DAILY OFFICE

Daily scripture readings from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer

Thursday, March 14

Today's readings include passages from Psalms, Exodus, 1 Corinthians and Mark.

Psalm 69

1 Save me, O God!     For the waters have come up to my neck. 2 I sink in deep mire,     where there is no foothold;     I have come into deep waters,     and the flood sweeps over me. 3 I am weary with my crying out;     my throat is parched.     My eyes grow dim     with waiting for my God. 4 More in number than the hairs of my head     are those who hate me without cause;     mighty are those who would destroy me,     those who attack me with lies.     What I did not steal     must I now restore? 5 O God, you know my folly;     the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. 6 Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,     O Lord God of hosts;     let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,     O God of Israel. 7 For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,     that dishonor has covered my face. 8 I have become a stranger to my brothers,     an alien to my mother's sons. 9 For zeal for your house has consumed me,     and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. 10 When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,     it became my reproach. 11 When I made sackcloth my clothing,     I became a byword to them. 12 I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,     and the drunkards make songs about me. 13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.     At an acceptable time, O God,     in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness. 14 Deliver me     from sinking in the mire;     let me be delivered from my enemies     and from the deep waters. 15 Let not the flood sweep over me,     or the deep swallow me up,     or the pit close its mouth over me. 16 Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;     according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. 17 Hide not your face from your servant;     for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. 18 Draw near to my soul, redeem me;     ransom me because of my enemies! 19 You know my reproach,     and my shame and my dishonor;     my foes are all known to you. 20 Reproaches have broken my heart,     so that I am in despair.     I looked for pity, but there was none,     and for comforters, but I found none. 21 They gave me poison for food,     and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. 22 Let their own table before them become a snare;     and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. 23 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see,     and make their loins tremble continually. 24 Pour out your indignation upon them,     and let your burning anger overtake them. 25 May their camp be a desolation;     let no one dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute him whom you have struck down,     and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. 27 Add to them punishment upon punishment;     may they have no acquittal from you. 28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;     let them not be enrolled among the righteous. 29 But I am afflicted and in pain;     let your salvation, O God, set me on high! 30 I will praise the name of God with a song;     I will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31 This will please the Lord more than an ox     or a bull with horns and hoofs. 32 When the humble see it they will be glad;     you who seek God, let your hearts revive. 33 For the Lord hears the needy     and does not despise his own people who are prisoners. 34 Let heaven and earth praise him,     the seas and everything that moves in them. 35 For God will save Zion     and build up the cities of Judah,     and people shall dwell there and possess it; 36 the offspring of his servants shall inherit it,     and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

Psalm 73

1 Truly God is good to Israel,     to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,     my steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 For they have no pangs until death;     their bodies are fat and sleek. 5 They are not in trouble as others are;     they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace;     violence covers them as a garment. 7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;     their hearts overflow with follies. 8 They scoff and speak with malice;     loftily they threaten oppression. 9 They set their mouths against the heavens,     and their tongue struts through the earth. 10 Therefore his people turn back to them,     and find no fault in them. 11 And they say, “How can God know?     Is there knowledge in the Most High?” 12 Behold, these are the wicked;     always at ease, they increase in riches. 13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean     and washed my hands in innocence. 14 For all the day long I have been stricken     and rebuked every morning. 15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”     I would have betrayed the generation of your children. 16 But when I thought how to understand this,     it seemed to me a wearisome task, 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;     then I discerned their end. 18 Truly you set them in slippery places;     you make them fall to ruin. 19 How they are destroyed in a moment,     swept away utterly by terrors! 20 Like a dream when one awakes,     O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. 21 When my soul was embittered,     when I was pricked in heart, 22 I was brutish and ignorant;     I was like a beast toward you. 23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;     you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,     and afterward you will receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you?     And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail,     but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;     you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. 28 But for me it is good to be near God;     I have made the Lord God my refuge,     that I may tell of all your works.

Exodus 1:6-22

6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. 8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. 15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

1 Corinthians 12:12-26

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Mark 8:27-9:1

27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” 9:1 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.