For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you. Psalm 71:5-6

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” The word of the Lord!

“Let everything that hath breath, praise the Lord! Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation. O, my soul praise him, for he is my strength and salvation. Join the great throng, psaltery, organ, and song, sounding in glad adoration.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.”

“O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. I will hope in You continually and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only.”

O Lord, “I will lift up my hands in Your name, my soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore, in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.”

“Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.”

The Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning; he wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. Isaiah 50:4

“Help us, O Lord, to learn the truths thy word imparts, to study that thy laws may be inscribed upon our hearts. Help us, O Lord, to live the faith which we proclaim, that all our thoughts and words and deeds may glorify thy name.”

“As long the deer for cooling streams, in parched and barren ways, so longs my soul, O God for Thee, and Thy refreshing grace. For Thee my God, the living God, my thirsty soul doth pine, O when shall I behold Thy face, Thou Majesty divine?”

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”