Thursday, August 1 | St. Andrew's Anglican Church

Psalm 70

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

Psalm 71

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

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

Judges 4:4-23

⁴Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. ⁵She 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. ⁶She 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. ⁷And 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’?” ⁸Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” ⁹And 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. ¹⁰And Barak called out Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. And 10,000 men went up at his heels, and Deborah went up with him. ¹¹Now 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. ¹²When Sisera was told that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, ¹³Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon. ¹⁴And 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. ¹⁵And 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. ¹⁶And 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. ¹⁷But 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. ¹⁸And 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. ¹⁹And 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. ²⁰And he said to her, “Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’” ²¹But 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. ²²And 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. ²³So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel.

Acts 1:15-26

¹⁵In 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. ¹⁷For 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. ¹⁹And 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.’
²¹So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²²beginning 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.” ²³And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen ²⁵to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” ²⁶And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Matthew 27:55-66

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