Psalm 102; Psalm 106; Psalm 137

1Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry for help come before You.

2Do not hide Your face from me in my day of distress. Incline Your ear to me; answer me quickly when I call.

3For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.

4My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.

5Through my loud groaning my skin hangs on my bones.

6I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.

7I lie awake; I am like a lone bird on a housetop.

8All day long my enemies taunt me; they ridicule me and curse me.

9For I have eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears

10because of Your indignation and wrath, for You have picked me up and cast me aside.

11My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.

12But You, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; Your renown endures to all generations.

13You will rise up and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show her favor— the appointed time has come.

14For Your servants delight in her stones and take pity on her dust.

15So the nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory.

16For the LORD will rebuild Zion; He has appeared in His glory.

17He will turn toward the prayer of the destitute; He will not despise their prayer.

18Let this be written for the generation to come, so that a people not yet created may praise the LORD.

19For He looked down from the heights of His sanctuary; the LORD gazed out from heaven to earth

20to hear a prisoner’s groaning, to release those condemned to death,

21that they may proclaim the name of the LORD in Zion and praise Him in Jerusalem,

22when peoples and kingdoms assemble to serve the LORD.

23He has broken my strength on the way; He has cut short my days.

24I say: “O my God, do not take me in the midst of my days! Your years go on through all generations.

25In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.

26They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing You will change them, and they will be passed on.

27But You remain the same, and Your years will never end.

28The children of Your servants will dwell securely, and their descendants will be established before You.”

1Hallelujah! Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

2Who can describe the mighty acts of the LORD or fully proclaim His praise?

3Blessed are those who uphold justice, who practice righteousness at all times.

4Remember me, O LORD, in Your favor to Your people; visit me with Your salvation,

5that I may see the prosperity of Your chosen ones, and rejoice in the gladness of Your nation, and give glory with Your inheritance.

6We have sinned like our fathers; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.

7Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp Your wonders or remember Your abundant kindness; but they rebelled by the sea, there at the Red Sea.

8Yet He saved them for the sake of His name, to make His power known.

9He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; He led them through the depths as through a desert.

10He saved them from the hand that hated them; He redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

11The waters covered their foes; not one of them remained.

12Then they believed His promises and sang His praise.

13Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.

14They craved intensely in the wilderness and tested God in the desert.

15So He granted their request, but sent a wasting disease upon them.

16In the camp they envied Moses, as well as Aaron, the holy one of the LORD.

17The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it covered the assembly of Abiram.

18Then fire blazed through their company; flames consumed the wicked.

19At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.

20They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.

21They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,

22wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

23So He said He would destroy them— had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.

24They despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.

25They grumbled in their tents and did not listen to the voice of the LORD.

26So He raised His hand and swore to cast them down in the wilderness,

27to disperse their offspring among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands.

28They yoked themselves to Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.

29So they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.

30But Phinehas stood and intervened, and the plague was restrained.

31It was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.

32At the waters of Meribah they angered the LORD, and trouble came to Moses because of them.

33For they rebelled against His Spirit, and Moses spoke rashly with his lips.

34They did not destroy the peoples as the LORD had commanded them,

35but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs.

36They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.

37They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

38They shed innocent blood— the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

39They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

40So the anger of the LORD burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.

41He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.

42Their enemies oppressed them and subdued them under their hand.

43Many times He rescued them, but they were bent on rebellion and sank down in their iniquity.

44Nevertheless He heard their cry; He took note of their distress.

45And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

46He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.

47Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name, that we may glory in Your praise.

48Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, “Amen!” Hallelujah!

1By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

2There on the willows we hung our harps,

3for there our captors requested a song; our tormentors demanded songs of joy: “Sing us a song of Zion.”

4How can we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?

5If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function.

6May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!

7Remember, O LORD, the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell: “Destroy it,” they said, “tear it down to its foundations!”

8O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, blessed is he who repays you as you have done to us.

9Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.