Book Excerpt

"The Odes of Solomon"

0de 16

''The beauty of praise and the beauty of creation." - Wayne

1 As the work of the husbandman is the ploughshare,and the work of the steersman is the guidance of the ship:

2 So also my work is the Psalm of the Lord: my craft and my occupation are in His praises:

3 Because His love hath nourished my heart, and even to my lips His fruits He poured out.

4 For my love is the Lord, and therefore I will sing unto Him:

5 For I am made strong in His praise, and I have faith in Him.

6 I will open my mouth and His spirit will utter in me the glory of the Lord and His beauty; the work of His hands and the operation of His fingers:

7 The multitude of His mercies and the strength of His word.

8 For the word of the Lord searches out all things, both the invisible and that which reveals His thought;

9 For the eye sees His works, and the ear hears His thought;

10 He spread out the earth and He settled the waters in the sea:

11 He measured the heavens and fixed the stars: and He established the creation and set it up:

12 And He rested from His works:

13 And created things run in their courses, and do their works:

14 And they know not how to stand and be idle; and His heavenly hosts are subject to His word.

15 The treasure-chamber of the light is the sun, and the   treasury of the darkness is the night:

16 And He made the sun for the day that it may be bright,but night brings darkness over the face of the land;

17 And their alternations one to the other speak the beauty of God:

18 And there is nothing that is without the Lord; for He was before anything came into being:

19 And the worlds were made by His word, and by the thought of His heart. Glory and honour to His name.

Hallelujah

ODE 26

"Ecstatic praise over the greatness of God and our union with Him." - Wayne

1 I poured out praise to the Lord, for I am His:

2 And I will speak His holy song, for my heart is with Him.

3 For His harp is in my hands, and the Odes of His rest shall not be silent.

4 I will cry unto him from my whole heart: I will praise and exalt Him with all my members.

5 For from the east and even to the west is His praise:

6 And from the south and even to the north is the confession of Him:

7 And from the top of the hills to their utmost bound is His perfection.

8 Who can write the Psalms of the Lord, or who read them?

9 Or who can train his soul for life, that his soul may be saved,

10 Or who can rest on the Most High, so that with His mouth he may speak?

11 Who is able to interpret the wonders of the Lord?

12 For he who could interpret would be dissolved and would become that which is interpreted.

13 For it suffices to know and to rest: for in rest the singers stand,

14 Like a river which has an abundant fountain, and flows to the help of them that seek it.

Hallelujah.