Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 113

¹ Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!) Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!

² Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever

³ From the rising of the sun to the going down of it and from east to west, the name of the Lord is to be praised!

⁴ The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens!

⁵ Who is like the Lord our God, Who has His seat on high,

⁶ Who humbles Himself to regard the heavens and the earth!^(A)

⁷ [The Lord] raises the poor out of the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap and the dung hill,

⁸ That He may seat them with princes, even with the princes of His people.

⁹ He makes the barren woman to be a homemaker and a joyful mother of [spiritual] children. Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)

Psalm 122

A Song of ^[a]Ascents. Of David.

¹ I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord!^(A)

² Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!—

³ Jerusalem, which is built as a city that is compacted together—

⁴ To which the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed and as a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

⁵ For there the thrones of judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they prosper who love you [the Holy City]!

⁷ May peace be within your walls and prosperity within your palaces!

⁸ For my brethren and companions’ sake, I will now say, Peace be within you!

⁹ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek, inquire for, and require your good.

²⁰ Hannah became pregnant and in due time bore a son and named him Samuel [heard of God], Because, she said, I have asked him of the Lord.

²¹ And Elkanah and all his house went up to offer to the Lord the yearly sacrifice and pay his vow.

²² But Hannah did not go, for she said to her husband, I will not go until the child is weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord and remain there as long as he lives.

²³ Elkanah her husband said to her, Do what seems best to you. Wait until you have weaned him; only may the Lord establish His word. So Hannah remained and nursed her son until she weaned him.

²⁴ When she had ^[a]weaned him, she took him with her, with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin bottle of wine [to pour over the burnt offering for a sweet odor], and brought Samuel to the Lord’s house in Shiloh. The child was growing.

²⁵ Then they slew the bull, and brought the child to Eli.

²⁶ Hannah said, Oh, my lord! As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood by you here praying to the Lord.

²⁷ For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted my petition made to Him.

²⁸ Therefore I have given him to the Lord; as long as he lives he is given to the Lord. And they worshiped the Lord there.

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

¹⁵ For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!

¹⁶ The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God.

¹⁷ And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory.

¹⁸ [But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and ^[a]for us and ^[b]conferred on us!

¹⁹ For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship].

²⁰ For the creation (nature) was subjected to ^[c]frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope^(A)

²¹ That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children.