Lord, how many adversaries I have!
how many there are who rise up against me!
how many there are who say of me,
“There is no help for him in his God.”
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me;
you are my glory, the one who lifts up my head.

I call aloud upon the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy hill;
I lie down and go to sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I do not fear the multitudes of people
who set themselves against me all around.

Rise up, O Lord; set me free, O my God;
surely, you will strike all my enemies across the face,
you will break the teeth of the wicked.
Deliverance belongs to the Lord.
Your blessing be upon your people!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

While dark and gloomy night conceals
the colors of all things on earth,
we praise and humbly beg you, Lord,
who judge with justice every heart.

Remove from us our sins and faults
and wash away all filth of mind;
bestow your grace on us, O Christ,
to ward off all reproach and blame.

Behold the dull and worldy soul,
weighed down in sin and stung by guilt;
and yet, Redeemer, she desires
to turn from gloom and seek your face.

Drive far from us the darkened cloud
that grips the inmost heart and soul,
that we may find true peace and joy,
established in your blessed light.

O Christ, to you, most loving King,
and to the Father glory be,
one with the Spirit Paraclete,
from age to age for evermore. Amen.

O God, why have you utterly cast us off?
why is your wrath so hot against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember your congregation that you purchased long ago,
the tribe you redeemed to be your inheritance,
and Mount Zion where you dwell.

Turn your steps toward the endless ruins;
the enemy has laid waste everything in your sanctuary.
Your adversaries roared in your holy place;
they set up their banners as tokens of victory.

They were like men coming up with axes to a grove of trees;
they broke down all your carved work with hatchets and hammers.
They set fire to your holy place;
they defiled the dwelling-place of your Name
and razed it to the ground.

They said to themselves, “Let us destroy them altogether.”
They burned down all the meeting-places of God in the land.
There are no signs for us to see;
there is no prophet left;
there is not one among us who knows how long.

How long, O God, will the adversary scoff?
will the enemy blaspheme your name for ever?
Why do you draw back your hand?
why is your right hand hidden in your bosom?

Yet God is my King from ancient times,
victorious in the midst of the earth.
You divided the sea by your might
and shattered the heads of the dragons upon the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave him to the people of the desert for food.
You split open spring and torrent;
you dried up ever-flowing rivers.

Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you established the moon and the sun.
You fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you made both summer and winter.

Remember, O Lord, how the enemy scoffed,
how a foolish people despised your Name.
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
never forget the lives of your poor.

Look upon your covenant;
the dark places of the earth are haunts of violence.
Let not the oppressed turn away ashamed;
let the poor and needy praise your Name.

Arise, O God, maintain your cause;
remember how fools revile you all day long.
Forget not the clamor of your adversaries,
the unending tumult of those who rise up against you.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

We give you thanks, O God, we give you thanks,
calling upon your Name and declaring all your wonderful deeds.

“I will appoint a time,” says God;
“I will judge with equity.
Though the earth and all its inhabitants are quaking,
I will make its pillars fast.

“I will say to the boasters, ‘Boast no more,’
and to the wicked, ‘Do not toss your horns;
do not toss your horns so high,
nor speak with a proud neck.’”

For judgment is neither from the east nor from the west,
nor yet from the wilderness or the mountains.
It is God who judges;
he puts down one and lifts up another.

For in the Lord’s hand there is a cup,
full of spiced and foaming wine, which he pours out,
and all the wicked of the earth shall drink and drain the dregs.

But I will rejoice for ever;
I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
He shall break off all the horns of the wicked;
but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

I will cry aloud to God;
I will cry aloud, and he will hear me.

In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord;
my hands were stretched out by night and did not tire;
I refused to be comforted.
I think of God, I am restless,
I ponder, and my spirit faints.

You will not let my eyelids close;
I am troubled and I cannot speak.
I consider the days of old;
I remember the years long past;
I commune with my heart in the night;
I ponder and search my mind.

Will the Lord cast me off for ever?
will he no more show his favor?
Has his loving-kindness come to an end for ever?
has his promise failed for evermore?
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
has he, in his anger, withheld his compassion?

And I said, “My grief is this:
the right hand of the Most High has lost its power.”
I will remember the works of the Lord,
and call to mind your wonders of old time.
I will meditate on all your acts
and ponder your mighty deeds.

Your way, O God, is holy;
who is so great a god as our God?
You are the God who works wonders
and have declared your power among the peoples.
By your strength you have redeemed your people,
the children of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw you, O God;
the waters saw you and trembled;
the very depths were shaken.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies thundered;
your arrows flashed to and fro;

The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightnings lit up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was in the sea,
and your paths in the great waters,
yet your footsteps were not seen.

You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

Hear my teaching, O my people;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will declare the mysteries of ancient times.

That which we have heard and known,
and what our forefathers have told us,
we will not hide from their children.
We will recount to generations to come
the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the Lord,
and the wonderful works he has done.

