Book of Common Prayer

¹ Beside the rivers^[a] of Babylon,
there we sat, and, yes, we wept as we remembered Zion.
² There we hung up our lyres on the willows,
³ because there our captors asked us for words of a song,
and our tormentors asked for a happy song:
“Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil?
⁵ If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget how to play music.^[b]
6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.

⁷ Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord,
against the descendants of Edom^[c] who said,
“Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”
⁸ Daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
how blessed is the one who repays you
    with the same deeds you did against us.
⁹ How blessed is the one who seizes your children
and dashes them against the cliff.

¹ Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
who trains my hands for battle,
my fingers for war.
² He shows me mercy.
He is my stronghold, my high fortress.
He is my deliverer and my shield,
so I take refuge in him.
He subdues peoples^[a] under me.

³ Lord, what is man that you notice him,
the son of man that you consider him?
⁴ Man is like a breath.^[b]
His days are like a passing shadow.

⁵ Lord, rip open your heavens and come down.
Touch the mountains so that they smoke.
⁶ Send out lightning and scatter them.
Shoot your arrows and rout them.
⁷ Reach down your hand from on high.
Rescue me and snatch me from the mighty waters,
from the hand of foreigners ⁸ whose mouths speak lies,
who raise their right hands to a false oath.^[c]

⁹ God, I will sing a new song to you.
On the ten-stringed harp I will make music to you,
¹⁰     to you who gives victory to kings,
    to you who delivers David his servant from the evil sword.

¹¹ Rescue me and snatch me from the hand of foreigners
    whose mouths speak lies,
    who raise their right hands to a false oath.

¹² Then our sons in their youth will be like full-grown plants.
Our daughters will be like corner pillars carved to decorate a palace.
¹³ Our storehouses will be filled with produce of every kind.
Our flocks will increase by thousands,
by tens of thousands in our countryside.
¹⁴ Our oxen will pull heavy loads.
There will be no breaking through our walls,
no exile into captivity,
no cry of distress in our city squares.
¹⁵ How blessed are the people for whom this is so.
How blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.

¹ Bless the Lord, O my soul.

² He wears light like a robe.

He stretches out the heavens like a canopy.
³ He lays beams on the waters to support his upper chambers.
He makes clouds his chariot.
He travels on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes his messengers^[a] winds.
His ministers are blazing fire.

⁵ He placed the earth firmly on its foundations.
It cannot be moved forever and ever.
⁶ You covered it with the deep as a garment.
The waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ At your rebuke they fled.
At the sound of your thunder they hurried away.
⁸ The waters surged up the mountains.
They went down into the valleys,^[b]
to the place that you prepared for them.
⁹ You set a boundary that they cannot cross.
They will not return to cover the earth.
¹⁰ He makes springs flow into streams
    that run between the mountains.
¹¹ They give water to every wild animal.
The wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky live by the streams.
From among the branches they send out their song.
¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.
The earth is filled with the fruit he produces.
¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants that people use^[c] to produce food from the earth.
¹⁵ Also wine that makes people’s hearts glad,
olive oil to make their face shine,
and bread that sustains their lives.^[d]
16 The trees of the Lord have everything they need.
He planted the cedars of Lebanon,
¹⁷     where birds make their nests.
The stork has its home in the fir trees.
¹⁸ The high mountains are for the wild goats.
The crags are a refuge for the rock badgers.

¹⁹ The moon marks off the months and seasons.
The sun knows when to go down.
²⁰ You bring darkness, and it becomes night.
During it all the animals in the forest move about.
²¹ The young lions roar for their prey.
They are seeking their food from God.
²² The sun rises, and they gather together.
They return to their dens and lie down.
²³ Man goes out to his work.
He continues his labor until evening.

²⁴ How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ Here is the sea, great and very wide.
In it creatures swarm beyond number—
living things, the small with the large.
²⁶ There the ships go back and forth,
and the leviathan^[e] that you formed to play in it.
²⁷ All of them wait hopefully for you to give them their food in its time.
²⁸ You give it to them. They gather it up.
You open your hand. They are satisfied with good things.
²⁹ You hide your face. They are terrified.
You take away their breath.
They breathe their last and return to their dust.
³⁰ You send your Spirit—they are created.
You renew the face of the earth.

³¹ May the glory of the Lord endure forever.
May the Lord rejoice in his works.
³² He looks at the earth and it trembles.
He touches the mountains and they smoke.
³³ I will sing to the Lord throughout my life.
I will make music to my God as long as I last.
³⁴ May my meditation be pleasing to him.
I will rejoice in the Lord.
³⁵ May sinners come to an end on the earth,
and the wicked—may they be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Praise the Lord!^[f]

²² The Lord possessed^[a] me at the beginning of his way,
before his works of long ago.
²³ From eternity I was appointed,
from the beginning, from before the origin of the earth.
²⁴ When there were no deep waters, I was brought forth,^[b]
when there were no springs filled with water.
²⁵ Before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
²⁶ when he had not yet made land or fields
or the first dust of the world.
²⁷ When he established the heavens, I was there.
When he drew the horizon around the surface of the deep,
²⁸ when he placed the clouds in the sky above,
when the fountains of the deep gushed out,
²⁹ when he established his decree for the sea,
so that the waters could not go beyond the limit set by his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
³⁰ I was beside him as a master craftsman.
I was his joy day after day.
I rejoiced in his presence at all times.
³¹ I rejoiced in his inhabited world.
I was delighted with the children of Adam.^[c]

³² So now, you children, listen to me,
because those who keep my ways are blessed.
³³ Listen to discipline and become wise.
Do not neglect it.
³⁴ How blessed is the person who listens to me,
so that he can watch at my doors day after day,
so that he can stand guard beside my front door,
³⁵ because whoever finds me finds life,
and he obtains favor from the Lord,
³⁶ but whoever sins against me harms himself.
All who hate me love death.