Morning Prayer: November 19th, 2022

Song of Solomon 6:4–8:14

4   You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
    lovely as Jerusalem,
    awesome as an army with banners.
5   Turn away your eyes from me,
    for they overwhelm me—
  Your hair is like a flock of goats
    leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
6   Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
    that have come up from the washing;
  all of them bear twins;
    not one among them has lost its young.
7   Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
    behind your veil.
8   There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,
    and virgins without number.
9   My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,
    the only one of her mother,
    pure to her who bore her.
  The young women saw her and called her blessed;
    the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.


10   “Who is this who looks down like the dawn,
    beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun,
    awesome as an army with banners?”


11   I went down to the nut orchard
    to look at the blossoms of the valley,
  to see whether the vines had budded,
    whether the pomegranates were in bloom.
12   Before I was aware, my desire set me
    among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.


13   Return, return, O Shulammite,
    return, return, that we may look upon you.


  Why should you look upon the Shulammite,
    as upon a dance before two armies?


  7 How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
    O noble daughter!
  Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
    the work of a master hand.
2   Your navel is a rounded bowl
    that never lacks mixed wine.
  Your belly is a heap of wheat,
    encircled with lilies.
3   Your two breasts are like two fawns,
    twins of a gazelle.
4   Your neck is like an ivory tower.
  Your eyes are pools in Heshbon,
    by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
  Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon,
    which looks toward Damascus.
5   Your head crowns you like Carmel,
    and your flowing locks are like purple;
    a king is held captive in the tresses.


6   How beautiful and pleasant you are,
    O loved one, with all your delights!
7   Your stature is like a palm tree,
    and your breasts are like its clusters.
8   I say I will climb the palm tree
    and lay hold of its fruit.
  Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
    and the scent of your breath like apples,
9   and your mouth like the best wine.


  It goes down smoothly for my beloved,
    gliding over lips and teeth.


10   I am my beloved’s,
    and his desire is for me.

11   Come, my beloved,
    let us go out into the fields
    and lodge in the villages;
12   let us go out early to the vineyards
    and see whether the vines have budded,
  whether the grape blossoms have opened
    and the pomegranates are in bloom.
  There I will give you my love.
13   The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
    and beside our doors are all choice fruits,
  new as well as old,
    which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

8   Oh that you were like a brother to me
    who nursed at my mother’s breasts!
  If I found you outside, I would kiss you,
    and none would despise me.
2   I would lead you and bring you
    into the house of my mother—
    she who used to teach me.
  I would give you spiced wine to drink,
    the juice of my pomegranate.
3   His left hand is under my head,
    and his right hand embraces me!
4   I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
    that you not stir up or awaken love
    until it pleases.


5   Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
    leaning on her beloved?


  Under the apple tree I awakened you.
  There your mother was in labor with you;
    there she who bore you was in labor.


6   Set me as a seal upon your heart,
    as a seal upon your arm,
  for love is strong as death,
    jealousy is fierce as the grave.
  Its flashes are flashes of fire,
    the very flame of the LORD.
7   Many waters cannot quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
  If a man offered for love
    all the wealth of his house,
    he would be utterly despised.

8   We have a little sister,
    and she has no breasts.
  What shall we do for our sister
    on the day when she is spoken for?
9   If she is a wall,
    we will build on her a battlement of silver,
  but if she is a door,
    we will enclose her with boards of cedar.


10   I was a wall,
    and my breasts were like towers;
  then I was in his eyes
    as one who finds peace.


11   Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
    he let out the vineyard to keepers;
    each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.
12   My vineyard, my very own, is before me;
    you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,
    and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.


13   O you who dwell in the gardens,
    with companions listening for your voice;
    let me hear it.


14   Make haste, my beloved,
    and be like a gazelle
  or a young stag
    on the mountains of spices.

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.
Please pause the service if you would like more time.

1 Corinthians 15:1–28

15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.