Psalm 48

Refrain: We have waited on your loving-kindness, O God.

1  Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, ♦
   in the city of our God.

2  His holy mountain is fair and lifted high, ♦
   the joy of all the earth.

3  On Mount Zion, the divine dwelling place, ♦
   stands the city of the great king.

4  In her palaces God has shown himself ♦
   to be a sure refuge.

5  For behold, the kings of the earth assembled ♦
   and swept forward together.

6  They saw, and were dumbfounded; ♦
   dismayed, they fled in terror.

7  Trembling seized them there;
      they writhed like a woman in labour, ♦
   as when the east wind shatters the ships of Tarshish.

8  As we had heard, so have we seen
      in the city of the Lord of hosts, the city of our God: ♦
   God has established her for ever.

9  We have waited on your loving-kindness, O God, ♦
   in the midst of your temple.

10  As with your name, O God,
      so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; ♦
   your right hand is full of justice.

11  Let Mount Zion rejoice and the daughters of Judah be glad, ♦
   because of your judgements, O Lord.

12  Walk about Zion and go round about her;
      count all her towers; ♦
   consider well her bulwarks; pass through her citadels,

13  That you may tell those who come after
      that such is our God for ever and ever. ♦
   It is he that shall be our guide for evermore.

Refrain: We have waited on your loving-kindness, O God.

Father of lights,
raise us with Christ to your eternal city,
that, with kings and nations,
we may wait in the midst of your temple
and see your glory for ever and ever.

Psalm 44

Refrain: Rise up, O Lord, to help us.

1  We have heard with our ears, O God, our forebears have told us, ♦
   all that you did in their days, in time of old;

2  How with your hand you drove out nations and planted us in, ♦
   and broke the power of peoples and set us free.

3  For not by their own sword did our ancestors take the land ♦
   nor did their own arm save them,

4  But your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance, ♦
   because you were gracious to them.

5  You are my King and my God, ♦
   who commanded salvation for Jacob.

6  Through you we drove back our adversaries; ♦
   through your name we trod down our foes.

7  For I did not trust in my bow; ♦
   it was not my own sword that saved me;

8  It was you that saved us from our enemies ♦
   and put our adversaries to shame.

9  We gloried in God all the day long, ♦
   and were ever praising your name.

10  But now you have rejected us and brought us to shame, ♦
   and go not out with our armies.

11  You have made us turn our backs on our enemies, ♦
   and our enemies have despoiled us.

12  You have made us like sheep to be slaughtered, ♦
   and have scattered us among the nations.

13  You have sold your people for a pittance ♦
   and made no profit on their sale.

14  You have made us the taunt of our neighbours, ♦
   the scorn and derision of those that are round about us.

15  You have made us a byword among the nations; ♦
   among the peoples they wag their heads.

16  My confusion is daily before me, ♦
   and shame has covered my face,

17  At the taunts of the slanderer and reviler, ♦
   at the sight of the enemy and avenger.

18  All this has come upon us,
      though we have not forgotten you ♦
   and have not played false to your covenant.

19  Our hearts have not turned back, ♦
   nor our steps gone out of your way,

20  Yet you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, ♦
   and covered us with the shadow of death.

21  If we have forgotten the name of our God, ♦
   or stretched out our hands to any strange god,

22  Will not God search it out? ♦
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.

23  But for your sake are we killed all the day long, ♦
   and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

24  Rise up! Why sleep, O Lord? ♦
   Awake, and do not reject us for ever.

25  Why do you hide your face ♦
   and forget our grief and oppression?

26  Our soul is bowed down to the dust; ♦
   our belly cleaves to the earth.

27  Rise up, O Lord, to help us ♦
   and redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

Refrain: Rise up, O Lord, to help us.

In the darkness of unknowing,
when your love seems absent,
draw near to us, O God,
in Christ forsaken,
in Christ risen,
our Redeemer and our Lord.