Gospel of John 7 Catholic Bible study Lesson 9

The Gospel According to John:
An Encounter with Grace & Truth

Lesson 9 Rivers of Living Water
the Gospel According to John 7:1–53

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
glossary for the Gospel According to John
cross references in the Gospel According to John
next lesson: This Woman Has Been Caught in Adultery

This material coordinates with Lesson 9 on pages 49–54 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”—the Gospel According to John 20:30–31

welcome to our in-depth study of the Gospel According to John
We invite interested groups and individuals to check out the sample first lesson from this 25-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. These online study pages link to our free lesson videos, as well as to a glossary and cross references in the biblical text. Other study aids include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth has been granted an imprimatur and can be purchased from our website shop. If you have a Bible-study question or comment, click on one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons on any online study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the Gospel According to John 6:22–71
Lesson 8 I Am the Living Bread contains Jesus’ famous Bread of Life discourse, which is how the Evangelist John chooses to explain the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Bread of Life discourse takes place at Capernaum, where Jesus had gone after multiplying loaves and fishes. Jesus suggests to the people that they’re only following him because he miraculously produced food. Although Jesus explains how he differs from Moses, the crowd continues to miss the point. When Jesus spells out that people must eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood in order to gain eternal life, the vast majority of the crowd abandon Jesus. Twelve disciples remain, and Peter observes that the reason he’s staying with Jesus is because only Jesus has the words of eternal life. Jesus announces that one of these chosen disciples is a devil, and the Evangelist identifies Judas Iscariot as Jesus’ future betrayer.

map notes—where does Jesus comes from?
At no time in the Fourth Gospel does Jesus say that he’s from Nazareth, Capernaum, or any town in Galilee, nor does he mention that he was born in Bethlehem. In the Gospel According to John 3:31, the Evangelist claims Jesus has come “from above” or was sent by the Father, implying that Jesus is divine. In the Gospel According to John 3:13; 6:38; 6:41–42; 6:51; and 8:23, Jesus makes the claim himself to have come from heaven. The point of the Fourth Gospel seems to be that Jesus is more interested in spiritual than physical geography, but the people who encounter him find this a difficult idea. Learn more in “Where Does Jesus Come From?” on page 51 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Click on the image (right) to enlarge the map, which also appears on page 51 in the study book.

another religious celebration (01:06:21)
Many of the most meaningful events in the Fourth Gospel take place when Jesus is in Jerusalem to celebrate one of the major Jewish religious feasts. By contrast, the synoptic Gospels (the Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke) record Jesus only traveling to Jerusalem once for the Passover, and that occurs at the end of his three-year ministry. In the video for this lesson, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps looks at what’s going on with the timing of events in the seventh chapter in the Gospel According to John. For more information about the significance of the feast of Tabernacles—a harvest celebration also known as the feast of Booths—read “A Last Great Day” on page 54 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study match the Scripture ranges for the sets of questions in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. You can follow along as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 9, “Rivers of Living Water,” on pages 49–54 in the study book.

read the Catechism—who are these brethren who don’t believe in Jesus?
The word brethren means “brothers,” and some people point to the Gospel According to John 7:1–10 as biblical proof that the Blessed Virgin Mary had children after giving birth to Jesus. Although the Church allows some leeway in how Catholics interpret Sacred Scripture, there are two caveats: 1) No Catholic may interpret any biblical passage in a way that contradicts anything else in the Scriptures, and 2) No interpretation can contradict established Church doctrine. Paragraph 499 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear about Marian doctrine concerning the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God. You can learn about the connection between Scripture and traditional Marian prayers in the Turning toGod’s Word Catholic Bible study Scripture & the Rosary: New Testament Mysteries, Old Testament Parallels. No longer in print, free digital lessons from that study rotate throughout the liturgical year on our website.

Keeping Church teaching in mind, the unbelieving brethren referred to in the seventh chapter in the Gospel According to John most certainly constitute either some distant relatives of Jesus or perhaps other members of Jesus’ local community.

499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the “Ever–Virgin.”

