FIRST HOUR

The Lord thundered \* upon many waters .

Prokeimenon of the Prophecy. Tone 4. [8]

Verse: I will love you, Lord, my strength; the Lord is my support and my refuge and my deliverer.

Thus says the Lord: Rejoice, thirsty desert.  Let the desert be glad and flower like a lily. The deserts of Jordan will blossom and be overgrown and be glad.  The glory of Lebanon has been given to it and the honour of Carmel.  And my people will see the glory of the Lord and the majesty of God.  Be strong, enfeebled hands and palsied knees.  Give comfort and say to the faint-hearted, ‘Be strong and do not fear. See, our God is giving judgement and will give it.  He himself will come and save us.  Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear.  Then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of stammerers will speak clearly, because water has burst out in the desert and a channel in a thirsty land. And the waterless land will become pools and there will be a spring of water for the thirsty land.  There will be joy of birds there, roosts of owls [9] and reed beds and pools.  And there will be a pure way there, and it will be called a holy way, and no one unclean may pass along it.  There will be no unclean way there.  But the scattered will walk upon it and not go astray.  There will be no lion there, nor will any of the evil wild beasts go up on it or be found there.  But the redeemed and gathered by the Lord will walk on it.  And they will return and come to Sion with joy and exultation, and everlasting joy will be upon their head.  For on their head will be praise and rejoicing, and gladness will possess them.  Pain, grief and sighing have fled away.

4. The Reading is from the Prophecy of Isaias.

In those days, as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘Whom do you suppose that I am?  I am not he.  No, but one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’  Brethren, children of the race of Abraham, and those among you that fear God, to us has been sent the word of this salvation.  For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the sayings of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.  Though they found no cause deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him done away with.  And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a grave.  But God raised him from the dead;  and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.  And we bring you the good news that what was promised to our ancestors, God has fulfilled for us their children by raising Jesus.

5. The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles.