Resound, heavens, celebrate, earth,
break into sound, mountains.
Because Yahweh is comforting his people;
he will have compassion on his humble ones.

But Tsiyyon says, ‘Yahweh has abandoned me,
the Lord has put me out of mind.’
Can a woman put her baby out of mind,
so as not to have compassion on the child of her womb?
Yes, these may put out of mind,
but I – I cannot put you out of mind.
There, on my palms I engraved you;
your walls are in front of me continually.
Your children are hurrying the people who tore you down,
your devastators will go out from you.
Lift your eyes round and look,
they’re all collecting, they’re coming to you.
As I am alive (Yahweh’s declaration),
you will indeed put on all of them like jewellery,
bind them on like a bride.
Because your wastes, your devastations,
your country that was torn down –
Because now you’ll be too confined for your population,
while the people who swallowed you up go away.
The children of your bereavement
will yet say in your ears,
‘The place is too narrow for me,
move over for me so I can settle down.’
You’ll say to yourself,
‘Who fathered these for me,
When I was bereaved and barren,
gone into exile and passing away?
These, who reared them,
there, when I remained alone,
these – where were they?’

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

O Lord Jesus Christ,
stay beside me to defend me,
within me to guide me,
before me to lead me,
and above me to bless me,
that with you and in you,
I may live, and move and have my being,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

(unknown)

Listen, foreign shores, to me;
heed, peoples far away.
Yahweh called me from the womb,
from my mother’s insides he made mention of my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me.
He made me into a burnished arrow,
in his quiver he concealed me.
He said to me, ‘You’re my servant, Yisra’el;
in you I will show my majesty.’

But I myself said, ‘It was to empty results that I toiled,
for futility and hollowness that I used up my energy.’
Yet a ruling for me is with Yahweh,
my earnings are with my God.

Now Yahweh has said
– the one who formed me from the womb as a servant for him,
By bringing Ya’aqob back to him,
so that Yisra’el might not withdraw;
And I have found honour in Yahweh’s eyes,
and my God has become my vigour –
He has said,
‘It’s slight, your being a servant for me
to raise Ya’aqob’s clans and bring back Yisra’el’s shoots.
I shall make you into a light of nations,
to be my deliverance to the end of the earth.’
Yahweh has said this
– Yisra’el’s restorer, its sacred one –
To one despised in spirit,
offensive to nations,
to a servant of rulers:
Kings will see and rise,
leaders, and they will fall low,
For the sake of Yahweh,
who is trustworthy,
Yisra’el’s sacred one
– he chose you.

Yahweh has said this:
In a time of acceptance I’m answering you,
on a day of deliverance I’m helping you.
I’ll guard you
and make you into a pact for people,
By raising up the country,
by giving out the desolate domains,
By saying to captives, ‘Go out’,
to people in darkness, ‘Appear.’
Along the roads they will pasture,
on all the bare places will be their pasture.
They will not hunger and not thirst;
khamsin and sun won’t strike them down.
Because the one who has compassion on them will lead them,
and guide them by springs of water.
I’ll make all my mountains into a road;
my causeways will rise up.
There – these will come from afar;
there – these from the north and the west,
and these from the country of Sinim.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour,
where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict.
Show me the course I should take.
Renew in me the gift of discernment,
so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go.
And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course,
even when the sea is rough and the waves are high,
knowing that through enduring hardship and danger in your name
we shall find comfort and peace.
Amen

Basil of Caesarea (c.329-379)

Listen to me, Ya’aqob,
Yisra’el whom I called.
I’m the one, I’m the first,
yes, I’m the last.
Yes, it was my hand formed earth;
my right hand spanned the heavens.
I’m going to call them
so they stand together.
Collect together, all of you, and listen –
who among them told of these things?

One to whom Yahweh is loyal will do what he wants to Babel,
and his arm to the Kasdites.
I, I’m the one who spoke,
yes, I called him,
I brought him and he will succeed in his journey.
Draw near to me,
listen to this.
Not from the first did I speak in hiddenness;
from the time it came to be, I was there.

