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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian (350 A.D.)

O  Lord and Master of my life, this day, give me not the spirit of laziness, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of sobriety, humility, patience and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou unto ages of ages.

Penitential Prayer

O  my God, I love you above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because you are the very essence of goodness and love. I promise to strive to love my neighbor as myself, out of my love for you. I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask to be pardoned wherever I have done injury to my brothers and sisters, who are your beloved children even though they, like me, are sinners.

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I hate all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of Hell; but most of all because I love you and want to serve you, my God, who is all good and worthy of all love and devotion. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to always confess my sins, to do whatever penance your Holy Spirit may put in my heart, and always to strive to amend my life, so that my life might return a small portion of all you have given me. Through Christ I pray,

Benediction

Now to Him who has given me grace in accordance with His gospel, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for many ages past, but now revealed and made known by the command of the eternal God, so that all mankind might find the obedience that comes from faith; to the only God, the God of wisdom and truth, be glory forever through His only son, Jesus Christ.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Proverbs 17:5

Genesis 46:8-26 (abridged)(ESV)

Joseph Brings His Family to Egypt

Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. [Names of Jacob's other eleven sons and their children.]

All the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt, who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons' wives, were sixty-six persons in all. And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two. All the persons of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were seventy.

[unabridged version]

Notes on the Scripture

These verses of Genesis 46 comprise a detailed roster of all the male (and some of the female) Israelites who entered Egypt. These were truly the "Israelites" now, that is, the bloodline descendants of Israel (Jacob), and so they have been called ever since.

The need for this detailed genealogy is to establish — for a period of over 3000 years — one's legitimate claim to the birthright of Abraham's descendants. Judaism is racial as well as religious, and one's right to participate in the old covenant with God was (and, according to Judaism, still is) determined by one's ability to trace one's lineage to one of the twelve sons of Jacob. (The Jews make the lineage of the kings and queens of England look recent, and the Mayflower Society like utter arrivistes!)

The date when the Jews entered Egypt is difficult to place. Neither Potiphar nor Joseph appear in Egyptian records (or anywhere else outside the Bible). On the Jewish calendar, Joseph was purchased in the year 2216, which is 1544 BC. The difficulties in establishing the time frame drives scholars to distraction, and gives rise to periodic claims that none of it even happened.

But of every hard fact in the Old Testament, this might be the most credible, even to a person who is not a believer, due to the extraordinary detail of the record. It is, in fact, one of the most extraordinary ancient historical documents in existence; there really is nothing else like this part of Genesis, for it records the detailed events of a group of people who were, at the time, simply and completely inconsequential.

They were a small band of nomads and herders of cattle and sheep, an occupation contemptible in the eyes of the Egyptians. The Pharaoh's granting them the right to graze a bit of land would have been a minor two-minute formality in the boring routine of the court. It was one of a million moments in ancient history, of no more importance to the great world than a drop of water flowing into the Mediterranean.

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel, Rembrandt c. 1569

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