Morning Prayer

A Reading from the Book of the Prophet Habakkuk.

1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.[ 5 Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. 6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7 Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk; their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour. 9 They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand. 10 At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up earth to take it. 11 Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty; their own might is their god!] 12 Are you not from of old, O Lord my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O Lord, you have marked them for judgment; and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment. 13 Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? 14 You have made people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. 15 The enemy brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net, he gathers them in his seine; so he rejoices and exults. 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his seine; for by them his portion is lavish, and his food is rich. 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and destroying nations without mercy? 1 I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

A Reading from the Letter to the Philippians.

13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. 17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.