DAILY OFFICE

Psalm 69

¹ Save me, O God!
    For the waters have come up to my neck.
² I sink in deep mire,
    where there is no foothold;
    I have come into deep waters,
    and the flood sweeps over me.
³ I am weary with my crying out;
    my throat is parched.
    My eyes grow dim
    with waiting for my God.
⁴ More in number than the hairs of my head
    are those who hate me without cause;
    mighty are those who would destroy me,
    those who attack me with lies.
    What I did not steal
    must I now restore?
⁵ O God, you know my folly;
    the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.
⁶ Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
    O Lord God of hosts;
    let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
    O God of Israel.
⁷ For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
    that dishonor has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my brothers,
    an alien to my mother’s sons.
⁹ For zeal for your house has consumed me,
    and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
¹⁰ When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,
    it became my reproach.
¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing,
    I became a byword to them.
¹² I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
    and the drunkards make songs about me.
¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
    At an acceptable time, O God,
    in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.
¹⁴ Deliver me
    from sinking in the mire;
    let me be delivered from my enemies
    and from the deep waters.
¹⁵ Let not the flood sweep over me,
    or the deep swallow me up,
    or the pit close its mouth over me.
¹⁶ Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;
    according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
¹⁷ Hide not your face from your servant,
    for I am in distress; make haste to answer me.
¹⁸ Draw near to my soul, redeem me;
    ransom me because of my enemies!
¹⁹ You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to you.
²⁰ Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
    I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹ They gave me poison for food,
    and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
²² Let their own table before them become a snare;
    and when they are at peace, let it become a trap.
²³ Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see,
    and make their loins tremble continually.
²⁴ Pour out your indignation upon them,
    and let your burning anger overtake them.
²⁵ May their camp be a desolation;
    let no one dwell in their tents.
²⁶ For they persecute him whom you have struck down,
    and they recount the pain of those you have wounded.
²⁷ Add to them punishment upon punishment;
    may they have no acquittal from you.
²⁸ Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
    let them not be enrolled among the righteous.
²⁹ But I am afflicted and in pain;
    let your salvation, O God, set me on high!
³⁰ I will praise the name of God with a song;
    I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
³¹ This will please the Lord more than an ox
    or a bull with horns and hoofs.
³² When the humble see it they will be glad;
    you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
³³ For the Lord hears the needy
    and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.
³⁴ Let heaven and earth praise him,
    the seas and everything that moves in them.
³⁵ For God will save Zion
    and build up the cities of Judah,
    and people shall dwell there and possess it;
³⁶ the offspring of his servants shall inherit it,
    and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

Psalm 73

¹ Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
³ For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
⁴ For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.
¹¹ And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹² Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
¹³ All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this,
    it seemed to me a wearisome task,
¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of God;
    then I discerned their end.
¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹ When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
²² I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.
²³ Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me to glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
²⁷ For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.

Esther 1:1-4, 10-19

1 Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, 2 in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, 3 in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, 4 while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days. … ¹⁰ On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, ¹¹ to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at. ¹² But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him. ¹³ Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times (for this was the king’s procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment, ¹⁴ the men next to him being Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king’s face, and sat first in the kingdom): ¹⁵ “According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti, because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?” ¹⁶ Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, “Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. ¹⁷ For the queen’s behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ ¹⁸ This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will say the same to all the king’s officials, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty. ¹⁹ If it please the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

Acts 17:1-15

¹ Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ² And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, ³ explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” ⁴ And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. ⁵ But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. ⁶ And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, ⁷ and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” ⁸ And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. ⁹ And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. ¹⁰ The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. ¹² Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. ¹³ But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. ¹⁴ Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. ¹⁵ Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

John 12:36b-43

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. ³⁷ Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, ³⁸ so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
    “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
³⁹ Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
⁴⁰ “He has blinded their eyes
    and hardened their heart,
    lest they see with their eyes,
    and understand with their heart, and turn,
    and I would heal them.”
⁴¹ Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. ⁴² Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³ for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.