Now the Lord Yahweh
has sent me, with his spirit.
Yahweh has said this – your restorer,
Yisra’el’s sacred one.
‘I am Yahweh your God,
the one who teaches you to succeed,
Who directs you in the way you should go –
if only you had heeded my orders.
Your well-being would have been like a river,
your faithfulness like the waves of the sea.
Your offspring would have been like the sand,
the people who went out from you like its grains.
Your name would not be cut off,
not be annihilated, from before me.’

Go out from Babel,
flee from the Kasdites!
Tell it with resounding voice,
make it heard.
Send it out to the end of the earth,
say, ‘Yahweh is restoring his servant Yisra’el.’
They were not thirsty
as he made them go through wastes.
He made water flow from the crag for them,
he split the crag and water gushed out.
There’s no well-being
(Yahweh has said) for faithless people.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Take from us,
O God, all pride and vanity,
all boasting and self-assertion,
and give us the true courage that shows itself in gentleness,
the true wisdom that shows itself in simplicity,
and the true power that shows itself in modesty.

Charles Kingsley

Listen to this, Ya’aqob’s household,
you who call yourselves by Yisra’el’s name,
You who came out of Yehudah’s water,
who swear by Yahweh’s name,
Who make mention of Yisra’el’s God
– not in truthfulness, not in faithfulness –
Because they call themselves by the sacred town,
lean on Yisra’el’s God, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

The earlier events I told about of old,
from my mouth they came out so I could make them heard.
Suddenly I acted and they came about,
because of my knowing that you’re tough.
Your neck is an iron sinew,
your forehead copper.
I told you about them of old,
before they came about I let you hear,
So you couldn’t say, ‘My icon did them;
my image, my idol ordered them.’

You’ve heard – look at all of it;
will you yourselves not tell of it?
I’m letting you hear of new events right now,
secrets that you didn’t know.
Now they’re created, not of old,
or before today, and you haven’t heard of them,
so you could say, ‘There, I knew about them.’
No, you haven’t heard; no, you haven’t known;
no, of old your ear didn’t open up.
Because I knew you would utterly break faith;
rebel from birth, you were called.

For the sake of my name I delay my anger,
for the sake of my praise I muzzle it for you
so that I don’t cut you off.
There, I smelted you, and not in the silver [furnace];
I chose you in the affliction furnace.
For my sake, for my sake, I act,
because how can my splendour be treated as ordinary? –
I will not give it to someone else.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

O thou, who art the light of the minds that know thee,
the life of the souls that love thee,
and the strength of the wills that serve thee;
help us so to know thee that we may truly love thee;
so to love thee that we may fully serve thee,
whom to serve is perfect freedom.
Amen

Get down, sit in the earth, young Miss Babel,
sit on the ground without a throne, Miss Kasdim.
Because you will not again have people call you
sensitive and delightful.
Get the millstones and grind meal,
expose your hair.
Uncover your tresses, expose your leg,
cross rivers.
Your nakedness will be exposed,
yes, your reviling will be visible.
I shall take redress,
no one will intervene.
(Our restorer: Yahweh of Armies is his name,
Yisra’el’s sacred one.)

Sit in silence, enter into darkness,
Miss Kasdim.
Because you will not again have them call you
mistress of kingdoms.
I was angry with my people, I treated my domain as ordinary,
I gave them into your hand.
You didn’t show compassion to them;
upon the aged you made your yoke very heavy.
You said, ‘I shall be here permanently,
mistress always.’
You didn’t receive these things into your mind;
you were not mindful of its outcome.

