Book of Common Prayer
A Call to Worship and Obey
95 Come, let us sing for joy to Yahweh;
let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving;
with songs let us shout joyfully to him.
3 For Yahweh is the[a] great God,
and the great king over all gods,
4 in whose hand are the unexplored places[b] of the earth,
and the heights of the mountains are his,
5 to whom belongs the sea that he made, [c]
and the dry land that his hands formed.
6 Come in, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before Yahweh, our maker.
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the sheep of his hand.
Today[d] if you will hear his voice:[e]
8 “Do not harden your heart as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors[f] tried me.
They put me to the test,
even though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation,
and said, ‘They are a people whose heart wanders.
And my ways they do not know.’
11 Therefore I swore in my anger,
‘They shall surely not enter into my rest.’”
A Plea for Deliverance from Persecution
For the music director, according to The Lilies. Of David.[a]
69 Save me, O God,
because waters have come up to my neck.[b]
2 I sink in the mud of the deep, and there is no foothold.
I have come to watery depths,
and the torrent floods over me.
3 I am weary with my calling out; my throat is parched.
My eyes are exhausted in my waiting for my God.
4 More numerous than the hairs of my head
are those hating me without a cause.
Those who are destroying me—my enemies wrongfully[c]— are mighty.
What I did not steal, I then must restore.
5 O God, you yourself know[d] my foolishness,
and my guilty deeds are not hidden from you.
6 Let those who wait for you not be put to shame because of me,
O Lord Yahweh of hosts.
Let those who seek you not be disgraced because of me,
O God of Israel.
7 Because on account of you I have borne reproach;
disgrace has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers
and a foreigner to my mother’s sons,
9 because the zeal for your house[e] has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those reproaching you have fallen on me.
10 When I wept in the fasting of my soul,
it became reproaches for me.
11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,
I became for them a byword.
12 Those sitting at the gate talk about me
as also[f] the songs of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Yahweh, for a favorable time,
O God, according to the abundance of your loyal love.
Answer me with the faithfulness of your salvation.
14 Deliver me from the mud and do not let me sink.
Let me be delivered from those who hate me
and from the watery depths.
15 Do not let the torrent of waters flood over me,
or the deep swallow me,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, O Yahweh, because your loyal love is good;
according to your abundant mercies, turn to me,
17 and do not hide your face from your servant.
Because I am in trouble, answer me quickly.
18 Draw near to my soul; redeem it.
Because of my enemies, ransom me.
19 You know my reproach, my shame and my disgrace.
Fully known[g] to you are all my adversaries.
20 Reproach has broken my heart and I am sick.
And I hoped for sympathy, but there was none,
and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They also gave me gall for food,[h]
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table before them be a trap,
and their times of peace a snare.
23 Let their eyes be dark so they cannot see,
and make their loins continually tremble.
24 Pour out your indignation on them,
and let your burning anger overtake them.
25 Let their camp be desolate.
Let none dwell in their tents,
26 because they persecute those whom you, yourself, have struck,
and they tell of the pain of those you have wounded.
27 Add guilt on top of their guilt,[i]
and do not let them be acquitted.[j]
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
and let them not be recorded with the righteous.
29 But as for me, though I am afflicted and pained,
your salvation will protect[k] me, O God.
30 I will praise the name of God in song,
and magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 For Yahweh it will be better than an ox or bull,
horned and hoofed.[l]
32 The afflicted will see and rejoice.
O God seekers, let your heart revive,[m]
33 because Yahweh hears the needy
and does not despise his own who are prisoners.
34 Let heavens and earth praise him,
the seas and all that moves in them,
35 because God will save Zion
and build the cities of Judah,
that they may dwell there and possess it.
36 And the offspring of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will abide in it.
The Wicked and the Righteous Contrasted
A song of Asaph.[a]
73 Surely God is good to Israel,
to those pure of heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled.
My steps had nearly slipped,
3 because I envied the boastful
when I saw the well-being[b] of the wicked.
