Book of Common Prayer
1 ¶ O come, let us bring joy unto the LORD; let us sing with joy unto the rock of our saving health.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and sing unto him with joy.
3 For the LORD is a great God and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our maker.
7 ¶ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice,
8 harden not your heart, as in the provocation and as in the day of trials in the wilderness
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
10 Forty years long I was grieved with this generation and said, It is a people that err from the heart, who have not known my ways;
11 unto whom I swore in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.
To the Overcomer upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my cry?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest in the midst of the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee and were delivered: they trusted in thee and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the people.
7 All those that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 Turn him over to the LORD, let him deliver him, let him save him, seeing he delighted in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou hast made me wait upon thee since I was upon my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
11 ¶ Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round about.
13 They opened their mouth upon me as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may count all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the unicorns.
22 ¶ I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.
23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24 For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the poor in spirit; neither has he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard.
25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation; I will pay my vows before those that fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied: those that seek him shall praise the LORD; your heart shall live for ever.
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the LORD; and all the families of the Gentiles shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the LORD’s, and he shall have dominion over the Gentiles.
29 All those that are fat upon earth shall eat and worship; all those that go down to the dust shall bow before him; and no one can keep his own soul alive.
30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31 They shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he has done this.
To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ I waited patiently for the LORD, and he inclined unto me and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of the pit of hopelessness, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and straightened my steps.
3 And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God; many shall see it and fear and shall wait on the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man that makes the LORD his trust and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Thou hast increased, O LORD my God, thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts regarding us; they are beyond our ability to express, declare, or speak; they cannot be told.
6 ¶ Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened; burnt offering and sin offering thou hast not required.
7 Then said I, Behold, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me,
8 I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my bowels.
9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation; behold, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy truth and thy salvation; I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from the great congregation.
11 ¶ Do not withhold thy tender mercies from me, O LORD; let thy mercy and thy truth continually preserve me.
12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to see; they are more than the hairs of my head; therefore my heart fails me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; O LORD, make haste to help me.
14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my life to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.
15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee; let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.
17 When I am poor and needy; the Lord will remember me; thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
Aleph
3 ¶ I am a man that sees affliction in the rod of his wrath.
Aleph
2 He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
Aleph
3 Surely he is turned against me; he turns his hand against me all the day.
Beth
4 My flesh and my skin he has made old; he has broken my bones.
Beth
5 He has built against me and compassed me with gall and travail.
Beth
6 He has set me in dark places as those that are dead for ever.
Gimel
7 He has hedged me about that I cannot get out; he has made my chain heavy.
Gimel
8 Even when I cried and shouted, he shut out my prayer.
Gimel
9 He has enclosed my ways with hewn stone; he has made my paths crooked.
Zain
19 Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
Zain
20 My soul shall have them still in remembrance because it is humbled in me.
Zain
21 ¶ This shall go down into my heart; therefore I shall wait.
Cheth
22 It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed because his mercies never diminish.
Cheth
23 They are new every morning; great is thy faith.
Cheth
24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore I will wait for him.
Teth
25 The LORD is good unto those that wait in him, to the soul that seeks him.
Teth
26 It is good to wait quietly in the salvation of the LORD.
Teth
27 It is good for the man if he bears the yoke from his youth.
Jod
28 He shall sit alone and keep silence because he has borne it upon him.
Jod
29 He shall put his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.
Jod
30 He shall turn his cheek unto him that smites him; he shall be filled with reproach.
Caph
31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
Caph
32 But though he causes grief, yet he will also have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
Caph
33 For he does not afflict nor grieve the sons of men from his heart.
10 ¶ Of which saving health the prophets, (who prophesied of the grace that was to come in you) have enquired and searched diligently;
11 searching when and in what point of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, which announced beforehand the afflictions that were to come upon the Christ, and the glory that should follow them.
12 Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us they did administer the things, which are now announced unto you by those that have preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into.
13 ¶ Therefore, having the loins of your understanding girded with temperance, wait perfectly in the grace that is presented unto you when Jesus, the Christ, is manifested unto you,
14 as obedient sons, not conforming yourselves with the former desires that you had before in your ignorance,
15 but as he who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
16 for it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
17 And if ye invoke as Father, he who without respect of persons judges according to the work of each one, converse in fear the entire time of your sojourning here,
18 knowing that ye have been ransomed from your vain conversation (which you received from your fathers), not with corruptible things like silver and gold,
19 but with the precious blood of the Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without contamination,
20 already ordained from before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for love of you,
36 ¶ Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, where goest thou? Jesus answered him, Where I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.
37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my soul for thy sake.
38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy soul for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow until thou hast denied me three times.
38 ¶ After these things, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus.
39 Then Nicodemus came also, who at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about one hundred pounds.
40 And they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as is the manner of the Jews to bury.
41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, in which no one had yet been laid.
42 Therefore they laid Jesus there because of the Jews’ preparation day, for the sepulchre was near.
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