Daily Prayer

1   Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
answer me in your righteousness.
2   Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

3   For the enemy has pursued me,
crushing my life to the ground,
making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4   Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.

5   I remember the days of old,
I think about all your deeds,
I meditate on the works of your hands.
6   I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.                    Selah

7   Answer me quickly, O LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
8   Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

9   Save me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I have fled to you for refuge.
10  Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me
on a level path.

11  For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life.
In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.
12  In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,
and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am your servant.

 

12  Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13  For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14  He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
15  He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16  He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
17  He hurls down hail like crumbs —
who can stand before his cold?
18  He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
19  He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
20  He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!

11Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.” 12He answered, “Must I not take care to say what the LORD puts into my mouth?”

13So Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only part of them, and shall not see them all; then curse them for me from there.” 14So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. He built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 15Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offerings, while I meet the LORD over there.” 16The LORD met Balaam, put a word into his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you shall say.” 17When he came to him, he was standing beside his burnt offerings with the officials of Moab. Balak said to him, “What has the LORD said?” 18Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying:

“Rise, Balak, and hear; listen to me, O son of Zippor: 19God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?20See, I received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it. 21He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob; nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The LORD their God is with them, acclaimed as a king among them. 22God, who brings them out of Egypt, is like the horns of a wild ox for them. 23Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel; now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, ‘See what God has done!’ 24Look, a people rising up like a lioness, and rousing itself like a lion! It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey and drunk the blood of the slain.”

25Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all.” 26But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘Whatever the LORD says, that is what I must do’?”

1Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2″The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11″But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”