Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 41[a]
Trust in God in Sickness and Misfortune
1 For the director.[b] A psalm of David.
2 [c]Blessed is he who has concern for the weak;
in time of trouble the Lord will deliver him.
3 The Lord will protect him and keep him alive;
he will make him happy on earth
and not abandon him to the will of his enemies.
4 The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed
and bring him back to health.
5 Once I prayed, “O Lord, have mercy on me;
heal me, for I have sinned[d] against you.
6 In their malice my enemies say of me,
‘When will he die and his name be forgotten?’
7 When someone comes to visit me,
he utters words without sincerity;
his heart[e] harbors slander,
and on departing he gives voice to it.
8 “All my enemies whisper against me
and conjure up the worst in my regard.
9 ‘He has a fatal disease,’ they say;
‘he will never rise up from his sickbed.’
10 “Even my friend whom I trusted,
the one who dined at my table,
has risen up[f] against me.
11 But you, O Lord, be merciful to me;
make me well[g] so that I may pay them back.”
12 By this I know that you are pleased with me—
that my enemy fails to triumph over me.
13 Because of my innocence you uphold me
and let me stand in your presence forever.
14 Blessed[h] be the Lord, the God of Israel,
forever and forever.
Amen and Amen.
Psalm 52[a]
Prayer for Help against Calumniators
1 For the director.[b] A maskil of David. 2 When Doeg the Edomite went and told Saul, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.”
3 Why do you boast of your evil deeds,
you champion of malice?[c]
All day long 4 you plot harm;
your tongue is like a sharpened razor,
you master of deceit.
5 [d]You love evil rather than good,
and lies rather than truthful speech. Selah
6 You wallow in destructive talk,
you tongue of deceit.
7 [e]This is the reason why God will crush you
and destroy you once and for all.
He will snatch you from your tent[f]
and uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
8 The righteous will see and be afraid;
they will mock him:
9 “This is the man
who refused to accept God as his refuge.
Rather, he placed his trust in his abundant riches
and gathered strength by his crimes.”
10 [g]But I am like a green olive tree[h]
in the house of God.
I place my trust forever and ever
in the kindness of God.
11 I will praise you forever
for what you have done,[i]
and in the presence of the saints
I will proclaim the goodness of your name.
Psalm 44[a]
Past Glory and Present Need of God’s People
1 For the director.[b] A maskil of the sons of Korah.
2 [c]O God, we have heard with our ears,
our ancestors have told us,
of the deeds you performed in their days,
in the days of old.
3 To establish them in the land,
you drove out the nations with your own hand;
you crushed the peoples
so that our ancestors could flourish.
4 It was not their own swords that won them the land,
nor did their own arms make them victorious;
rather, it was your right hand and your arm
and the light of your face,[d]
because you loved them.
5 You are my[e] King and my God,
who bestowed victories upon Jacob.
6 Through you we throw back our enemies;
through your name[f] we crush our assailants.
7 It is not in my bow that I trust,
nor can my sword ensure my victory.
8 It is you who saved us from our enemies;
you scattered in confusion those who hate us.
9 In God we boast the whole day long,
and we will praise your name forever. Selah
10 [g]But now you have rejected and humiliated us,
and you no longer accompany our armies.[h]
11 You have forced us to retreat[i] before the enemy;
those who hate us plunder us unceasingly.
12 You have handed us over like sheep to be slaughtered
and scattered us among the nations.
13 You have sold your people for nothing,
receiving no gain from their sale.
14 You have subjected us to the contempt of our neighbors,
to the mockery and scorn of all who are near.
15 You have made us a byword to the nations;
the peoples shake their heads[j] at us.
16 All day long I am confronted by my disgrace,
and my face is covered with shame
17 as I hear the shouts of taunting and abuse
and see the hateful enemy seeking revenge.
18 All this has happened to us
even though we have not forgotten you
or been false to your covenant.[k]
19 Our hearts[l] have not turned back,
nor have our feet wandered from your path.
20 Yet you have crushed us,
forced us to live among the jackals,[m]
and covered us with darkness.
21 If we had forgotten the name[n] of our God
or lifted up our hands to a foreign god,
22 would not God have discovered it,
he who knows the secrets of the heart?
