Book of Common Prayer
97 Oh, how love I Your law! It is my meditation all the day.(A)
98 You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies, for [Your words] are ever before me.
99 I have better understanding and deeper insight than all my teachers, because Your testimonies are my meditation.(B)
100 I understand more than the aged, because I keep Your precepts [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].
101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your word [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].(C)
102 I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.
103 How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!(D)
104 Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.(E)
106 I have sworn [an oath] and have confirmed it, that I will keep Your righteous ordinances [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].(F)
107 I am sorely afflicted; renew and quicken me [give me life], O Lord, according to Your word!
108 Accept, I beseech You, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me Your ordinances.(G)
109 My life is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget Your law.
110 The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I do not stray from Your precepts.
111 Your testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.(H)
112 I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes forever, even to the end.
113 I hate the thoughts of undecided [in religion], double-minded people, but Your law do I love.
114 You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your word.(I)
115 Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].(J)
116 Uphold me according to Your promise, that I may live; and let me not be put to shame in my hope!(K)
117 Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for Your statutes continually!
118 You spurn and set at nought all those who stray from Your statutes, for their own lying deceives them and their tricks are in vain.
119 You put away and count as dross all the wicked of the earth [for there is no true metal in them]; therefore I love Your testimonies.
120 My flesh trembles and shudders for fear and reverential, worshipful awe of You, and I am afraid and in dread of Your judgments.
Psalm 81
To the Chief Musician; set to Philistine lute, or [possibly] a particular Gittite tune. [A Psalm] of Asaph.
1 Sing aloud to God our Strength! Shout for joy to the God of Jacob!
2 Raise a song, sound the timbrel, the sweet lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.
4 For this is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 This He ordained in Joseph [the [a]savior] for a testimony when He went out over the land of Egypt. The speech of One Whom I knew not did I hear [saying],
6 I removed his shoulder from the burden; his hands were freed from the basket.
7 You called in distress and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!(A)
8 Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you—O Israel, if you would listen to Me!
9 There shall no strange god be among you, neither shall you worship any alien god.
10 I am the Lord your God, Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
11 But My people would not hearken to My voice, and Israel would have none of Me.
12 So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust and let them go after their own stubborn will, that they might follow their own counsels.(B)
13 Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways!
14 Speedily then I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their adversaries.
15 [Had Israel listened to Me in Egypt, then] those who hated the Lord would have come cringing before Him, and their defeat would have lasted forever.
16 [God] would feed [Israel now] also with the finest of the wheat; and with honey out of the rock would I satisfy you.
Psalm 82
A Psalm of Asaph.
1 God stands in the assembly [of the representatives] of God; in the midst of the magistrates or judges He gives judgment [as] among the gods.
2 How long will you [magistrates or judges] judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
3 Do justice to the weak (poor) and fatherless; maintain the rights of the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy; rescue them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 [The magistrates and judges] know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in the darkness [of complacent satisfaction]; all the foundations of the earth [the fundamental principles upon which rests the administration of justice] are shaking.
6 I said, You are gods [since you judge on My behalf, as My representatives]; indeed, all of you are children of the Most High.(C)
7 But you shall die as men and fall as one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth! For to You belong all the nations.(D)
6 On that night the king could not sleep; and he ordered that the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, be brought, and they were read before the king.
2 And it was found written there how Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s attendants who guarded the door, who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.
3 And the king said, What honor or distinction has been given Mordecai for this? Then the king’s servants who ministered to him said, Nothing has been done for him.
4 The king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman had just come into the outer court of the king’s palace to ask the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows he had prepared for him.
5 And the king’s servants said to him, Behold, Haman is standing in the court. And the king said, Let him come in.
6 So Haman came in. And the king said to him, What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor? Now Haman said to himself, To whom would the king delight to do honor more than to me?
7 And Haman said to the king, For the man whom the king delights to honor,
8 Let royal apparel be brought which the king has worn and the horse which the king has ridden, and a royal crown be set on his head.
9 And let the apparel and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes. Let him array the man whom the king delights to honor, and conduct him on horseback through the open square of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
10 Then the king said to Haman, Make haste and take the apparel and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have spoken.
11 Then Haman took the apparel and the horse and conducted Mordecai on horseback through the open square of the city, proclaiming before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
12 Then Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. But Haman hastened to his house, mourning and having his head covered.
13 And Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the offspring of the Jews, you cannot prevail against him, but shall surely fall before him.
14 While they were yet talking with him, the king’s attendants came and hastily brought Haman to the dinner that Esther had prepared.
19 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul went through the upper inland districts and came down to Ephesus. There he found some disciples.
2 And he asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed [on Jesus as the Christ]? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
3 And he asked, Into what [baptism] then were you baptized? They said, Into John’s baptism.
4 And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, continually telling the people that they should believe in the One Who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus [having a conviction full of joyful trust that He is Christ, the Messiah, and being obedient to Him].
5 On hearing this they were baptized [again, this time] in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And as Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke in [foreign, unknown] tongues (languages) and prophesied.
7 There were about twelve of them in all.
8 And he went into the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, persuading and arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God.
9 But when some became more and more stubborn (hardened and unbelieving), discrediting and reviling and speaking evil of the Way [of the Lord] before the congregation, he separated himself from them, taking the disciples with him, and went on holding daily discussions in the lecture room of Tyrannus from about ten o’clock till three.
10 This continued for two years, so that all the inhabitants of [the province of] Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, heard the Word of the Lord [concerning the [a]attainment through Christ of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God].
4 Then Jesus, full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led in [by] the [Holy] Spirit
2 For (during) forty days in the wilderness (desert), where He was tempted ([a]tried, tested exceedingly) by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they were completed, He was hungry.(A)
3 Then the devil said to Him, If You are the Son of God, order this stone to turn into a loaf [of bread].
4 And Jesus replied to him, It is written, Man shall not live and be sustained by (on) bread alone [b]but by every word and expression of God.(B)
5 Then the devil took Him up to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time [[c]in the twinkling of an eye].
6 And he said to Him, To You I will give all this power and authority and their glory (all their magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, and grace), for it has been turned over to me, and I give it to whomever I will.
7 Therefore if You will do homage to and worship me [[d]just once], it shall all be Yours.
8 And Jesus replied to him, [e]Get behind Me, Satan! It is written, You shall do homage to and worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.(C)
9 Then he took Him to Jerusalem and set Him on [f]a gable of the temple, and said to Him, If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down from here;
10 For it is written, He will give His angels charge over you to guard and watch over you closely and carefully;
11 And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.(D)
12 And Jesus replied to him, [The Scripture] says, You shall not tempt (try, [g]test exceedingly) the Lord your God.(E)
13 And when the devil had ended every [the complete cycle of] temptation, he [temporarily] left Him [that is, [h]stood off from Him] until another more opportune and favorable time.
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