Morning Prayer: Saturday 2 August 2025

Saturday 2 August 2025

This is the new revised order for Daily Prayer authorised for experimental use. You can find the 2006 Revised version here.

Saturday after Pentecost 7
Week D

Week of Proper 17

O Lord, open our lips:
and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory be to God, Source of all Being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit;*
as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.
Amen.

PSALMODY

Antiphon: Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness;* make your way straight before me. (Psalm. 5.8)

Opening

Come, let us sing

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to God with psalms.
3 For you, O Lord, are a great God, *
and a great sovereign above all gods.
4 In your hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are yours also.
5 The sea is yours, for you made it, *
and your hands have moulded the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7 For you are our God, and we are the people of your pasture and the sheep of your hand. *
Oh, that today we would hearken to your voice!
8 “Harden not your hearts, *
as your forebears did in the wilderness.
9 They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.
10 So I swore in my wrath, *
‘They shall not enter into my rest.’”

Glory ...
or a suitable Hymn

(Or from Psalm 5)

1. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;*
early in the morning I make my appeal and watch for you.

2. Through the greatness of your mercy I will go into your house;*
I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you.

3. All who take refuge in you will be glad;*
they will sing out their joy for ever.

4. You will shelter them,*
so that those who love your name may exult in you.

Glory ...
or a suitable hymn

Psalm 81
1. Sing with joy to God our strength *
and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.
2. Raise a song and sound the timbrel, *
the merry harp, and the lyre.
3. Blow the ram’s-horn at the new moon, *
and at the full moon, the day of our feast.
4. For this is a statute for Israel, *
a law of the God of Jacob,
5. who laid it as a solemn charge upon Joseph, *
when they came out of the land of Egypt.
6. I heard an unfamiliar voice saying, *
“I eased their shoulders from the burden; their hands were set free from bearing the load.
7. You called on me in trouble, and I saved you; *
I answered you from the secret place of thunder and tested you at the waters of Meribah.
8. Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you: *
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9. There shall be no strange god among you; *
you shall not worship a foreign god.
10. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, *
‘Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.’
11. And yet my people did not hear my voice, *
and Israel would not obey me.
12. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts, *
to follow their own devices.
13. Oh, that my people would listen to me! *
That Israel would walk in my ways!
14. I should soon subdue their enemies *
and turn my hand against their foes.
15. Those who hate the Lord would cringe before me, *
and their punishment would last for ever.
16. But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat *
and satisfy them with honey from the rock.”

Glory ...



Conclusion

Isaiah 66

1. Rejoice with Jerusalem and exult in her,*
all you who love her.

2. Share her joy with all your heart,*
all you who mourn over her.

3. Then you may suck and be fed from her breasts,*
delighting in her plentiful milk.

4. For thus says the Lord, I will send peace flowing over her like a river,*
and the wealth of nations like a stream in flood;

5. you shall be carried in her arms,*
and rocked upon her knees.

6. As a mother comforts her child,*
so will I myself comfort you, and you shall find strength
in Jerusalem.

7. This you shall see and be glad at heart;*
your limbs shall be as the fresh grass in spring.*

8. Then I myself will gather all nations;*
and they shall come and behold my glory.

Glory ...

Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness;* make your way straight before me.


READING(S)

2 Samuel 5.22-6.11

Once again the Philistines came up, and were spread out in the valley of Rephaim. When David inquired of the Lord, he said, ‘You shall not go up; go round to their rear, and come upon them opposite the balsam trees. When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then be on the alert; for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines.’ David did just as the Lord had commanded him; and he struck down the Philistines from Geba all the way to Gezer.
David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing-floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah; so that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the Lord that day; he said, ‘How can the ark of the Lord come into my care?’ So David was unwilling to take the ark of the Lord into his care in the city of David; instead David took it to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months; and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.


Acts 17.16-34

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.


Silence

Response (Psalm 33.18)

Behold, your eye, O Lord, is upon those who fear you,* on those who wait upon your love.
Behold, your eye, O Lord, is upon those who fear you,* on those who wait upon your love.
On those who wait upon your love.
On those who fear you.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
Behold, your eye, O Lord, is upon those who fear you,* on those who wait upon your love.


SONG OF ZECHARIAH

Song of Zechariah Antiphon: God will guide us * in the way of peace.

1 Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel,* for he has come to his people and set them free.
2 He has raised up for us a mighty saviour,* born of the house of his servant David.
3 Through his holy prophets he promised of old* that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all that hate us.
4 He promised to show mercy to our forebears,* and to remember his holy covenant.
5 This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham:* to set us free from the hands of our enemies,
6 free to worship him without fear,* holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
7 You my child shall be called the prophet of the Most High,* for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
8 to give his people knowledge of salvation* by the forgiveness of all their sins.
9 In the tender compassion of our God* the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
10 to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,* and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory ... (may be said by all)

Song of Zechariah Antiphon: God will guide us * in the way of peace.

PRAYERS


Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Do not bring us to the time of trial,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and for ever.

Amen



Collect of the Day

O God, whose providence orders all things in heaven and earth:
keep from us everything harmful,
and lead us to all that is good;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end.
Amen

God most holy, we give you thanks for bringing us out of the shadow of night into the light of morning; and we ask you for the joy of spending this day in your service, so that when evening comes, we may once more give you thanks, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
Amen

Let us bless the Lord:
Thanks be to God!

The Lord bless us and preserve us from all evil;
and bring us to life eternal.
Amen.