He gave his decrees to Jacob
and established a law for Israel,
which he commanded them to teach their children;
That the generations to come might know,
and the children yet unborn;
that they in their turn might tell it to their children;

So that they might put their trust in God,
and not forget the deeds of God,
but keep his commandments;

And not be like their forefathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

The people of Ephraim, armed with the bow,
turned back in the day of battle;
They did not keep the covenant of God,
and refused to walk in his law;

They forgot what he had done,
and the wonders he had shown them.
He worked marvels in the sight of their forefathers,
in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

He split open the sea and let them pass through;
he made the waters stand up like walls.
He led them with a cloud by day,
and all the night through with a glow of fire.

He split the hard rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as from the great deep.
He brought streams out of the cliff,
and the waters gushed out like rivers.

But they went on sinning against him,
rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

They tested God in their hearts,
demanding food for their craving.
They railed against God and said,
“Can God set a table in the wilderness?

“True, he struck the rock, the waters gushed out, and the gullies overflowed;
but is he able to give bread
or to provide meat for his people?”

When the Lord heard this, he was full of wrath;
a fire was kindled against Jacob,
and his anger mounted against Israel;
For they had no faith in God,
nor did they put their trust in his saving power.

So he commanded the clouds above
and opened the doors of heaven.
He rained down manna upon them to eat
and gave them grain from heaven.

So mortals ate the bread of angels;
he provided for them food enough.
He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens
and led out the south wind by his might.

He rained down flesh upon them like dust
and wingèd birds like the sand of the sea.
He let it fall in the midst of their camp
and round about their dwellings.

So they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.

But they did not stop their craving,
though the food was still in their mouths.
So God’s anger mounted against them;
he slew their strongest men
and laid low the youth of Israel.

In spite of all this, they went on sinning
and had no faith in his wonderful works.
So he brought their days to an end like a breath
and their years in sudden terror.

Whenever he slew them, they would seek him,
and repent, and diligently search for God.
They would remember that God was their rock,
and the Most High God their redeemer.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

But they flattered him with their mouths
and lied to him with their tongues.
Their heart was not steadfast toward him,
and they were not faithful to his covenant.

But he was so merciful that he forgave their sins
and did not destroy them;
many times he held back his anger
and did not permit his wrath to be roused.
For he remembered that they were but flesh,
a breath that goes forth and does not return.

How often the people disobeyed him in the wilderness
and offended him in the desert!
Again and again they tempted God
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

They did not remember his power
in the day when he ransomed them from the enemy;
How he wrought his signs in Egypt
and his omens in the field of Zoan.

He turned their rivers into blood,
so that they could not drink of their streams.
He sent swarms of flies among them, which ate them up,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
He gave their crops to the caterpillar,
the fruit of their toil to the locust.

He killed their vines with hail
and their sycamores with frost.
He delivered their cattle to hailstones
and their livestock to hot thunderbolts.

He poured out upon them his blazing anger:
fury, indignation, and distress,
a troop of destroying angels.

He gave full rein to his anger;
he did not spare their souls from death;
but delivered their lives to the plague.
He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,
the flower of manhood in the dwellings of Ham.

He led out his people like sheep
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
He led them to safety, and they were not afraid;
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

He brought them to his holy land,
the mountain his right hand had won.
He drove out the Canaanites before them
and apportioned an inheritance to them by lot;
he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.

But they tested the Most High God, and defied him,
and did not keep his commandments.
They turned away and were disloyal like their fathers;
they were undependable like a warped bow.
They grieved him with their hill-altars
and provoked his displeasure with their idols.

When God heard this, he was angry
and utterly rejected Israel.
He forsook the shrine at Shiloh
the tabernacle where he had lived among his people.

He delivered the ark into captivity,
his glory into the adversary’s hand.
He gave his people to the sword
and was angered against his inheritance.

The fire consumed their young men;
there were no wedding songs for their maidens.
Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.

Then the Lord woke as though from sleep,
like a warrior refreshed with wine.
He struck his enemies on the backside
and put them to perpetual shame.

He rejected the tent of Joseph
and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
He chose instead the tribe of Judah
and Mount Zion which he loved.
He built his sanctuary like the heights of heaven,
like the earth which he founded for ever.

He chose David his servant,
and took him away from the sheepfolds.
He brought him from following the ewes,
to be a shepherd over Jacob his people
and over Israel his inheritance.

So he shepherded them with a faithful and true heart
and guided them with the skillfulness of his hands.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

O God, the heathen have come into your inheritance;
they have profaned your holy temple;
they have made Jerusalem a heap of rubble.
They have given the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the air,
and the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the field.

They have shed their blood like water on every side of Jerusalem,
and there was no one to bury them.
We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
an object of scorn and derision to those around us.
How long will you be angry, O Lord?
will your fury blaze like fire for ever?

Pour out your wrath upon the heathen who have not known you
and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your Name.
For they have devoured Jacob
and made his dwelling a ruin.

Remember not our past sins;
let your compassion be swift to meet us;
for we have been brought very low.