23 For your sake we are put to death all day long;
we are treated like sheep destined to be slaughtered.[o]
24 Awake, O Lord. Why[p] do you sleep?
Rise up, and do not abandon us forever.
25 Why do you hide your face[q]
and continue to ignore our misery and our sufferings?
26 We have been brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.[r]
27 Rise up and come to our aid;
redeem us for the sake of your kindness.[s]
Chapter 14
Lot’s Captivity and Rescue.[a] 1 When Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, 2 there was a war between them and 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 gathered in the Valley of Siddim, that is, the Dead Sea. 4 For twelve years they were vassals of Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled against him.
5 In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings allied with him arrived and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim 6 and the Horites on Mount Seir as far as El-paran, which borders the desert. 7 They then changed direction and came to En-mishpat (that is, Kedesh), and they plundered the land of the Amalekites as well the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar.
8 The king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar, went out to the Valley of Siddim and did battle with them, 9 with Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, Tidal, king of Goiim, Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Ellasar. There were four kings against five. 10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pools. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into these pools. The others fled into the mountains. 11 The four kings took all the possessions and provisions of Sodom and Gomorrah and left. 12 They also captured Lot, the son of the brother of Abram, and all his possessions (for he lived in Sodom).
13 One of those who escaped captivity came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew who was camped at the Oak of Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner, who were Abram’s allies. 14 When Abram heard that his relative had been taken prisoner, he organized the armed men who had been born to his household. There were three hundred and eighteen of them. They gave chase as far as Dan. 15 He divided his forces and his servants, and defeated them during the night, following them all the way to Hobah, to the north of Damascus. 16 He recovered the booty and also Lot, his relative, and his possessions, as well as the women and the other people.
17 Meeting with Melchizedek near Jerusalem.[b] When Abram returned after defeating Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom met him in the Valley of Shaveh, that is, the Valley of the King.
18 Melchizedek, the king of Salem,[c] offered bread and wine. As a priest of God Most High, 19 he blessed Abram with these words,
“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of the heavens and the earth.
20 And blessed be God Most High
who has delivered your enemy into your hands.”
Then Abram gave him a tithe of all he had taken.
21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people; you take the booty.”
22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have sworn to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of the heavens and the earth,[d] 23 that I would not take anything for myself, not even a thread or a sandal strap, lest you be able to say, ‘I have enriched Abram.’ 24 I want nothing for myself other than what my servants have already eaten. As for the men who have accompanied me, Eshcol, Aner, and Mamre, they can take their own shares.”
A New Kind of Priesthood[a]
Chapter 8
Another Sanctuary.[b] 1 The main point of what we have been saying is this: we have such a high priest. He has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and he is a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle established by the Lord and not by human beings.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, and so it is necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 Actually, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are already others who offer gifts according to the Law,[c] 5 although the sanctuary in which they offer worship is only a shadow and a reflection of the heavenly one. This is the reason why, when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, he was warned, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”
Another Covenant.[d] 6 But Jesus has now received a ministry that is far superior, for he is the mediator of a far better covenant that has been established on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no necessity to establish a second one to replace it. 8 [e]However, God finds fault with his people, and he says,
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
that I made with their ancestors
on the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and therefore I abandoned them, says the Lord.
10 This is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord.
I will plant my laws in their minds
and inscribe them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 And they shall not teach one another,
each saying to his neighbor and his brother,
‘Know the Lord.’
For they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 I shall forgive them for their wicked deeds,
and I shall remember their sins no more.”
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete. And anything that is obsolete and aging will shortly disappear.
43 Return to Galilee.[a] When the two days were over, Jesus departed for Galilee. 44 He himself had declared that a prophet is not treated with honor in his own hometown. 45 When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem during the feast, having been at the feast themselves.
46 Jesus Heals the Official’s Son.[b] He went again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. At Capernaum, there was a royal official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and pleaded that he come and heal his son who was near death.
48 Jesus said to him, “Unless you witness signs and wonders, you will not believe.” 49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus replied, “Return home. Your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him, and he departed. 51 While he was still on his way, his servants met him saying that his child was going to live. 52 He asked them at what time the boy had begun to recover, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon.”[c] 53 Then the father realized that was the exact hour at which Jesus had assured him, “Your son will live,” and he and his entire household came to believe.
54 This was the second sign that Jesus performed after returning from Judea into Galilee.
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