4 For there are no pains up to their death,
and their bodies are healthy.[c]
5 They do not have ordinary trouble,[d]
and they are not plagued as other people.[e]
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
an outfit of violence covers them.
7 Their eye bulges from fat.[f]
Imaginings overflow their heart.
8 They mock and speak maliciously of oppression;
they speak as though from on high.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens,
and their tongue roams the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn there,[g]
and abundant waters are slurped up by them.
11 And they say, “How does God know?”
and, “Does the Most High have knowledge?”
12 See, these are the wicked,
and they increase wealth, ever carefree.
13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure,
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 And I have been plagued all day
and rebuked every morning.[h]
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
behold, I would have acted treacherously
against your children’s generation.
16 When I thought about how to understand this,
it was troubling in my eyes
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Then I understood their fate.
18 Surely you set them on slippery places.
You cause them to fall onto ruin.[i]
19 How they become a desolation in a moment!
They come to a complete end by terrors.
20 Like a dream upon awakening,
when you wake up, O Lord,
you will despise their fleeting form.[j]
21 When my heart was embittered
and I felt stabbed in my kidneys,
22 then I was brutish and ignorant.
With you I was like the beasts.
23 But I am continually with you;
you have hold of my right hand.
24 You will guide me with your advice,
and afterward you will take me into honor.[k]
25 Whom do I have in the heavens except you?
And with you I have no other desire on earth.
26 My flesh and heart failed,
but God is the strength[l] of my heart and my reward forever.
27 For indeed, those distancing themselves from you will be ruined.
You destroy each who abandons you for harlotry.
28 But as for me, the approach to God is for my good.
I have set the Lord Yahweh as my refuge,
in order to tell all your works.
Joseph’s Brothers Return to Egypt
43 Now the famine in the land was severe. 2 And it happened that as they finished eating the grain which they had brought from Egypt their father said to them, “Return and buy a little food for us.” 3 Then Judah said to him, “The man solemnly admonished us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ 4 If you will send[a] our brother with us, we will go down and buy food for you, 5 but if you will not send[b] him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’” 6 Then Israel said, “Why did you bring trouble to me by telling the man you still had a brother?” 7 And they said, “The man asked explicitly about us and about our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have a brother?’ And we answered him according to these words. How could we know that he would say, ‘Bring down your brother’?” 8 Then Judah said to his father Israel, “Send the boy with me, and let us arise and go, so that we will live and not die—you, we, and our children. 9 I myself will be surety for him. You may seek him from my hand. If I do not bring him back to you and present him before you, then I will stand guilty before you forever. 10 Surely if we had not hesitated by this time we would have returned twice.” 11 Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so then do this. Take some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balm and honey, aromatic gum and myrrh, and pistachios and almonds. 12 And take double the money in your hands. Take back the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. 13 And take your brother. Now arise and return to the man. 14 And may El-Shaddai[c] grant you compassion before the man that he may release your other brother to you and Benjamin. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”
15 So the men took this gift, and they took double money in their hands, and Benjamin, and they rose up and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.
Concerning Christian Marriage
7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to touch[a] a woman.” 2 But because of sexual immorality, let each man have[b] his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. 3 The husband must fulfill his obligation to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but his wife does. 5 Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by agreement, for a time, in order that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and then you should be together[c] again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self control. 6 But I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish all people could be like myself, but each one has his own gift from God, one in this way and another in that way.
8 Now I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain as I am. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with sexual desire.
Calming of a Storm
35 And on that day, when it[a] was evening, he said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him along, as he was, in the boat. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great storm of wind developed, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already being filled with water.[b] 38 And he was in the stern sleeping on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, is it not a concern to you that we are perishing?” 39 And he woke up and[c] rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Be quiet! Be silent!” And the wind abated and there was a great calm. 40 And he said to them, “Why are you fearful? Do you not yet have faith?” 41 And they were terribly frightened[d] and began to say[e] to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
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