DAILY OFFICE

1 In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame;
    in your righteousness deliver me!
2 Incline your ear to me;
    rescue me speedily!
    Be a rock of refuge for me,
    a strong fortress to save me!
3 For you are my rock and my fortress;
    and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me;
4 you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
    for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit;
    you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
6 I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
    but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
    because you have seen my affliction;
    you have known the distress of my soul,
8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
    you have set my feet in a broad place.
9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eye is wasted from grief;
    my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
    and my years with sighing;
    my strength fails because of my iniquity,
    and my bones waste away.
11 Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
    especially to my neighbors,
    and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
13 For I hear the whispering of many—
    terror on every side!—
    as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand;
    rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
16 Make your face shine on your servant;
    save me in your steadfast love!
17 O Lord, let me not be put to shame,
    for I call upon you;
    let the wicked be put to shame;
    let them go silently to Sheol.
18 Let the lying lips be mute,
    which speak insolently against the righteous
    in pride and contempt.
19 Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
    which you have stored up for those who fear you
    and worked for those who take refuge in you,
    in the sight of the children of mankind!
20 In the cover of your presence you hide them
    from the plots of men;
    you store them in your shelter
    from the strife of tongues.
21 Blessed be the Lord,
    for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
    when I was in a besieged city.
22 I had said in my alarm,
    “I am cut off from your sight.”
    But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
    when I cried to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you his saints!
    The Lord preserves the faithful
    but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
    all you who wait for the Lord!

1 Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
    fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler
    and rise for my help!
3 Draw the spear and javelin
    against my pursuers!
    Say to my soul,
    “I am your salvation!”
4 Let them be put to shame and dishonor
    who seek after my life!
    Let them be turned back and disappointed
    who devise evil against me!
5 Let them be like chaff before the wind,
    with the angel of the Lord driving them away!
6 Let their way be dark and slippery,
    with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!
7 For without cause they hid their net for me;
    without cause they dug a pit for my life.
8 Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it!
    And let the net that he hid ensnare him;
    let him fall into it—to his destruction!
9 Then my soul will rejoice in the Lord,
    exulting in his salvation.
10 All my bones shall say,
    “O Lord, who is like you,
    delivering the poor
    from him who is too strong for him,
    the poor and needy from him who robs him?”
11 Malicious witnesses rise up;
    they ask me of things that I do not know.
12 They repay me evil for good;
    my soul is bereft.
13 But I, when they were sick—
    I wore sackcloth;
    I afflicted myself with fasting;
    I prayed with head bowed on my chest.
14 I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;
    as one who laments his mother,
    I bowed down in mourning.
15 But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered;
    they gathered together against me;
    wretches whom I did not know
    tore at me without ceasing;
16 like profane mockers at a feast,
    they gnash at me with their teeth.
17 How long, O Lord, will you look on?
    Rescue me from their destruction,
    my precious life from the lions!
18 I will thank you in the great congregation;
    in the mighty throng I will praise you.
19 Let not those rejoice over me
    who are wrongfully my foes,
    and let not those wink the eye
    who hate me without cause.
20 For they do not speak peace,
    but against those who are quiet in the land
    they devise words of deceit.
21 They open wide their mouths against me;
    they say, “Aha, Aha!
    Our eyes have seen it!”
22 You have seen, O Lord; be not silent!
    O Lord, be not far from me!
23 Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication,
    for my cause, my God and my Lord!
24 Vindicate me, O Lord, my God,
    according to your righteousness,
    and let them not rejoice over me!
25 Let them not say in their hearts,
    “Aha, our heart's desire!”
    Let them not say, “We have swallowed him up.”
26 Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether
    who rejoice at my calamity!
    Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor
    who magnify themselves against me!
27 Let those who delight in my righteousness
    shout for joy and be glad
    and say evermore,
    “Great is the Lord,
    who delights in the welfare of his servant!”
28 Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
    and of your praise all the day long.

1 Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread—if the young men have kept themselves from women.” 5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” 6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away. 7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen. 8 Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.” 9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.” 10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,
    ‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
    and David his ten thousands’?”
12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”

13 Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, 14 but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” 16 So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. 17 The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. 18 And for about forty years he put up withthem in the wilderness. 19 And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21 Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. 22 And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ 23 Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 25 And as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. 13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.