Evening Prayer (Evensong) in Traditional Language

Psalm [5]

[

Psalm 6

First Reading: Wisdom 11.21 - 12.11

For thou canst shew thy great strength at all times when thou wilt; and who may withstand the power of thine arm?
For the whole world before thee is as a little grain of the balance, yea, as a drop of the morning dew that falleth down upon the earth.
But thou hast mercy upon all; for thou canst do all things, and winkest at the sins of men, because they should amend.
For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made any thing, if thou hadst hated it.
And how could any thing have endured, if it had not been thy will? or been preserved, if not called by thee?
But thou sparest all: for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls.
For thine incorruptible Spirit is in all things.
Therefore chastenest thou them by little and little that offend, and warnest them by putting them in remembrance wherein they have offended, that leaving their wickedness they may believe on thee, O Lord.
For it was thy will to destroy by the hands of our fathers both those old inhabitants of thy holy land,
Whom thou hatedst for doing most odious works of witchcrafts, and wicked sacrifices;
And also those merciless murderers of children, and devourers of man’s flesh, and the feasts of blood,
With their priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the parents, that killed with their own hands souls destitute of help:
That the land, which thou esteemedst above all other, might receive a worthy colony of God’s children.
Nevertheless even those thou sparedst as men, and didst send wasps, forerunners of thine host, to destroy them by little and little.
Not that thou wast unable to bring the ungodly under the hand of the righteous in battle, or to destroy them at once with cruel beasts, or with one rough word:
But executing thy judgments upon them by little and little, thou gavest them place of repentance, not being ignorant that they were a naughty generation, and that their malice was bred in them, and that their cogitation would never be changed.
For it was a cursed seed from the beginning; neither didst thou for fear of any man give them pardon for those things wherein they sinned.

or Hosea 10.1-8,12

Second Reading: Galatians 4.8-20

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.
And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.
Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.
But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.