The significant information is that these brethren don’t believe in Jesus, and Jesus knows it. Just because Jesus chooses not to go with a crowd of somewhat casual onlookers to the feast in Jerusalem doesn’t mean that he intends to ignore his religious obligation. The Evangelist tells us that Jesus goes up to the feast privately. It comes as a surprise when Jesus chooses to draw attention to himself during the feast by teaching in the temple at Jerusalem, and Jesus follows that by making a radical proclamation on what the Evangelist describes as “the last day of the feast, the great day.”

Q&A—does Jesus tell lies?
One participant in this Bible study has noticed that in the Gospel According to John 7:8, Jesus tells his unbelieving brethren: “Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come,” but then two verses later the Evangelist tells us that Jesus did go up to Jerusalem by himself after his brethren already had gone to the feast.

Q: When pondering whether Jesus knew what he was going to do in the Gospel According to John 7:8, my discussion group wondered if Jesus was telling a fib to the brethren.

A—what Matthew says: It hardly seems likely that the Evangelist would present Jesus telling a lie in the very Gospel in which Jesus is so intimately associated with the truth. Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps took a look at the original Greek in this passage, and he reports that the Greek word translated as “for” in the RSVCE and RSV2CE is absolutely causal, so the original language makes it thoroughly clear that when Jesus tells his brethren he’s not going up to the feast, he’s not going because his time has not yet come. The Gospel According to John 7:8 (NABRE) emphasizes this meaning by translating the same Greek word as “because.”

This is very similar to what Jesus tells his Mother in the Gospel According to John 2:4: “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” In both instances, something happens to make Jesus decide—even though his hour or time hasn’t yet come—that he should go ahead with the request (spoken or unspoken) at hand. In Cana, Jesus provides wine for the marriage feast. When he goes to the feast in Jerusalem, Jesus announces that he can provide living water to anyone who comes to him. Both of these events appear to be important markers as Jesus moves closer and closer to his “hour.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK about Jesus going to the feast?
The Fourth Gospel frequently mentions that Jesus regularly attends mandatory religious feasts in Jerusalem.

? How do we think that Jesus’ actions reflect his mission?
? What do we think that Jesus’ mission is?
? What new information that we wouldn’t otherwise know do we learn because Jesus attends the feast in Jerusalem?

living water
In the seventh chapter in the Gospel According to John, Jesus continues to develop his teaching about the sacrament of Baptism. It’s characteristic of Jesus to tie the sacraments to inexpensive, common materials that are readily available. In the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus makes use of another common material—bread—to teach about the sacrament of the Eucharist. But while Jesus uses ordinary materials, his message is far from ordinary. It’s through these common materials that God has chosen to relate in an intimate and personal way with his people. In the sacraments we’re able to experience the union of the human and divine. It’s also not coincidental that the sacraments are communal. While each person experiences God in an intimate way, the sacraments only occur in context of the Church community, the Body of Christ.

a stunning literal interpretation of the Old Testament
It’s also characteristic of Jesus to use Old Testament references as a foundation for his teaching. The most amazing details from the Old Testament foreshadow Jesus himself, and few are more amazing than Paul’s interpretation of the story in the book of Numbers 20:2–11 of Moses striking a rock to bring forth water for the Israelites in the wilderness. In his First Letter to the Corinthians 10:1–4 Paul writes: “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers … all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” As if it were not enough that God could provide water from a rock to slake his people’s thirst, it turns out that this is no ordinary rock but one that is able to follow the Israelites in the wilderness—and this Rock actually is the second person of the Blessed Trinity.

In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus expands on the theme. Jesus teaches that he still is providing humanity with supernatural drink, only this time the living water is spiritual in nature. Jesus continues to teach using earthly things to explain heavenly things. Water is a normal everyday substance that’s essential for human life. Jesus previously taught the Samaritan woman that he’s the source of “living water,” an essential element of eternal life. Now he teaches that this “living water” will overflow from the hearts of those who receive it. Baptized Christians are intended to become sources of “living water.”

