Morning Prayer

Saturday before Epiphany 7
Saturday, February 22, 2025

The Invitatory and Psalter

Lord, open our lips.

And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Alleluia.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

Venite Psalm 95:1–7

Come let us sing to the Lord; *

let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *

and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, *

and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *

and the heights of the hills are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it, *

and his hands have molded the dry land.

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *

Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

Psalm 37:1–12, 41–42 Noli aemulari

Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *

do not be jealous of those who do wrong.

For they shall soon wither like the grass, *

and like the green grass fade away.

Put your trust in the Lord and do good; *

dwell in the land and feed on its riches.

Take delight in the Lord, *

and he shall give you your heart’s desire.

Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, *

and he will bring it to pass.

He will make your righteousness as clear as the light *

and your just dealing as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord *

and wait patiently for him.

Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, *

the one who succeeds in evil schemes.

Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; *

do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.

For evildoers shall be cut off, *

but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land.

In a little while the wicked shall be no more; *

you shall search out their place, but they will not be there.

But the lowly shall possess the land; *

they will delight in abundance of peace.

But the deliverance of the righteous comes from the Lord; *

he is their stronghold in time of trouble.

The Lord will help them and rescue them; *

he will rescue them from the wicked and deliver them,

because they seek refuge in him.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

The Lessons

First Lesson Genesis 44:18–34 (NRSV)

¹⁸Then Judah stepped up to him and said, “O my lord, let your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are like Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ ²⁰And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead; he alone is left of his mother’s children, and his father loves him.’ ²¹Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, so that I may set my eyes on him.’ ²²We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ ²³Then you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.’ ²⁴When we went back to your servant my father we told him the words of my lord. ²⁵And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ ²⁶we said, ‘We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother goes with us, will we go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ ²⁷Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons; ²⁸one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces; and I have never seen him since. ²⁹If you take this one also from me, and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.’ ³⁰Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy’s life, ³¹when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die; and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. ³²For your servant became surety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I will bear the blame in the sight of my father all my life.’ ³³Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers. ³⁴For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the suffering that would come upon my father.”

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.