Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Morning Prayer

David sang this when he ran away from his son Absalom.

Solomon’s Prayer

²² Then Solomon stood facing the Lord’s altar, and all the Israelites were standing behind him. He spread out his hands toward the sky ²³ and said:

“Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below. You keep your agreement of love with your servants who truly follow you. ²⁴ You have kept the promise you made to your servant David, my father. You spoke it with your own mouth and finished it with your hands today. ²⁵ Now Lord, God of Israel, keep the promise you made to your servant David, my father. You said, ‘If your sons are careful to obey me as you have obeyed me, there will always be someone from your family ruling Israel.’ ²⁶ Now, God of Israel, please continue to keep that promise you made to your servant David, my father.

²⁷ “But, God, can you really live here on the earth? The sky and the highest place in heaven cannot contain you. Surely this house which I have built cannot contain you. ²⁸ But please listen to my prayer and my request, because I am your servant. Lord my God, hear this prayer your servant prays to you today. ²⁹ Night and day please watch over this Temple where you have said, ‘I will be worshiped there.’ Hear the prayer I pray facing this Temple. ³⁰ Hear my prayers and the prayers of your people Israel when we pray facing this place. Hear from your home in heaven, and when you hear, forgive us.

⁹ “You must be careful. People will arrest you and take you to court and beat you in their synagogues. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors, to tell them about me. This will happen to you because you follow me. ¹⁰ But before these things happen, the Good News must be told to all people. ¹¹ When you are arrested and judged, don’t worry ahead of time about what you should say. Say whatever is given you to say at that time, because it will not really be you speaking; it will be the Holy Spirit.

¹² “Brothers will give their own brothers to be killed, and fathers will give their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and cause them to be put to death. ¹³ All people will hate you because you follow me, but those people who keep their faith until the end will be saved.

¹⁴ “You will see ‘a blasphemous object that brings destruction’^[a] standing where it should not be.” (You who read this should understand what it means.) “At that time, the people in Judea should run away to the mountains. ¹⁵ If people are on the roofs^[b] of their houses, they must not go down or go inside to get anything out of their houses. ¹⁶ If people are in the fields, they must not go back to get their coats. ¹⁷ At that time, how terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or have nursing babies! ¹⁸ Pray that these things will not happen in winter, ¹⁹ because those days will be full of trouble. There will be more trouble than there has ever been since the beginning, when God made the world, until now, and nothing as bad will ever happen again. ²⁰ God has decided to make that terrible time short. Otherwise, no one would go on living. But God will make that time short to help the people he has chosen. ²¹ At that time, someone might say to you, ‘Look, there is the Christ!’ Or another person might say, ‘There he is!’ But don’t believe them. ²² False Christs and false prophets will come and perform great wonders and miracles. They will try to fool even the people God has chosen, if that is possible. ²³ So be careful. I have warned you about all this before it happens.