The Eleventh Kathisma

Antiphon One

Listen, my people, to this teaching of mine; turn your ear to what I have to say. 2) I want to give a discourse in wisdom, to disclose the mysteries of our past, 3) things we have heard and come to know, things our fathers have told us. 4) We are not about to hide from their grandchildren, nor keep from the next generation 5) the magnificent works of the Lord and his conquests, the wonders he performed, 6) wonders he had done before their fathers' very eyes in the land of Egypt, on the plain of Zoan.

7) He had split the sea to let them through, water like a dike to left and to right, 8) guiding them by day with a cloud, with a pillar of fire throughout the night. 9) He struck hard the rock of the desert, watering even that vast and sandy waste, 10) making streams jet from the rock, causing fountains to gush forth as abundant as rivers. 11) He issued a decree in Jacob; in Israel he established a law, that what he commanded our fathers, they should make known to their sons; 12) that the next generation -- those yet unborn -- would know and, in turn, tell their own, 13) that they might trust in God, mindful of his divine works, ever loyal to his precepts, 14) rather than be like their ancestors, rebellious and unruly breed that they were; a generation of fickle hearts, unfaithful to God. 15) They broke their covenant with God and refused to walk in his ways. 16) They forgot what he did and the miracles he allowed them to see.

17) They went on sinning against him, in that desert, rebelling against the most high. 18) In their hearts they put God on trial, demanding food that they craved. 19) With bitter complaints they challenged God, demanding of God a feast then and there! 20) He struck at the rock so that waters gushed out, making gullies overflow; but what about bread -- can he give us that, too, and provide meat for his people? 21) Though they had no trust in God, no trust in his power to save, 22) yet, he ordered the clouds to part, the portals of heaven to open: 23) He rained down manna on them for food, filling them with grain from the heavens. 24) Everyone ate the bread of the angels that he provided for them in abundance. 25) He set the east wind moving in the heavens, and brought up the south wind by his power. 26) He rained down meat on them like dust, and birds as thick as the sands of the seashore, 27) making all of this fall right into their camp, on all sides, round about their tents. 28) So they ate their fill, and all they asked he granted them. 29) But still they failed to control their greed, and while yet this food was in their mouths, 30) God's anger flared at them again: he slew the sturdiest of them, striking down the flower of Israel.

31) And still they went on sinning, forgetting all his wondrous deeds. 32) So he made their days disappear like the mist, their years more quickly than a fleeting phantom. 33) When he struck them down they ran to him; then they would repent and long for God. 34) Then they would remember that God was their rock, that God the most high was their redeemer. 35) So, outwardly they flattered him, and with their tongues they lied to him, 36) but their hearts were far from loyal to him, and they betrayed their covenant with him. 37) Yet he is compassionate, so he forgave their guilt instead of killing them. He kept on turning back his anger, always holding back his rage, 38) for he remembered they were only flesh, nothing more than a breeze that flows by, never to return.

39) How often they rebelled against him in the desert; how often they grieved him in that wasteland! 40) Again and again they put God to the test; they provoked the holy one of Israel, 41) always failing to recall his power and the day he saved them from their foe, 42) when he worked his wonders in Egypt and his marvels on the plain of Zoan. 43) He turned the rivers into blood, to stop them from drinking their waters. 44) He sent swarms of insects to devour them, frogs to destroy them. 45) He consigned their crops to grubs, their hard-won fruit to locusts. 46) He killed their vines with hail and their berries with frost. 47) He condemned their cattle to the plague and their flocks to feverish pests. 48) He loosed his raging anger on them, all his wrath and indignation in the form of hardships! He sent them angels of destruction, 49) to level a path before him. Nor did he stop short of slaying them, but loosed on them a raging pestilence. 50) He struck down all the first-born of Egypt, the first-fruits of their vigor, born in the tents of Ham. 51) Then he led his people out like sheep, guiding them through the desert like a flock, 52) safe and unafraid, while the sea engulfed their enemies. 53) So he brought them into that holy land of his, the highlands his own right hand had won. 54) Expelling the nations before them, he let the tribes of Israel settle there in tents, allowing their inheritance to fall to them by lot.

