Composite 21 - Isaiah 62:10-63:3, 7-9 (Vespers, 2nd reading)
- 1
- Thus saith the Lord: “Go through and enter my gates; prepare My way and make it a way for my people. Cast the stones out of the way; lift up an ensign for the nations. For behold, the Lord has made it to be heard even to the ends of the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your Savior comes, having His reward with Him, and His work before Him.’ And they shall call them, The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord.” And you shall be called, A City Sought Out, and Not Forsaken.
- 2
- Who is that comes from Edom, his garment red, from Bosrah? Beautiful in his apparel, he cried out with great strength, “I speak of righteousness and a judgment of salvation!” Why are your garments red, and your apparel like his that treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the nations no one was with Me.”
- 3
- I remember the mercy of the Lord, the virtues of the Lord according to all that He has granted us. The Lord is a good judge to the House of Israel; He deals with us according to His mercies, and according to the abundance of His righteousness.
- 4
- And He said, “Is it not My people? Children that will not be rejected? And He became to them salvation out of all their afflications. Not a mediator, nor an angel, but the Lord Himself saved them, because He loved them and spared them; He Himself redeemed them and accepted them, and lifted them up all the days of the age.