So now listen to this, charming one,
who sits in confidence,
Who says to herself,
‘I and none else am still here,
I shall not sit as a widow,
I shall not know the loss of children.’
The two of these will come to you,
in a moment, on one day.
The loss of children and widowhood
in full measure will have come upon you.
In the multiplying of your chants
and in the great abounding of your charms,
You’ve been confident in your bad dealing;
you said, ‘There’s no one looking at me.’
Your smartness, your knowledge,
it turned you back. You said to yourself,
‘I and none else am still here.’
But bad fortune is going to come upon you
whose countercharm you won’t know.
Disaster will fall upon you
that you won’t be able to expiate.
There will come upon you suddenly
devastation that you won’t know about.

Stand, please, in your charms
and in the multiplying of your chants,
in which you’ve laboured from your youth.
Perhaps you’ll be able to succeed,
perhaps you will terrify.
You’re collapsing in the multiplying of your plans;
they should indeed stand up and deliver you,
The people who observe the heavens,
who look at the stars,
Who make known for the months
some of what will come upon you.
There, they’ve become like straw
that fire burns up.
They can’t rescue themselves
from the power of the blaze.
It’s not a coal for warming, a flame for sitting before.
Such have they been for you,
those with whom you have laboured,
your charmers from your youth.
They’ve wandered, each of them his own way;
there’s no one delivering you.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God be in head and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes and in my looking;
God be in my mouth and in my speaking;
God be in my heart and in my thinking;
God be at my end and at my departing.

Bel has bent down, Nebo is stooping;
their images have come to belong to creatures, to animals.
The things carried by you are loaded as a burden for weary ones;
they’ve stooped, they’ve bent down together.
They couldn’t save the burden;
they themselves have gone into captivity.
Listen to me, Ya’aqob’s household,
all the remainder of Yisra’el’s household,
Who’ve been loaded from birth,
who’ve been carried from the womb.
Even until old age I will be the one;
even until grey-headedness
I will be the one who will bear. I’m the one who made,
I’m the one who carries; I’m the one who bears, and I will save.
To whom can you compare me so I should be similar,
or liken me so we are comparable?
People who lavish gold from a purse,
or weigh out silver by the rod,
Hire a smith so he may make it into a god
to which they may fall down, bow low.
They carry it on their shoulder, bear it,
so they can set it down in its position and it can stand;
from its place it won’t move away.
Yes, someone can cry out to it, but it doesn’t answer;
it doesn’t deliver him from the pressure on him.

Keep this in mind, be strong,
bring it back to mind, you rebels,
Keep in mind earlier events of old,
because I am God and there is no other.
I am God and there is none like me,
telling of the outcome from the beginning,
And from beforehand things that haven’t been done,
saying ‘My counsel will arise, all I want I shall do’,
Calling from the east a shriek,
from a far country the person in my counsel.
I both spoke and will also bring it about;
I formed and will also do it.
Listen to me, you sturdy of mind,
you who are far away from faithfulness.
I have brought faithfulness near; it’s not far away,
and my deliverance won’t delay.
I shall put deliverance in Tsiyyon,
my magnificence for Yisra’el.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Lord God,
your feed us with the living bread from heaven.
You renew our faith
increase our hope
and strengthen our love.
Teach us to hunger for Christ
who is the true and living bread
and live by every word that comes from your mouth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Because Yahweh has said this,
the creator of the heavens, he is God,
the former of the earth and its maker
– he established it, he did not create it an emptiness,
he formed it for inhabiting:

‘I am Yahweh
and there is no other.
It was not in hiddenness that I spoke,
in a place in a dark country.
I didn’t say to Ya’aqob’s offspring,
“Enquire of me in emptiness.”

