Acknowledgements
The original authors of these prayers deserve the true honour, but many
others have contributed over time to the shape and detail of this book.
Particular thanks are due to students and colleagues at Spurgeon’s College
who used an early draft for private prayer and gave invaluable critical
feedback. Judy Powles, the devoted College librarian, has been a constant
and careful help. My Old Testament colleagues, Hetty Lalleman and Debra
Reid, were inspirational translation partners for the work on the 28 Psalms.
Hetty Lalleman and Heiner Georgi offered the Karl Barth translation and
Tonny Jacobsen in Denmark has done valuable work to unpick Kierkegaard’s
nineteenth-century Danish for me. The adaptations throughout are my own.
Permission to use The Daily Office from the Northumbria Community is
especially appreciated. Advice on the historical material, from Peter Morden
on Spurgeon and from Ian Randall, is also received with gratitude. My wife
Margaret read and corrected with insight, especially the detail of the Bible
reading plan, for which I am immensely grateful. Other publishers and
authors have given permission to use their translations and prayers, and this
is acknowledged with thanks. The literary sources and copyright permissions
are all referenced in the notes and where omissions are detected these will be
corrected in any future edition.