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
Chapter 14
The Four Kings. 1 [a]When Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim 2 made war on Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar), 3 all the latter kings joined forces in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea[b]). 4 For twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. 5 In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings allied with him came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, 6 and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El-paran, close by the wilderness.(A) 7 They then turned back and came to En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they subdued the whole country of both the Amalekites and the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar. 8 Thereupon the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) marched out, and in the Valley of Siddim they went into battle against them: 9 against Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five. 10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah fled, they fell into these, while the rest fled to the mountains. 11 The victors seized all the possessions and food supplies of Sodom and Gomorrah and then went their way. 12 They took with them Abram’s nephew Lot, who had been living in Sodom, as well as his possessions, and departed.(B)
13 A survivor came and brought the news to Abram the Hebrew,[c] who was camping at the oak of Mamre the Amorite, a kinsman of Eshcol and Aner; these were allies of Abram. 14 When Abram heard that his kinsman had been captured, he mustered three hundred and eighteen of his retainers,[d] born in his house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. 15 He and his servants deployed against them at night, defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. 16 He recovered all the possessions. He also recovered his kinsman Lot and his possessions, along with the women and the other people.
17 When Abram returned from his defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were allied with him, the king of Sodom went out to greet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).
18 Melchizedek, king of Salem,[e] brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High. 19 He blessed Abram with these words:(C)
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
the creator of heaven and earth;
20 And blessed be God Most High,
who delivered your foes into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the captives; the goods you may keep.” 22 But Abram replied to the king of Sodom: “I have sworn to the Lord, God Most High,[f] the creator of heaven and earth, 23 that I would not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap from anything that is yours, so that you cannot say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ 24 Nothing for me except what my servants have consumed and the share that is due to the men who went with me—Aner, Eshcol and Mamre; let them take their share.”
Chapter 8
Heavenly Priesthood of Jesus.[a] 1 The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,(A) 2 a minister of the sanctuary[b] and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.(B) 3 Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.(C) 4 If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law.(D) 5 They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”(E) 6 Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.(F)
Old and New Covenants.[c] 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one. 8 But he finds fault with them and says:[d]
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,(G)
when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers
the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;
for they did not stand by my covenant
and I ignored them, says the Lord.
10 But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
and I will write them upon their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.(H)
11 And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizen
and kinsman, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for all shall know me,
from least to greatest.
12 For I will forgive their evildoing
and remember their sins no more.”
13 [e](I)When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.
Return to Galilee. 43 [a]After the two days, he left there for Galilee. 44 [b](A)For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. 45 When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast.
Second Sign at Cana.[c] 46 (B)Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. 48 Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”(C) 49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.(D) 51 While he was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. 52 He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” 53 The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. 54 [Now] this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.(E)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.