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Psalm 45

1  My heart is astir with gracious words; ♦︎
   as I make my song for the king,
      my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
2  You are the fairest of men; ♦︎
   full of grace are your lips,
      for God has blest you for ever.
3  Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one; ♦︎
   gird on your majesty and glory.
4  Ride on and prosper in the cause of truth ♦︎
   and for the sake of humility and righteousness.
5  Your right hand will teach you terrible things; ♦︎
   your arrows will be sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies,
      so that peoples fall beneath you.
6  Your throne is God’s throne, for ever; ♦︎
   the sceptre of your kingdom is the sceptre of righteousness.
7  You love righteousness and hate iniquity; ♦︎
   therefore God, your God, has anointed you
      with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
8  All your garments are fragrant with myrrh, aloes and cassia; ♦︎
   from ivory palaces the music of strings makes you glad.
9  Kings’ daughters are among your honourable women; ♦︎
   at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10  Hear, O daughter; consider and incline your ear; ♦︎
   forget your own people and your father’s house.
11  So shall the king have pleasure in your beauty; ♦︎
   he is your lord, so do him honour.
12  The people of Tyre shall bring you gifts; ♦︎
   the richest of the people shall seek your favour.
13  The king’s daughter is all glorious within; ♦︎
   her clothing is embroidered cloth of gold.
14  She shall be brought to the king in raiment of needlework; ♦︎
   after her the virgins that are her companions.
15  With joy and gladness shall they be brought ♦︎
   and enter into the palace of the king.
16  ‘Instead of your fathers you shall have sons, ♦︎
   whom you shall make princes over all the land.
17  ‘I will make your name to be remembered through all generations; ♦︎
   therefore shall the peoples praise you for ever and ever.’

Praise for Deliverance from Oppression

25O Lord, you are my God;
   I will exalt you, I will praise your name;
for you have done wonderful things,
   plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
² For you have made the city a heap,
   the fortified city a ruin;
the palace of aliens is a city no more,
   it will never be rebuilt.
³ Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
   cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
⁴ For you have been a refuge to the poor,
   a refuge to the needy in their distress,
   a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.
When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,
⁵   the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place,
you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds;
   the song of the ruthless was stilled.

⁶ On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
   a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
   of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
⁷ And he will destroy on this mountain
   the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
   the sheet that is spread over all nations;
⁸ he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
   and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
   for the Lord has spoken.
⁹ It will be said on that day,
   Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
   This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
   let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

A Vision of Christ

9 I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.^{* 10}I was in the spirit^* on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹saying, ‘Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’

12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. ¹⁴His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, ¹⁵his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. ¹⁶In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ¹⁸and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. ¹⁹Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. ²⁰As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.