Zion needs.
I will satisfy its needy people with food.
16 I will clothe its priests with salvation.
Then its godly ones will sing joyfully.
17 There I will make a horn sprout up for David.
I will prepare a lamp for my anointed one.
18 I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but the crown on my anointed one will shine.”
The Lord Will Teach the Nations(A)
4 In the last days the mountain of Yahweh’s house
will be established as the highest of the mountains
and raised above the hills.
People will stream to it.
2 Then many nations will come and say,
“Let’s go to the mountain of Yahweh,
to the house of the Elohim of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways so that we may live by them.”
The teachings will go out from Zion.
The word of Yahweh will go out from Jerusalem.
3 Then he will judge disputes between many people
and settle arguments between many nations far and wide.
They will hammer their swords into plowblades
and their spears into pruning shears.
Nations will never fight against each other,
and they will never train for war again.
4 They will sit under their grapevines and their fig trees,
and no one will make them afraid.
Yahweh Tsebaoth has spoken.
5 All the nations live by the names of their gods,
but we will live by the name of Yahweh our Elohim forever.
The Lord’s Leader for Israel
2 You, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
are too small to be included among Judah’s cities.
Yet, from you Israel’s future ruler will come for me.
His origins go back to the distant past, to days long ago.
3 That is why Yahweh will abandon Israel
until the time a mother has a child.
Then the rest of Yahweh’s people will return to the people of Israel.
4 The child will become the shepherd of his flock.
He will lead them with the strength of Yahweh,
with the majestic name of Yahweh his Elohim.
They will live in safety
because his greatness will reach the ends of the earth.
God’s Love Lives in His People
7 Dear friends, we must love each other because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. 8 The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love. 9 God has shown us his love by sending his only Son into the world so that we could have life through him. 10 This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the payment for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if this is the way God loved us, we must also love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 We know that we live in him and he lives in us because he has given us his Spirit.
14 We have seen and testify to the fact that the Father sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God lives in those who declare that Yeshua is the Son of God, and they live in God. 16 We have known and believed that God loves us. God is love. Those who live in God’s love live in God, and God lives in them.
31 “The person who comes from above is superior to everyone. I, a person from the earth, know nothing but what is on earth, and that’s all I can talk about. The person who comes from heaven is superior to everyone 32 and tells what he has seen and heard. Yet, no one accepts what he says. 33 I have accepted what that person said, and I have affirmed that God is truthful. 34 The man whom God has sent speaks God’s message. After all, God gives him the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves his Son and has put everything in his power. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, he will see God’s constant anger.”
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.