the popes inspire us—prayer rises from the heart
In “Water from the Rock” on page 53 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, Pope Benedict XVI builds on the idea in the Letter to the Romans 5:5 of God’s love being poured into our hearts to teach that Psalm 104:30 is a prayer that rises from the heart of the Church in every time and place: When God sends forth his Holy Spirit, we are created; and God renews the face of the earth. These words remind Christians that the Holy Spirit has been poured out as the first fruits of a new Creation, one in which the human family willbe reconciled in love. Prayed at Sunday Vigils (Week II), Psalm 104 will be included as part of Lesson 15 Let Us Ring Out Our Joy to the LORD in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, scheduled for publication in 2025. This Psalm also serves as the scriptural basis of a popular Catholic prayer to the Holy Spirit.

baptism—you could look it up in our archives
The sacrament of Baptism resembles Jewish cleanliness rituals common in Jesus’ day. To learn more about the relationship between Christian and pre-Christian baptism practices, read Lost in Translation, an online column in which Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps helps readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

read the Catechism—what is right judgment?
In the Gospel According to John 7:24, Jesus warns: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Sometimes it can be difficult to be sure that we’re using right judgment, but it can help to remember that right judgment shows up as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, referred to as the gift of counsel. (The other six gifts of the Holy Spirit are fear of the Lord, fortitude, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and piety.) St. Thomas Aquinas associated thegift of counsel with the virtue of prudence, an idea that may be helpful when we’re trying to practice right judgment in our own lives. Paragraph 1786 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains right judgment:

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

concerns about Jesus’ origin
Where Jesus comes from is a key concern of many who encounter him in the Gospel According to John. Jesus’ origin is crucial to whether he’s the long-awaited Messiah. The Old Testament Book of Isaiah 9:1–7** contains a prophetic passage that’s often read at Christmas. It can be interpreted to suggest that the mention of Galilee of the Nations in the first verse indicates the Messiah would come from Galilee.You can learn more about the prophet known as Proto- (First) Isaiah or Isaiah of Jerusalem in Lesson 20 Isaiah Foresees Immanuel’s Birth in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume I: A Kingdom Divided.

At issue is what is meant by the phrase “come from.” If it means the Messiah’s most recent mailing address, then Galilee is a valid contender, although a good case can be made that Jesus himself doesn’t seem to claim any geographical location as home. In the Gospel According to Mark 2:1 (and elsewhere in that Gospel) it’s strongly suggested that Jesus made his home in Capernaum in Galilee. In the Gospel According to Matthew 8:20 and the Gospel According to Luke 9:28, however, Jesus says that the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. In the Gospel According to John, the Evangelist repeatedly points out that people think they know Jesus comes from Galilee, a location that functions as the equivalent of a present-day mailing address.

Bethlehem is the place of Jesus’ birth
If the phrase “comes from” means where the Messiah was born, however, both the Old Testament and the New Testament are clear about that. In the Book of Micah 5:2***, the Messiah is prophesied to be born in Bethlehem: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” Not only does this prophecy spell out that the Messiah will “come forth” from Bethlehem in Judah (the region of Judea and not Galilee), it also includes some even more critical information about the Messiah’s origin—that he’s “from of old, from ancient days.” This directly ties the Messiah to the prologue in the Gospel According to John (1:1–18), in which the Evangelist explains that the Word was in the beginning with God.

what does God actually want from us?
You can learn more about the prophet Micah in Lesson 22 What Does the LORD Require? in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume I: A Kingdom Divided. The short section of the video on which Matthew discusses Micah’s prophecy is particularly informative. The first volume of Thus Says the LORD examines the biblical prophets in their historical context using the First and Second Books of the Kings and passages from writings of prophets active in Judah and Israel before the Babylonian Exile in 586 B.C. This 28-lesson Catholic Biblestudy with an imprimatur builds on another Turning to God’s Word study, The United Kingdom of Israel: Saul, David & Solomon Foreshadow Christ the King.

a prophecy that takes space & time into account
Micah’s prophecy addresses the coming of the Messiah both in terms of space and time. The Messiah will come forth from Bethlehem (the spatial location of the birth is set), but the Messiah nevertheless has existed from of old (in temporal terms, this indicates that the Messiah somehow existed prior to his prophesied birth, and the prophet provides only rather vague clues about when in worldly time the Messiah’s birth will occur—similar to the vague descriptions we have about when the Second Coming will occur). Bethlehem as the geographical location of the Messiah’s birth is clearly specified in the Gospel According to Matthew 2:1 and in the Gospel According to Luke 2:4–7, and both Evangelists establish that the birth occurs during the reign of Herod. The Evangelist Luke further specifies that Caesar Augustus is ruling the Roman Empire at the time, and Quirinius is governor of Syria.

