Book of Common Prayer
137 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.
Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows in that land,
we hung up our harps.
3 For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs.
Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill.
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don’t remember you,
if I don’t prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem,
who said, “Raze it!
Raze it even to its foundation!”
8 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
he will be happy who repays you,
as you have done to us.
9 Happy shall he be,
who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.
By David.
144 Blessed be Yahweh, my rock,
who trains my hands to war,
and my fingers to battle—
2 my loving kindness, my fortress,
my high tower, my deliverer,
my shield, and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues my people under me.
3 Yahweh, what is man, that you care for him?
Or the son of man, that you think of him?
4 Man is like a breath.
His days are like a shadow that passes away.
5 Part your heavens, Yahweh, and come down.
Touch the mountains, and they will smoke.
6 Throw out lightning, and scatter them.
Send out your arrows, and rout them.
7 Stretch out your hand from above,
rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters,
out of the hands of foreigners,
8 whose mouths speak deceit,
whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
9 I will sing a new song to you, God.
On a ten-stringed lyre, I will sing praises to you.
10 You are he who gives salvation to kings,
who rescues David, his servant, from the deadly sword.
11 Rescue me, and deliver me out of the hands of foreigners,
whose mouths speak deceit,
whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
12 Then our sons will be like well-nurtured plants,
our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.
13 Our barns are full, filled with all kinds of provision.
Our sheep produce thousands and ten thousands in our fields.
14 Our oxen will pull heavy loads.
There is no breaking in, and no going away,
and no outcry in our streets.
15 Happy are the people who are in such a situation.
Happy are the people whose God is Yahweh.
BOOK 2
For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by the sons of Korah.
42 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
so my soul pants after you, God.[a]
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me,
how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house,
with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.
5 Why are you in despair, my soul?
Why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God!
For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.
6 My God, my soul is in despair within me.
Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls.
All your waves and your billows have swept over me.
8 Yahweh[b] will command his loving kindness in the daytime.
In the night his song shall be with me:
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me,
while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair, my soul?
Why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God! For I shall still praise him,
the saving help of my countenance, and my God.
43 Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.
Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.
2 For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Oh, send out your light and your truth.
Let them lead me.
Let them bring me to your holy hill,
to your tents.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my exceeding joy.
I will praise you on the harp, God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair, my soul?
Why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God!
For I shall still praise him:
my Savior, my helper, and my God.
27 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of animal. 28 It will happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” says Yahweh. 29 “In those days they will say no more,
“‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 But everyone will die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.
31 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh. 33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh:
“I will put my law in their inward parts,
and I will write it in their heart.
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
34 They will no longer each teach his neighbor,
and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’
for they will all know me,
from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh,
“for I will forgive their iniquity,
and I will remember their sin no more.”
25 For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers,[a] of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written,
“There will come out of Zion the Deliverer,
and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 This is my covenant with them,
when I will take away their sins.”(A)
28 Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32 For God has bound all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
33 Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”(B)
35 “Or who has first given to him,
and it will be repaid to him again?”(C)
36 For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
28 When she had said this, she went away and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling you.”
29 When she heard this, she arose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha met him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.”
32 Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?”
They told him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Jesus wept.
36 The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37 Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”
41 So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.[a] Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. 42 I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
37 But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they didn’t believe in him, 38 that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke:
“Lord, who has believed our report?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”(A)
39 For this cause they couldn’t believe, for Isaiah said again:
40 “He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart,
lest they should see with their eyes,
and perceive with their heart,
and would turn,
and I would heal them.”(B)
41 Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory, and spoke of him. (C) 42 Nevertheless, even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they didn’t confess it, so that they wouldn’t be put out of the synagogue, 43 for they loved men’s praise more than God’s praise.
44 Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. 45 He who sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness. 47 If anyone listens to my sayings and doesn’t believe, I don’t judge him. For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 He who rejects me, and doesn’t receive my sayings, has one who judges him. The word that I spoke will judge him in the last day. 49 For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said to me, so I speak.”
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