Book of Common Prayer
Prayer for Israel’s Restoration
To the choirmaster: according to Lilies. A Testimony of Asaph. A Psalm.
80 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
thou who leadest Joseph like a flock!
Thou who art enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
2 before E′phraim and Benjamin and Manas′seh!
Stir up thy might,
and come to save us!
3 Restore us, O God;
let thy face shine, that we may be saved!
4 O Lord God of hosts,
how long wilt thou be angry with thy people’s prayers?
5 Thou hast fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in full measure.
6 Thou dost make us the scorn[a] of our neighbors;
and our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
let thy face shine, that we may be saved!
8 Thou didst bring a vine out of Egypt;
thou didst drive out the nations and plant it.
9 Thou didst clear the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches;
11 it sent out its branches to the sea,
and its shoots to the River.
12 Why then hast thou broken down its walls,
so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it,
and all that move in the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts!
Look down from heaven, and see;
have regard for this vine,
15 the stock which thy right hand planted.[b]
16 They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down;
may they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance!
17 But let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand,
the son of man whom thou hast made strong for thyself!
18 Then we will never turn back from thee;
give us life, and we will call on thy name!
19 Restore us, O Lord God of hosts!
let thy face shine, that we may be saved!
God’s Mighty Deeds Recalled
To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.
77 I cry aloud to God,
aloud to God, that he may hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
my soul refuses to be comforted.
3 I think of God, and I moan;
I meditate, and my spirit faints.Selah
4 Thou dost hold my eyelids from closing;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5 I consider the days of old,
I remember the years long ago.
6 I commune[a] with my heart in the night;
I meditate and search my spirit:[b]
7 “Will the Lord spurn for ever,
and never again be favorable?
8 Has his steadfast love for ever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”Selah
10 And I say, “It is my grief
that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”
11 I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
yea, I will remember thy wonders of old.
12 I will meditate on all thy work,
and muse on thy mighty deeds.
13 Thy way, O God, is holy.
What god is great like our God?
14 Thou art the God who workest wonders,
who hast manifested thy might among the peoples.
15 Thou didst with thy arm redeem thy people,
the sons of Jacob and Joseph.Selah
16 When the waters saw thee, O God,
when the waters saw thee, they were afraid,
yea, the deep trembled.
17 The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
thy arrows flashed on every side.
18 The crash of thy thunder was in the whirlwind;
thy lightnings lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
19 Thy way was through the sea,
thy path through the great waters;
yet thy footprints were unseen.
20 Thou didst lead thy people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Plea for Mercy for Jerusalem
A Psalm of Asaph.
79 O God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance;
they have defiled thy holy temple;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
2 They have given the bodies of thy servants
to the birds of the air for food,
the flesh of thy saints to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water
round about Jerusalem,
and there was none to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those round about us.
5 How long, O Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever?
Will thy jealous wrath burn like fire?
6 Pour out thy anger on the nations
that do not know thee,
and on the kingdoms
that do not call on thy name!
7 For they have devoured Jacob,
and laid waste his habitation.
8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our forefathers;
let thy compassion come speedily to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of thy name;
deliver us, and forgive our sins,
for thy name’s sake!
10 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of thy servants
be known among the nations before our eyes!
11 Let the groans of the prisoners come before thee;
according to thy great power preserve those doomed to die!
12 Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors
the taunts with which they have taunted thee, O Lord!
13 Then we thy people, the flock of thy pasture,
will give thanks to thee for ever;
from generation to generation we will recount thy praise.
National Confession
9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth upon their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day; for another fourth of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God. 4 Upon the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kad′mi-el, Shebani′ah, Bunni, Sherebi′ah, Bani, and Chena′ni; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kad′miel, Bani, Hashabnei′ah, Sherebi′ah, Hodi′ah, Shebani′ah, and Pethahi′ah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be thy glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise.”
6 And Ezra said:[a] “Thou art the Lord, thou alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and thou preservest all of them; and the host of heaven worships thee. 7 Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abram and bring him forth out of Ur of the Chalde′ans and give him the name Abraham; 8 and thou didst find his heart faithful before thee, and didst make with him the covenant to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Per′izzite, the Jeb′usite, and the Gir′gashite; and thou hast fulfilled thy promise, for thou art righteous.
9 “And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and hear their cry at the Red Sea, 10 and didst perform signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for thou knewest that they acted insolently against our fathers; and thou didst get thee a name, as it is to this day. 11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land; and thou didst cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters. 12 By a pillar of cloud thou didst lead them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. 13 Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai, and speak with them from heaven and give them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 and thou didst make known to them thy holy sabbath and command them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses thy servant. 15 Thou didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth water for them from the rock for their thirst, and thou didst tell them to go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.
16 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey thy commandments; 17 they refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders which thou didst perform among them; but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their bondage in Egypt. But thou art a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and didst not forsake them. 18 Even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, 19 thou in thy great mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud which led them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night which lighted for them the way by which they should go. 20 Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them, and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. 21 Forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. 22 And thou didst give them kingdoms and peoples, and didst allot to them every corner; so they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. 23 Thou didst multiply their descendants as the stars of heaven, and thou didst bring them into the land which thou hadst told their fathers to enter and possess. 24 So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and thou didst subdue before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and didst give them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. 25 And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance; so they ate, and were filled and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
The Fall of Babylon
18 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority; and the earth was made bright with his splendor. 2 And he called out with a mighty voice,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
a haunt of every foul and hateful bird;
3 for all nations have drunk[a] the wine of her impure passion,
and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Render to her as she herself has rendered,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double draught for her in the cup she mixed.
7 As she glorified herself and played the wanton,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning.
Since in her heart she says, ‘A queen I sit,
I am no widow, mourning I shall never see,’
8 so shall her plagues come in a single day,
pestilence and mourning and famine,
and she shall be burned with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”
The Tradition of the Elders
15 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God,[a] he need not honor his father.’[b] 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word[c] of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”
Things That Defile
10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” 13 He answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” 15 But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on?[d] 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1965, 1966 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.