the Old & New Testaments aren’t at odds
The passage from the Book of Isaiah 9:1–7 mentions the birth of a child, but it doesn’t include a geographical location, and so it doesn’t contradict the prophet Micah. While the passage is interpreted by the Church as having to do with the birth of the Messiah—and that’s certainly why it appears in the Advent and Christmas liturgies—at issue is what exactly is meant by the Book of Isaiah 9:1, which reads: “but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Nations.” It’s obvious from other passages in the Scriptures that we can’t interpret “make glorious” to mean that the Messiah will be born in Galilee, because elsewhere the Old Testament clearly foretells that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem—and the New Testament verifies that is indeed what happens. While we’re free to interpret how it is that God is going to “make glorious” the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Nations, as Catholics we can’t interpret this in a way that contradicts anything else in the Scriptures.

what does Isaiah mean by ‘make glorious’?
Does “make glorious” mean that God is going to have the Messiah “come from” Galilee in the sense of having the Messiah be born in Bethlehem but reside in Galilee, or does the term have a different meaning? It seems entirely possible that rather than indicating the Messiah would “come from” Galilee, Isaiah’s prophecy is foretelling that the Messiah would “come to” Galilee. Prepositions are small parts of speech, but they can pack a mighty punch in terms of meaning. Interpreting the Messiah coming “to” Galilee bypasses concern about the place Jesus was born, and focuses instead on the purpose of his birth, which Proto- (First) Isaiah’s prophecy establishes is to allow the people who walk in darkness to see a great light—the light of Christ. In this interpretation, then, Galilee would be a place where people are in darkness prior to the time when the Messiah “comes to” them.

for additional reflection
In the seventh chapter in the Gospel According to John, the Evangelist continues to emphasize the difference between Jesus and Moses. At issue is whether healing on the sabbath breaks the law of Moses. The following questions are designed to help readers begin to form their own thoughts and ideas related to the Gospel According to John 7:1–53. For more reflection questions, refer to the introduction to Lesson 9 on page 49 in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

? In the Gospel According to John 7:22, Jesus introduces the idea that Moses gave the people circumcision, only quickly adds the parenthetical explanation that circumcision isn’t from Moses but from the fathers. What fathers is it likely that Jesus is talking about?
? Under what circumstances was circumcision established as part of Hebrew religious tradition? If necessary, refer to the book of Genesis 17:1–27. You can learn more in Lesson 10 God’s Covenant with Abraham in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis.
? What does circumcision represent to practicing Jews?
? Why might these details about circumcision be important to Jesus’ argument that healing on the sabbath doesn’t amount to breaking religious law?
? Why isn’t circumcision required for male Christians?
? For Christians, what sign represents something similar to what circumcision represents for Jews?

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however.

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out persons and places mentioned in the biblical text under multiple names or spellings. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
You can find links to magisterial documents referred to in Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This page includes a listing of significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the Gospel According to John 7:1–53 (NIV)

close with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers, you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s text from the Gospel According to John.

God our Father, you are the source of all of Jesus’ teaching.
Grant that we may seek to do your will
in order to bring glory to your name.
Help us to avoid judging by appearances,
and allow us to be generous in sharing
the gift of the Spirit that we’ve been given.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lesson 10 This Woman Has Been Caught in Adultery—the Gospel According to John 8:1–11
Lesson 8 I Am the Living Bread—the Gospel According to John 6:22–71

you also may like our study of the book of Exodus
You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus, a 28-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, provides an in-depth look at how significant events in biblical history that occurred thousands of years ago to descendants of Jacob remain relevant and even critical for present-day Christians to understand. The deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and the giving of Ten Commandments are examined along with the development of Moses’ relationship to God. Click on the book’s cover to view a sample lesson.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer questions and offer support. Contact us if you’d like to start one of our studies or have your schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus—but the same books aren’t found in existing Hebrew manuscripts, which aren’t as old as the oldest version of the Septuagint. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages for The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces those with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.