Thursday, July 28 | St. Andrew's Anglican Church

Psalm 70

¹ Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! ² Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life! Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt! ³ Let them turn back because of their shame who say, “Aha, Aha!” ⁴ May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!” ⁵ But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!

Psalm 71

¹ In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! ² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! ³ Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. ⁴ Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. ⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. ⁶ Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you. ⁷ I have been as a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge. ⁸ My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all the day. ⁹ Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent. ¹⁰ For my enemies speak concerning me; those who watch for my life consult together ¹¹ and say, “God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him.” ¹² O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! ¹³ May my accusers be put to shame and consumed; with scorn and disgrace may they be covered who seek my hurt. ¹⁴ But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. ¹⁵ My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge. ¹⁶ With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. ¹⁷ O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. ¹⁸ So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. ¹⁹ Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? ²⁰ You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. ²¹ You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. ²² I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. ²³ My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed. ²⁴ And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long, for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt.

Psalm 74

¹ O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? ² Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. ³ Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! ⁴ Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their own signs for signs. ⁵ They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees. ⁶ And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. ⁷ They set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. ⁸ They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land. ⁹ We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long. ¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? ¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them! ¹² Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. ¹³ You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. ¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. ¹⁵ You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. ¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. ¹⁷ You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter. ¹⁸ Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name. ¹⁹ Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of your poor forever. ²⁰ Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence. ²¹ Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame; let the poor and needy praise your name. ²² Arise, O God, defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day! ²³ Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

Judges 4:4-23

⁴ Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. ⁵ She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. ⁶ She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. ⁷ And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?” ⁸ Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” ⁹ And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh. ¹⁰ And Barak called out Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. And 10,000 men went up at his heels, and Deborah went up with him. ¹¹ Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh. ¹² When Sisera was told that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, ¹³ Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon. ¹⁴ And Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the Lord go out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. ¹⁵ And the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. ¹⁶ And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left. ¹⁷ But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. ¹⁸ And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me; do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. ¹⁹ And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. ²⁰ And he said to her, “Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’” ²¹ But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. ²² And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple. ²³ So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel.

Acts 1:15-26

¹⁵ In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, ¹⁶ “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. ¹⁷ For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” ¹⁸ (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. ¹⁹ And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) ²⁰ “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’ ²¹ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²² beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” ²³ And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴ And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵ to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” ²⁶ And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Matthew 27:55-66

⁵⁵ There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, ⁵⁶ among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. ⁵⁷ When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. ⁵⁹ And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud ⁶⁰ and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. ⁶¹ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. ⁶² The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate ⁶³ and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ ⁶⁴ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” ⁶⁵ Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.