Bible Challenge - the end of the Psalms

This week we have the last 26 Psalms.  We have the end of the songs of Ascents - these are psalms 125 through 134.  These are the psalms that were sung as people went up to Jerusalem, for the Passover and for other religious festivals.

Psalm 134 is used at our Compline service - the late night prayer - because it puts a cap on all of the praise of God.

Psalm 137 is a lament that reflects on the time of the captivity in Babylon and other times of trial in the history of Israel.

Most of the rest of the book of Psalms is praise to God.

You may have noticed that the reading sheet tells you to read through Psalm 151 while the Bible you are probably reading ends with Psalm 150.  Psalm 151 was a part of the Christian Bible from 350 AD through the 1500's.  It was removed from Protestant Bibles when it was discovered that it was not a part of the Jewish Canon of Scripture.  It is retained in Roman Catholic Bibles.  For Episcopalians it is part of what is called the Aprocypha.  Here is the text as it is in Hebrew:

1. Smaller was I than my brothers and the youngest of the sons of my father*
Yet he made me shepherd of his flock and ruler over his kids.
2. My hands have made an instrument and my fingers a lyre;*
And so have I rendered glory to the Lord, thought I, within my soul.
3. The mountains do not witness to him nor do the hills proclaim;*
The trees have cherished my words and the flock my works.
4. For who can proclaim and who can bespeak and who can recount the deeds of the Lord?*
Everything has God seen, everything has he heard and has heeded.
5. He sent his prophet to anoint me, Samuel to make me great.*
My brothers went out to meet him, handsome of figure and appearance.
6. Though they were tall of stature and handsome by their hair,*
The Lord God chose them not.
7. But he sent and took me from behind the flock and anointed me with holy oil*
And he made me leader of his people and ruler over the people of his covenant.