DAILY OFFICE

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
    When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
    day and night,
    while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
    how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
    with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
    Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation 6 and my God.
    My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
    from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
    all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
    Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
    while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
    Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
    against an ungodly people,
    from the deceitful and unjust man
    deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
    why have you rejected me?
    Why do I go about mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
    let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy,
    and I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
    Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

1 By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
2 On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
3 For there our captors
    required of us songs,
    and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
6 Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
    if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!
7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem,
    how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
    down to its foundations!”
8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

1 Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
    who trains my hands for war,
    and my fingers for battle;
2 he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
    my stronghold and my deliverer,
    my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
    who subdues peoples under me.
3 O Lord, what is man that you regard him,
    or the son of man that you think of him?
4 Man is like a breath;
    his days are like a passing shadow.
5 Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down!
    Touch the mountains so that they smoke!
6 Flash forth the lightning and scatter them;
    send out your arrows and rout them!
7 Stretch out your hand from on high;
    rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
    from the hand of foreigners,
8 whose mouths speak lies
    and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
9 I will sing a new song to you, O God;
    upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
10 who gives victory to kings,
    who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.
11 Rescue me and deliver me
    from the hand of foreigners,
    whose mouths speak lies
    and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
12 May our sons in their youth
    be like plants full grown,
    our daughters like corner pillars
    cut for the structure of a palace;
13 may our granaries be full,
    providing all kinds of produce;
    may our sheep bring forth thousands
    and ten thousands in our fields;
14 may our cattle be heavy with young,
    suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;
    may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
15 Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
    Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!

21 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. 23 They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived. 24 Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord; your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.” 25 But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. 26 Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.” 27 But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. 28 Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” 29 Moses said, “As you say! I will not see your face again.” 11:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. 2 Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” 3 And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. 4 So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, 5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 6 There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. 7 But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ 8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger.

13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

46 And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. 47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” 50 And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.