Daily Office

¹Lord, I call upon you; hasten to me, *
and consider my voice when I cry to you.

²Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as the incense; *
and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.

³Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, *
and keep the door of my lips.

¹We give you thanks, O God, we give you thanks, *
calling upon your Name and declaring all your wonderful deeds.

²“I will appoint a time,” says God; *
“I will judge with equity.

³Though the earth and all its inhabitants are quaking, *
I will make its pillars fast.

⁴I will say to the boasters, ‘Boast no more,’ *
and to the wicked, ‘Do not toss your horns;

⁵Do not toss your horns so high, *
nor speak with a proud neck.’”

⁶For judgment is neither from the east nor from the west, *
nor yet from the wilderness or the mountains.

⁷It is God who judges; *
he puts down one and lifts up another.

⁸For in the Lord’s hand there is a cup, full of spiced and foaming wine, which he pours out, *
and all the wicked of the earth shall drink and drain the dregs.

⁹But I will rejoice for ever; *
I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

¹³Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. ¹⁴For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

¹⁵Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, ¹⁶“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

¹O sing to the Lord a new song, *
for he has done marvelous things.

²With his own right hand and with his holy arm *
he has won himself the victory.

³The Lord declared his salvation; *
his righteousness he has openly shown in the sight of the nations.

⁴He has remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel, *
and all the ends of the world have seen the salvation of our God.

⁵Show yourselves joyful to the Lord, all you lands; *
sing, rejoice, and give thanks.

⁶Praise the Lord upon the harp; *
sing to the harp with a psalm of thanksgiving.

⁷With trumpets also and the sound of the horn, *
O show yourselves joyful before the Lord the King.

⁸Let the sea make a noise, and all that is in it, *
the round world, and those who dwell therein.

⁹Let the floods clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, *
for he has come to judge the earth.

¹⁰With righteousness shall he judge the world, *
and the peoples with equity.