Book of Common Prayer

¹ By the rivers of Babylon,
we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
³ For there our captors demanded songs
and our tormentors asked for joy:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
⁴ How can we sing a song of Adonai in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither.
⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I cease to remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy.
⁷ Remember, Adonai, the children of Edom,
what they said on the day Jerusalem fell:
“Strip her, strip her to her very foundation!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, the devastated one,
happy is the one who repays you
as you have paid us.
⁹ Happy is the one who seizes your little ones
and dashes them upon the rock.

¹ Of David.
Blessed be Adonai my Rock—
who trains my hands for war,
my fingers for battle.
² He is my lovingkindness, my fortress,
my strong tower, and my deliverer,
my shield, in whom I take refuge,
who subdues my people under me.
³ Adonai, what is man, that You take note of him?
Or the son of man, that You consider him?^[a]
4 Man is like a breath—
his days are like a passing shadow.
⁵ Adonai, part Your heavens and come down.
Touch the mountains, so they smoke.
⁶ Flash forth lightning and scatter them.
Send out Your arrows and confuse them.
⁷ Stretch forth Your hands from on high.
Snatch me, deliver me out of deep waters,
    out of the hand of foreigners,
⁸ whose mouth speaks falsehood,
whose right hand is a right hand of deceit.
⁹ God, I sing a new song to You, on a ten-string harp
I sing praises to You—
¹⁰ who gives salvation to kings,
who rescues Your servant David from the evil sword.
¹¹ Snatch me, deliver me
out of the hand of foreigners,
whose mouth speaks falsehood,
whose right hand is a right hand of deceit.
¹² Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth,
our daughters like corner pillars carved for the construction of a palace.
¹³ Our storehouses are full,
supplying every kind of produce.
Our flocks increase by thousands
and ten thousands in our fields.
¹⁴ Our oxen bear a heavy load.
There is no breach,
no going into captivity,
no outcry in our streets.
¹⁵ Happy are such a people!
Blessed are the people whose God is Adonai!

¹ Bless Adonai, O my soul.
Adonai my God, You are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty—
² wrapping Yourself in light as a robe,
stretching out heaven like a curtain,
³ laying beams for His upper rooms in waters,
    making the clouds His chariot,
    walking on the wings of the wind,
⁴ making His angels spirits,
    His servants a flaming fire.
⁵ He set the earth upon its foundations,
so it should not totter forever and ever.
⁶ You covered it with the deep as with a garment—
    the waters standing above the mountains.
⁷ At Your rebuke the waters fled.
At the sound of Your thunder they hurried away.
⁸ The waters go up the mountains,
then down to the valleys—
to the place that You assigned to them.
⁹ You set a boundary to the waters
    that they may not cross over,
so they may not return to cover the earth.
¹⁰ You make springs gush into the valleys.
They run between the mountains.
¹¹ They give drink to all the beasts of the field—
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² Beside them the birds of the sky dwell—
they sing among the branches.
¹³ He waters mountains from His upper rooms.
The earth is full of the fruit of Your labors.
¹⁴ He causes grass to spring up for the cattle,
and vegetation for man to cultivate,
    to bring forth bread out of the earth,
¹⁵ wine that makes man’s heart glad,
    oil to make his face shine,
    and bread that sustains man’s heart.
¹⁶ The trees of Adonai are satisfied,
the cedars of Lebanon that He planted,
¹⁷ where birds make their nests,
and the stork—her home is the fir trees.
¹⁸ The high mountains are for wild goats,
the cliffs a refuge for rock badgers.

²² “Adonai brought me forth,
the first of His way,
before His works of old.
²³ From eternity I was appointed
from the beginning, before the world began.
²⁴ When there were no depths, I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains abounding with water.
²⁵ Before the mountains were shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth.
²⁶ He had not yet made the land,
the fields, or the first dust of the earth.
²⁷ When He set the heavens in place, I was there.
When He inscribed the horizon on the face of the ocean,
²⁸ when He established the skies above,
when He securely fixed the fountains of the deep,
²⁹ when He set the boundaries for the sea,
so that the waters never transgress His command,
when He laid out earth’s foundations—
³⁰ then I was the craftsman beside Him,
I was His daily delight, always rejoicing before Him,
³¹ rejoicing in His whole world,
    and delighting in mankind.