Canticle Five – The Prayer of Isaiah (Isaiah 26:9-20)
My soul yearns for thee in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks thee. For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favor is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he deals perversely and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
O LORD, thy hand is lifted up, but they see it not. Let them see thy zeal for thy people, and be ashamed. Let the fire for thy adversaries consume them.
O LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us, thou hast wrought for us all our works.
O LORD our God, other lords besides thee have ruled over us, but thy name alone we acknowledge.
They are dead, they will not live; they are shades, they will not arise; to that end thou hast visited them with destruction and wiped out all remembrance of them.
But thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation; thou art glorified; thou hast enlarged all the borders of the land.
O LORD, in distress they sought thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
For 8 verses
And as a woman in travail draweth nigh to be delivered, and crieth out in her travail, so have we become in the presence of Thy beloved.
We have conceived, O Lord, because of Thy fear, and have suffered pangs, and have brought forth the spirit of Thy salvation, which we have wrought upon the earth.
For 6 verses
We have wrought no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For 4 verses
For thy dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.
Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past.