I am Yahweh, speaking of faithfulness,
telling of what is right.
Gather, come, draw near together,
escapees of the nations.
The people who carry their wooden images have not acknowledged,
the people who plead with a god who does not deliver.
Tell out, bring near,
yes, consult together.
Who let people hear of this beforehand,
told about it of old?
Was it not I, Yahweh? –
and there was no other God apart from me,
The faithful God and deliverer;
there’s none except me.
Turn your faces to me and find deliverance,
all the ends of the earth,
because I am God and there’s no other.
By myself I’ve sworn,
faithfulness has gone out from my mouth,
a word that will not turn back:
To me every knee will bend,
every tongue swear.
“Only in Yahweh (of me it is said)
are faithful acts and vigour.”’
To him they will come and be shamed,
all who rage at him.
In Yahweh all Yisra’el’s offspring
will be faithful and will exult.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Yahweh has said this:
‘Misrayim’s (Egypt’s) toil, Kush’s profit,
the Seba’ites, people of stature,
Will pass over to you and be yours;
they’ll follow behind you.
They’ll pass over in fetters and bow low to you,
to you they’ll make their plea:
“God is in you only,
and there’s no other, no God.
Certainly you’re the God who hides,
God of Yisra’el who delivers.”

They are shamed, yes, they are disgraced,
all of them at once, they have gone in disgrace,
the people who craft forms.
Yisra’el has found deliverance in Yahweh,
everlasting deliverance.
You will not be shamed,
you will not be disgraced, to everlasting ages.’

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art –
Thou my best thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Hey, you who argue with the one who forms him,
a pot with earthen pots.
Can clay say to the one who forms it,
‘What do you do?’,
or can the thing you make say, ‘It has no handles’?
Hey, you who say to a father, ‘What do you beget?’
or to a woman, ‘What do you give birth to?’
Yahweh has said this –
Yisra’el’s sacred one and the one who forms it:
‘Ask me about things to come for my children –
you can give me orders about the work of my hands.
I’m the one who made the earth
and created humanity upon it.
I – my hands stretched out the heavens,
I ordered their entire army.
I’m the one who aroused him in faithfulness
and level all his ways.
He’s the one who will build up my town
and send off my exiles,
Not for payment, not for a bribe’,
Yahweh of Armies has said.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Lord, you have given me so much,
I ask for one more thing –
a grateful heart.

George Herbert

Yahweh, your restorer, has said this
– your former from the womb:
‘I am Yahweh,
maker of everything,
Who stretched out the heavens on my own,
spread out the earth of myself,
Who contravenes the signs of soothsayers,
makes fools of diviners,
Turns the smart back,
makes idiocy of their knowledge,
Implements his servant’s word,
fulfils his envoys’ plan –
Who says of Yerushalaim, “It will be inhabited”,
and of Yehudah’s towns, “They’ll be built up”,
and “I will raise its wastes”,
Who says to the deep,
“Be wasted – I shall dry up your rivers”,
Who says to Koresh [Cyrus], “My shepherd,
he’ll fulfil my every want”,
By saying of Yerushalaim,
“It will be built up”,
and to the palace, “Be founded.”’

Yahweh has said this to his anointed, to Koresh,
‘The one whom I took by the right hand,
Putting down nations before him,
undoing the hips of kings,
Opening doors before him,
so that gateways might not shut:
I will go before you and level walls;
I will break up copper doors,
cut up iron bars.
I will give you dark treasuries
and hidden hoards,
In order that you may acknowledge that I am Yahweh;
Yisra’el’s God is the one who calls you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Ya’aqob,
Yisra’el my chosen,
I called you by your name,
I designate you though you haven’t acknowledged me.
I am Yahweh and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I put the belt on you, though you have not acknowledged me,
in order that people may acknowledge,
from the rise of the sun and from the setting,
That there is none apart from me,
I am Yahweh and there is no other,
Forming light and creating dark,
making well-being and creating bad fortune.
I am Yahweh,
doing all these things.’

Rain, heavens above;
skies are to pour down faithfulness.
Earth is to open so that deliverance may fruit,
faithfulness is to burst out all at once;
I Yahweh have created it.

Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.

Be thou a bright flame before me,
Be thou a guiding star above me
Be thou a smooth path below me
Be thou a kindly shepherd behind me
Today – tonight -forever
Amen.

St Columba