Help us, O God our Savior, for the glory of your Name;
deliver us and forgive us our sins, for your Name’s sake.

Why should the heathen say, “Where is their God?”
Let it be known among the heathen and in our sight
that you avenge the shedding of your servants’ blood.
Let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before you,
and by your great might spare those who are condemned to die.

May the revilings with which they reviled you, O Lord,
return seven-fold into their bosoms.
For we are your people and the sheep of your pasture;
we will give you thanks for ever
and show forth your praise from age to age.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock;
shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.
In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,
stir up your strength and come to help us.

Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

O Lord God of hosts,
how long will you be angered
despite the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have given them bowls of tears to drink.
You have made us the derision of our neighbors,
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
you cast out the nations and planted it.
You prepared the ground for it;
it took root and filled the land.

The mountains were covered by its shadow
and the towering cedar trees by its boughs.
You stretched out its tendrils to the Sea
and its branches to the River.

Why have you broken down its wall,
so that all who pass by pluck off its grapes?
The wild boar of the forest has ravaged it,
and the beasts of the field have grazed upon it.

Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven;
behold and tend this vine;
preserve what your right hand has planted.
They burn it with fire like rubbish;
at the rebuke of your countenance let them perish.

Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand,
the son of man you have made so strong for yourself.
And so will we never turn away from you;
give us life, that we may call upon your Name.

Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

Sing with joy to God our strength
and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.
Raise a song and sound the timbrel,
the merry harp, and the lyre.
Blow the ram’s-horn at the new moon,
and at the full moon, the day of our feast.

For this is a statute for Israel,
a law of the God of Jacob.
He laid it as a solemn charge upon Joseph,
when he came out of the land of Egypt.

I heard an unfamiliar voice saying,
“I eased his shoulder from the burden;
his hands were set free from bearing the load.”
You called on me in trouble, and I saved you.
I answered you from the secret place of thunder
and tested you at the waters of Meribah.

Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you:
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not worship a foreign god.

I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said,
“Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

And yet my people did not hear my voice,
and Israel would not obey me.
So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts,
to follow their own devices.

Oh, that my people would listen to me!
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I should soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.

Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last for ever.
But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat
and satisfy him with honey from the rock.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

God takes his stand in the council of heaven;
he gives judgment in the midst of the gods:

“How long will you judge unjustly,
and show favor to the wicked?
Save the weak and the orphan;
defend the humble and needy;
Rescue the weak and the poor;
deliver them from the power of the wicked.

“They do not know, neither do they understand;
they go about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

“Now I say to you, ‘You are gods,
and all of you children of the Most High;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals,
and fall like any prince.’”

Arise, O God, and rule the earth,
for you shall take all nations for your own.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

O God, do not be silent;
do not keep still nor hold your peace, O God;
For your enemies are in tumult,
and those who hate you have lifted up their heads.

They take secret counsel against your people
and plot against those whom you protect.
They have said, “Come, let us wipe them out from among the nations;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

They have conspired together;
they have made an alliance against you:
The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites;
the Moabites and the Hagarenes;

Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek;
the Philistines and those who dwell in Tyre.
The Assyrians also have joined them,
and have come to help the people of Lot.

Do to them as you did to Midian,
to Sisera, and to Jabin at the river of Kishon:
They were destroyed at Endor;
they became like dung upon the ground.

Make their leaders like Oreb and Zeëb,
and all their commanders like Zebah and Zalmunna,
Who said, “Let us take for ourselves
the fields of God as our possession.”

O my God, make them like whirling dust
and like chaff before the wind;
Like fire that burns down a forest,
like the flame that sets mountains ablaze.
Drive them with your tempest
and terrify them with your storm;

Cover their faces with shame, O Lord,
that they may seek your Name.
Let them be disgraced and terrified for ever;
let them be put to confusion and perish.

Let them know that you, whose name is the Lord,
you alone are the Most High over all the earth.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!
My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.

The sparrow has found her a house
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young;
by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

Happy are they who dwell in your house!
they will always be praising you.
Happy are the people whose strength is in you!
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.

Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs,
for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.
They will climb from height to height,
and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.

Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
hearken, O God of Jacob.
Behold our defender, O God;
and look upon the face of your Anointed.

For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room,
and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

For the Lord God is both sun and shield;
he will give grace and glory;
No good thing will the Lord withhold
from those who walk with integrity.
O Lord of hosts,
happy are they who put their trust in you!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

You have been gracious to your land, O Lord,
you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.
You have forgiven the iniquity of your people
and blotted out all their sins.
You have withdrawn all your fury
and turned yourself from your wrathful indignation.

Restore us then, O God our Savior;
let your anger depart from us.
Will you be displeased with us for ever?
will you prolong your anger from age to age?
Will you not give us life again,
that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your mercy, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
I will listen to what the Lord God is saying,
for he is speaking peace to his faithful people
and to those who turn their hearts to him.

Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.

Mercy and truth have met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring up from the earth,
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed grant prosperity,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness shall go before him,
and peace shall be a pathway for his feet.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.