55) Even so, they went on testing the most high; they rebelled against God and ignored his decrees. 56) They turned away and played him false like their fathers, treacherous as a bow with a warp. 57) They provoked him with their high-places; they aroused his jealousy with their graven images. 58) Now the Lord heard all this and he fumed; his anger raged against Jacob; his wrath blazed up against Israel, and he rejected Israel with bitter scorn. He rejected the clan of Joseph; the tribe of Ephraim he disowned. 60) He abandoned his dwelling place in Shiloh, that tent where once he lived with men. 61) He deserted the glorious ark of his might and let it fall into the hands of his enemies. 62) He condemned his own people to fall by the sword, in his fuming rage against his chosen. 63) Ephraim's sons were his archers -- treacherous bowmen -- on the day of battle they turned tail and ran! 64) So it was that their young men were fed to the flames, and their maidens went unwed. 65) Their priests fell by the sword, and there were no widows left to do the mourning.

66) Then the Lord awoke as if from sleep, like a warrior shaking off his wine. 67) He struck his enemies as they turned to flee, branding them with an everlasting shame. 68) In the end it was Judah's tribe he chose, and Mount Sion, which he loved, 69) where he built his sanctuary like the heights of the heavens themselves, as firm as the earth he had established from forever. 70) And he chose his servant, David, taking him from a sheepfold, 71) and from tending ewes; he brought him to shepherd his people Jacob, and Israel, his very own. 72) With a blameless heart did David tend them, leading them with his skillful hand.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: Both now and forever, and unto ages of ages, amen.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia: Glory to you, O God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia: Glory to you, O God.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia: Glory to you, O God.

Antiphon Two

O God, unbelievers have invaded your land! They have defiled your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to a heap of ruins! 2) The bodies of your servants they have left as food for the birds of heaven, and the flesh of your devoted followers for the beasts of the earth. 3) Their blood has been spilled like water; and there is not a soul left in the city to bury them! 4) We have become the butt of scorn for our neighbors, something to make fun of, to laugh at.

5) How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy smoulder like fire? 6) Pour out your rage on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the kingdoms that do not invoke your name. 7) They have devoured Jacob; they have laid waste his homeland. 8) Do not hold the sins of our fathers against us; may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need!

9) Help us, O God of our salvation! For the glory of your name, rescue us! Forgive us our sins, for your name's sake, lest unbelievers say: 10) Where is their God? Before our very eyes, let the nations see that you avenge the shedding of your servants' blood!

11) Let the groans of prisoners reach you; with your mighty hand, reprieve those condemned to death! 12) Strike at their hearts and pay back our neighbors sevenfold, for the insults they have flung at you, O Lord! 13) For we are your people, the flock you tend, and we will give thanks to you forever, recounting your praise from one generation to the next!

O Shepherd of Israel, give ear! Lead Joseph like a flock! O you who sit enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth 2) on Ephraim, on Benjamin and Manasseh! Stir up your might, and come to our aid! 3) O God, return to us! Let your face shine on us, that we may be saved!

4) How long, O God of power and might, how long will you frown on your people's plea? 5) You have fed us the bread of tears; you have given us tears to drink beyond measure. 6) You made us the laughing-stock of our neighbors, and our enemies laugh us to scorn. 7) O God of power and might, return to us! Let your face shine on us, that we may be saved!

8) You brought forth a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. 9) You cleared a place for it; it took root and spread through the land. 10) Mountains were covered by its shade, and its shoots climbed the towering cedars.

11) So why did you tear down its hedges? Now, every one who passes plucks at its fruit. 12) The boar of the forest ravages it, and the beasts of the field feed on it. 13) Men have burned it with full, blazing fire; at your angry rebuke may they perish!

14) O God of power and might, return to us, we beseech you! Look down from heaven and see! Visit this vine 15) and care for what your right hand has planted! 16) Make its branches stretch forth to the sea, and as far as the Euphrates, its shoots. 17) Rest your hand on the man you have chosen, on the man you have given your strength. 18) Give us life that we may call on your name; never again will we turn from you. 19) Lord God of power and might, return to us! Let your face shine on us, that we may be saved!

Cry out with joy to God, our fortress; shout in triumph to the God of Jacob! 2) Strike up a song and sound the timbrel, the pleasing melody of harp and lyre! 3) Blow the ram's horn for the new moon, and for the full moon, the solemn day of our festival! 4) Duty insists you do it, O Israel; it was decreed by Jacob's God, 5) a law imposed on Joseph, when he came out of the land of Egypt.

6) Things long forgotten were brought back to me: It was I who eased their burdens from your shoulders, freeing your hands of their load, and delivering you when you called out in distress. 7) From the hiding place of thunder I answered you, though you provoked me at Meribah's waters. 8) Listen, my people, as I speak: O Israel, as I testify against you! O, if you would only listen! 9) You shall have no foreign gods in your midst; nor shall you bow before an alien god, 10) for I am the Lord, your God who brought you here from the land of Egypt, who filled your mouths.

