Book of Common Prayer
Lament During the Babylonian Exile
137 By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat, yes, we wept,
when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows[a] in her midst,
we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors asked of us
words of a song,
and our tormentors[b] asked of us jubilation,
“Sing for us from a song of Zion.”
4 How could we sing the song of Yahweh
in a foreign land?[c]
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget.[d]
6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if do not I exalt Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
7 Remember, O Yahweh, against the sons of Edom
the day of Jerusalem,
the ones who said, “Lay it bare! Lay it bare
to its foundation!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, about to be devastated,
happy shall be he who pays back to you
what you paid out to us.[e]
9 Happy shall be he who seizes
and smashes your children
against the rock.
A Prayer for National Safety
Of David.[a]
144 Blessed be Yahweh, my rock,
the one who trains my hands for battle,
my fingers for war—
2 my loyal love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield, and one in whom I take refuge,
the one who subdues peoples[b] under me.
3 O Yahweh, what is humankind that you take knowledge of him,
or the son of man that you take thought of him?
4 Humankind is like a breath,
his days like a passing shadow.
5 O Yahweh, bow the heavens and come down;
touch the mountains so that they smoke.
6 Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
dispatch your arrows and rout them.
7 Stretch out your hands from on high;
Rescue me and deliver me from many waters,
from the hand of foreigners,
8 whose mouth speaks falsely,
and their right hand is a false right hand.
9 O God, I will sing a new song to you.
With a lyre of ten strings I will sing praise to you,
10 who gives victory to kings,
who rescues David his servant
from the evil sword.
11 Rescue me and deliver me
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouth speaks falsely,
and whose right hand is a false right hand,
12 that our sons may be like plants,
full grown in their youth,
our daughters like corner pillars,
carved in the style of a palace,
13 that our granaries may be full,
providing produce of all kinds,[c]
that our sheep may produce by the thousands,
by the tens of thousands in our open fields,
14 that our cattle may be pregnant;
that there be no breach in our walls,
and no going out in exile,
and no outcry in our plazas.
15 Blessed are the people who have it thus.
Blessed are the people whose God is Yahweh.
Hope in God in the Midst of Despair
For the music director. A maskil of the sons of Korah.[a]
42 As a deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?[b]
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
while they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These I remember and I pour out my soul within me:
that I would go with the multitude;
I led them in procession to the house[c] of God,
with a voice of rejoicing and thanksgiving,
a crowd celebrating a festival.
5 Why are you in despair,[d] O my soul,
and disturbed within me?
Hope in God, because I will again praise him,
for the salvation of his presence.
6 O my God, within me my soul is in despair;[e]
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan
and the heights of Hermon, from the mountain of Mizar.
7 Deep is calling to deep
at[f] the thunder of your waterfalls.
All your breakers and your waves
have passed over me.
8 By day Yahweh commands his loyal love,
and in the night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a shattering in my bones
my oppressors taunt me,
while they say to me all day,[g]
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair,[h] O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, because I shall again praise him,
my salvation[i] and my God.
A Prayer for Rescue
43 Judge me, O God, and plead my case
against[j] an unfaithful[k] nation.
From a man of deceit and wickedness rescue me,
2 because you are the God of my refuge.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Send your light and your truth;
they shall lead[l] me.
They shall bring me to your holy mountain[m]
and to your dwelling places.
4 Then[n] I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my surpassing joy,[o]
and I will praise you with lyre,
O God, my God.
5 Why are you in despair,[p] O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, because I will again praise him,
my salvation[q] and my God.
The New Covenant
27 “Look, the days are coming,” declares[a] Yahweh, “and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humankind, and with the seed of animals.[b] 28 And then[c] as I have watched over them to pull up, and to tear down, and to annihilate, and to destroy, and to do evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares[d] Yahweh. 29 “In those days they will say no longer, ‘Parents[e] have eaten unripe fruit, and the teeth of the children are set on edge[f].’ 30 But[g] each will die because of his iniquity, everyone[h] who eats the unripe fruit, their teeth will be set on edge.[i]
31 Look, the days are coming,” declares[j] Yahweh, “and I will make[k] a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made[l] with their ancestors[m] on the day of my grasping them[n] by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them,” declares[o] Yahweh. 33 “But this is the covenant that I will make[p] with the house of Israel after those days,” declares[q] Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts[r] I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people. 34 And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor, or each one his brother, saying,[s] ‘Know Yahweh,’ for all of them will know me, from their smallest[t] and up to their greatest,”[u] declares[v] Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember.”
All Israel to be Saved
25 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own sight,[a] that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written,
“The deliverer will come out of Zion;
he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 And this is the covenant from me with them[b]
when I take away their sins.”[c]
28 With respect to the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but with respect to election, they are dearly loved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you formerly were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of the disobedience of these, 31 so also these have now been disobedient for your mercy, in order that they also may now be shown mercy. 32 For God confined them all in disobedience, in order that he could have mercy on them all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches
and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments
and how incomprehensible are his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?[d]
35 Or who has given in advance to him,
and it will be paid back to him?”[e]
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory for eternity! Amen.
Jesus Weeps
28 And when she[a] had said this, she went and called her sister Mary privately, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 So that one, when she heard it,[b] got up quickly and went to him. 30 (Now Jesus has not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha went to meet him.) 31 So the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they[c] saw Mary—that she stood up quickly and went out—followed her, because they[d] thought that she was going to the tomb in order to weep there.
32 Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and[e] saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 Then Jesus, when he saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled within himself. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews were saying, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Was not this man who opened the eyes of the blind able to do something[f] so that this man also would not have died?”
Lazarus Is Raised
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved within himself again, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying on it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the one who had died, said to him, “Lord, he is stinking already, because it has been four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his[g] eyes above and said, “Father, I give thanks to you that you hear me. 42 And I know that you always hear me, but for the sake of the crowd standing around I said it,[h] so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 And when he[i] had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The one who had died came out, his[j] feet and his[k] hands bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped with a facecloth. Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
The People Still Refuse to Believe
37 But as many signs as he had performed before them, they did not believe in him, 38 in order that the word of the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled, who said,
“Lord, who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”[a]
39 For this reason they were not able to believe, because again Isaiah said,
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
lest they see with their[b] eyes
and understand with their[c] hearts
and turn, and I heal them.”[d]
41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory, and he spoke about him.
42 Yet despite that, even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it,[e] so that they would not be expelled from the synagogue. 43 For they loved the praise of men more than praise from God.
Jesus’ Final Public Appeal
44 But Jesus cried out and said, “The one who believes in me does not believe in me, but in the one who sent me, 45 and the one who sees me sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come as a light into the world, in order that everyone who believes in me will not remain in the darkness. 47 And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them,[f] I will not judge him. For I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me[g] what I should say and what I should speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So the things that I say, just as the Father said to me, thus I say.”
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