Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 20[a]
Prayer in Praise of the Messiah King
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
2 May the Lord answer you in times of trouble;
may the name[c] of the God of Jacob protect you.
3 May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.[d]
4 May he remember[e] all your sacrifices
and accept all your burnt offerings. Selah
5 May he give you your heart’s desire[f]
and grant you success in all your plans.
6 May we shout with joy over your victory
and lift up our banners in the name of our God.[g]
May the Lord grant your every request.
7 Now I know that the Lord will grant victory to his anointed;[h]
he will answer him from his holy heaven,
granting mighty victories with his right hand.
8 [i]Some trust in chariots, and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord, our God.
9 They will collapse and fall,
but we will rise up and stand firm.
10 O Lord, save the king,
and answer us when we call upon you.[j]
Psalm 21[k]
Thanksgiving for Messianic Blessings
1 For the director.[l] A psalm of David.
2 O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength;
your victories fill him with great joy.[m]
3 You have granted him the desire of his heart[n]
and not withheld from him the request of his lips. Selah
4 You welcomed him with choice blessings[o]
and placed a crown of pure gold upon his head.
5 He asked you for life, and you gave it to him,
length of days forever and ever.[p]
6 He has achieved great glory through your victory;
you have bestowed upon him splendor and majesty.[q]
7 You have conferred everlasting blessings[r] on him;
you gladdened him with the joy of your presence.
8 For the king places his trust in the Lord;
through the kindness[s] of the Most High he will not fall.
9 [t]Your hand will lay hold of all your enemies;
your right hand will overcome all your foes.
10 On the day when you appear,[u]
you will cast them into a fiery furnace.
The Lord’s anger will engulf them,
and fire will consume them.
11 You will blot out their descendants from the earth
and rid the human race of their posterity.[v]
12 They have devised wicked schemes against you,
but, plot though they may, they will not succeed.
13 For you will force them to retreat
when you aim your bows at them.
14 Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength;[w]
we will sing and praise your power.
Psalm 110[a]
The Messiah—King, Prophet, and Conqueror
1 A psalm of David.
The Lord says to my Lord:[b]
“Sit at my right hand
until I have made your enemies a footstool for you.”
2 The Lord will stretch forth from Zion
your scepter of power.[c]
The Lord says:
“Rule in the midst of your enemies![d]
3 Yours is royal dignity in the day of your birth;
in holy splendor, before the daystar,
like the dew, I have begotten you.”[e]
4 The Lord has sworn,
and he will not retract his oath:
“You are a priest forever[f]
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord stands forth at your right hand;[g]
he will crush kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He[h] will judge the nations,
filling their land with corpses
and crushing rulers throughout the earth.
7 He will drink from the stream on his journey,
and then he will lift up his head in triumph.[i]
Psalm 116[a]
Thanksgiving to God for Help Received
1 I love the Lord because he has heard my voice
and listened to my cry for mercy,[b]
2 because he has inclined his ear to me
on the day when I called out to him.[c]
3 The bonds of death[d] encompassed me;
the snares of the netherworld held me tightly.
I was seized by distress and sorrow.
4 Then I cried out in the name[e] of the Lord:
“O Lord, I entreat you to preserve my life.”
5 Gracious is the Lord and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord watches over his little ones;[f]
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Be at peace once again, O my soul,
for the Lord has shown mercy to you.
8 He has delivered my soul[g] from death,
my eyes from tears,
and my feet from stumbling.
9 I will walk in the presence of the Lord
in the land of the living.[h]
10 I believed; therefore, I said,[i]
“I am greatly afflicted.”
11 In my dismay I cried out,
“All men are liars.”[j]
12 How can I repay the Lord
for all the good he has done for me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation[k]
and call on the name of the Lord.
14 I will fulfill my vows[l] to the Lord
in the presence of his people.
15 Precious in the eyes of the Lord
is the death[m] of his faithful ones.
16 O Lord, I am your servant.
I am your servant, the child of your handmaid;[n]
you have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Alleluia.[o]
Psalm 117[p]
Universal Praise of God
Salvation through the Righteous.[a] 9 This is the story of Noah. Noah was a just and blameless man at that time and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 But the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and filled with violence. 12 God saw that the earth was corrupt, for every person on the earth was perverse in what he did.
13 God therefore said to Noah, “I have decided to end everything, for they have filled the earth with their violence. Behold, I will destroy the entire creation. 14 Build an ark[b] of gopher wood and divide the ark into compartments and caulk it with bitumen inside and out. 15 This is how you shall make it: the ark will be three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high. 16 Make a roof on the ark one cubit high.[c] Place a door in the side of the ark. Make it with three decks: lower, middle, and higher.
17 “Behold, I will send a flood. The waters shall cover the earth to destroy the life of everything under the skies that has the breath of life in it. Everything on the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish a covenant with you.
“Go into the ark, you and your sons, your wife, and the wives of your sons. 19 Bring into the ark two of everything that lives, of all flesh. Bring a male and female of each species into the ark to save them. 20 Bring two birds of each species, two animals of each species, and two reptiles of each species with you to save them. 21 As for you, gather every type of food and take it with you. It shall nourish both you and them.”
22 Noah did all of this, exactly as God had commanded him.
Chapter 4
The Sabbath Rest of God’s People.[a] 1 Therefore, since the promise of entering into his rest endures, we must take care that none of you be judged to have fallen short. 2 For we too have received the good news just as they did, but the message they heard was of no benefit to them because those who listened did not combine it with faith. 3 For we who have faith enter into that rest, just as God has said:
“Therefore, I swore in my anger,
‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ”
Yet God’s work had been finished at the beginning of the world. 4 For somewhere he says in reference to the seventh day, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And in this passage it says, “They will never enter into my rest.”
6 Seeing, therefore, that some will enter into that rest, and since those who first had received the good news failed to enter because of their refusal to believe, 7 God once more set a day—“today”—when long afterward he spoke through David, as already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.”
8 Now if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterward of another day. 9 Therefore, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God, 10 since those who enter into God’s rest also cease from their own labors as God did from his. 11 Let us then make every effort to enter into that rest, so that no one may fall by following that example of refusing to believe.
12 The Word of God Is Living.[b] Indeed, the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces to the point where it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. 13 Nothing in creation is hidden from his sight. Everything is uncovered and exposed to the eyes of the one to whom we must all render an account.
Worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth[a]
The Mystery of the New Temple
Jesus Casts the Merchants Out of the Temple.[b]13 When the time of the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, including the sheep and the cattle. He also overturned the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins, 16 and to those who were selling the doves he ordered, “Take them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” 17 His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 The Jews then challenged him, “What sign can you show us to justify your doing this?” 19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews responded, “This temple has taken forty-six years to build, and you are going to raise it up in three days!” 21 But the temple he was talking about was the temple of his body. 22 After he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
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