11) But my people would not hear my voice; Israel would not obey me. 12) So I rejected them for the hardness of their hearts; I let them follow their own bent. 13) If only my people would hear me, if Israel would walk in my ways, 14) at once would I subdue their foes, and turn my hand against their adversaries! 15) Those who hate the Lord would fawn upon them, but their punishment would one day come. 16) I would feed Israel with the finest wheat, and satisfy them with the choicest honey.

Glory: Both now:
Alleluia:

Antiphon Three

God stands in the divine assembly; in the midst of the gods he gives judgment:

2) How long will you judge unjustly and favor the cause of the wicked? 3) Be just for the weak and the orphan; for the unfortunate and for the needy, do justice! 4) Rescue the weak and the poor; from the hand of the wicked set them free!

5) Without knowledge, without understanding, they grope in the darkness; the order in the world is disturbed. 6) As for me, I have told you: You are gods, all of you; you are all sons of the most high. 7) And yet, like men shall you die, like any price shall you fall. 8) Rise up, O God! Judge the earth, for you are ruler over all the nations!

Who is like you, my God? O God, do not be silent and unmoved! 2) See how your enemies rage, how they assert themselves. 3) Against your people they make crafty plans; they plot against your treasured ones. 4) Come, they whisper, let us wipe them out as a nation; let Israel's name be mentioned no more! 5) Yes, they are all in agreement; your assailants form an alliance against you. 6) There Edom lies encamped, there Ishmael; Moab, too, and the Hagarites; 7) Byblos as well as Amalek, Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. 8) Even Assyria has joined forces with them, lending her might to the children of Lot.

9) Deal with them as you did with Midian, as with Sisera and Jabin at the torrents of Kishon. 10) Let them perish like those at Endor! Let them rot like dung on the ground! 11) Make their leaders like Oreb and Ze'eb, all their chiefs like Zebah and Zalmunna 12) who said: Let us take the finest meadows for ourselves! 13) Make them whirl like tumbleweed, my God, this way and that, like straw in the wind! 14) As a fire rages through the forest, as flames blaze across the hills, 15) so chase them with your whirlwind; torment them with your windstorm. 16) Cover their faces with chagrin! Avenge your name, O Lord! 17) Confusion and dismay be theirs forever! Let them be forever disgraced; then destroy them! 18) Let them know that your name is Lord, and that you alone are the most high over all the earth.

How lovely are your dwellings, Lord God of power and might! 2) My soul yearns and pines with longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh ring out their joy to the living God! 3) Even the sparrow finds a house, and the swallow, a nest for her young: near your altars, O Lord of power and might, O my king and my God! 4) Happy are they who live in your house; they sing your praises all day long.

5) Happy the pilgrims who find their strength in you, who set their hearts on reaching you. 6) Passing through the valley of the balsam trees they make it a place of blessing, as if the autumn rains had showered it; 7) from there they go from place to place, soon to stand before the God of gods on Sion.

8) O Lord God of power and might! Hear my prayer! Lend an ear to me, God of Jacob! 9) Turn your eyes, O God, our sovereign! Look on the face of the one you have anointed! 10) One day in your courts have I preferred to a thousand somewhere else, the threshold of the house of my God to the tent of the wicked. 11) For the Lord God will sustain us and help us! He will show us his favor, his glory. The Lord will never refuse anything to those who walk in innocence. 12) O Lord of power and might! Happy the man who trusts in you!

With your favor, Lord, grace your own land, turn the tide of Jacob's fortune. 2) Forgive your people their guilt; do away with all trace of their sins. 3) Turn away your wrath; master the heat of your anger.

4) Revive us, O God of our salvation; put an end to your resentment against us. 5) Must your anger with us last forever? Will it never end? 6) Will you not restore us to life, that your people may rejoice in you? 7) Let us see your loving kindness, Lord; give us your saving help.

8) Let me reveal what the Lord himself has to say: His voice is one that speaks peace: peace for his people, for his friends, for those who turn to him in their hearts. 9) His help is close at hand for those who revere him, and his glory shall dwell in our land. 10) Mercy and truth will meet; justice and peace will embrace. 11) Faithfulness shall spring forth from the earth, and justice shall look down from the heavens. 12) The Lord will give us prosperity, and the earth will yield its fruit. 13) Justice shall go forth before him, and peace shall follow in his footsteps.

Glory: Both now:
Alleluia:

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