You are the God who has set us

    in families and clans and tribes,

    in communities and finally in cities.

We give you thanks this day that you are

    Lord of this city and all cities.

We pray for this city today,

    and for Jerusalem and

                Baghdad and

                Belfast and

                a thousand other cities.

In all our cities this day

    there will be crime and sharp moneymaking

    and compassion and forgiveness, and generosity,

    and regulations about justice and injustice.

Be our God this day and prosper our city.

    We pray in the name of the one who wept over the city.

Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian

______________________

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”