Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 93

¹ The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is robed, He has girded Himself with strength and power; the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.

² Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting.

³ The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up the roaring of their waves.

⁴ The Lord on high is mightier and more glorious than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty breakers and waves of the sea.

⁵ Your testimonies are very sure; holiness [apparent in separation from sin, with simple trust and hearty obedience] is becoming to Your house, O Lord, forever.

Psalm 98

A Psalm.

¹ O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have wrought salvation for Him.

² The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness has He openly shown in the sight of the nations.^(A)

³ He has [earnestly] remembered His mercy and loving-kindness, His truth and His faithfulness toward the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have witnessed the salvation of our God.^(B)

⁴ Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy, yes, sing praises!

⁵ Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the voice of melody.

⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

⁷ Let the sea roar, and all that fills it, the world, and those who dwell in it!

⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands; together let the hills sing for joy

⁹ Before the Lord, for He is coming to judge [and rule] the earth; with righteousness will He judge [and rule] the world, and the peoples with equity.

Psalm 66

To the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.

¹ Make a joyful noise unto God, all the earth;

² Sing forth the honor and glory of His name; make His praise glorious!

³ Say to God, How awesome and fearfully glorious are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power shall Your enemies submit themselves to You [with feigned and reluctant obedience].

⁴ All the earth shall bow down to You and sing [praises] to You; they shall praise Your name in song. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁵ Come and see the works of God; see how [to save His people He smites their foes; He is] terrible in His doings toward the children of men.

⁶ He turned the sea into dry land, they crossed through the river on foot; there did we rejoice in Him.

⁷ He rules by His might forever, His eyes observe and keep watch over the nations; let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁸ Bless our God, O peoples, give Him grateful thanks and make the voice of His praise be heard,

⁹ Who put and kept us among the living, and has not allowed our feet to slip.

¹⁰ For You, O God, have proved us; You have tried us as silver is tried, refined, and purified.

¹¹ You brought us into the net (the prison fortress, the dungeon); You laid a heavy burden upon our loins.

¹² You caused men to ride over our heads [when we were prostrate]; we went through fire and through water, but You brought us out into a broad, moist place [to abundance and refreshment and the open air].

¹³ I will come into Your house with burnt offerings [of entire consecration]; I will pay You my vows,

¹⁴ Which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in distress.

¹⁵ I will offer to You burnt offerings of fat lambs, with rams consumed in sweet-smelling smoke; I will offer bullocks and he-goats. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who reverently and worshipfully fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me!

¹⁷ I cried aloud to Him; He was extolled and high praise was under my tongue.

¹⁸ If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;^(A)

¹⁹ But certainly God has heard me; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.

²⁰ Blessed be God, Who has not rejected my prayer nor removed His mercy and loving-kindness from being [as it always is] with me.

¹⁴ And this day shall be to you for a memorial. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, keep it as an ordinance forever.

¹⁵ [In celebration of the Passover in future years] seven days shall you eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away leaven [symbolic of corruption] out of your houses; for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

¹⁶ On the first day you shall hold a solemn and holy assembly, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn and holy assembly; no kind of work shall be done in them, save [preparation of] that which every person must eat—that only may be done by you.

¹⁷ And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore shall you observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever.

¹⁸ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread [and continue] until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.

¹⁹ Seven days no leaven [symbolic of corruption] shall be found in your houses; whoever eats what is leavened shall be excluded from the congregation of Israel, whether a stranger or native-born.^(A)

²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread [during that week].

²¹ Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them, Go forth, select and take a lamb according to your families and kill the Passover [lamb].

²² And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood in the basin, and touch the lintel above the door and the two side posts with the blood; and none of you shall go out of his house until morning.

²³ For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood upon the lintel and the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to slay you.

²⁴ You shall observe this rite for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever.

²⁵ When you come to the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall keep this service.

²⁶ When your children shall say to you, What do you mean by this service?

²⁷ You shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He slew the Egyptians but spared our houses. And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.

15 And now let me remind you [since it seems to have escaped you], brethren, of the Gospel (the glad tidings of salvation) which I proclaimed to you, which you welcomed and accepted and upon which your faith rests,

² And by which you are saved, if you hold fast and keep firmly what I preached to you, unless you believed at first without effect and all for nothing.

³ For I passed on to you first of all what I also had received, that Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for our sins in accordance with [what] the Scriptures [foretold],^(A)

⁴ That He was buried, that He arose on the third day as the Scriptures foretold,^(B)

⁵ And [also] that He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve.

⁶ Then later He showed Himself to more than five hundred brethren at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep [in death].

⁷ Afterward He was seen by James, then by all the apostles (the special messengers),

⁸ And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one prematurely and born dead [^[a]no better than an unperfected fetus among living men].

⁹ For I am the least [worthy] of the apostles, who am not fit or deserving to be called an apostle, because I once wronged and pursued and molested the church of God [oppressing it with cruelty and violence].

¹⁰ But by the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not [found to be] for nothing (fruitless and without effect). In fact, I worked harder than all of them [the apostles], though it was not really I, but the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God which was with me.

¹¹ So, whether then it was I or they, this is what we preach and this is what you believed [what you adhered to, trusted in, and relied on].

16 And when the Sabbath was past [that is, after the sun had set], Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the mother] of James, and Salome purchased sweet-smelling spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body].

² And very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb; [by then] the sun had risen.

³ And they said to one another, Who will roll back the stone for us out of [the groove across the floor at] the door of the tomb?

⁴ And when they looked up, they [distinctly] saw that the stone was already rolled back, for it was very large.

⁵ And going into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting [there] on the right [side], clothed in a [^[a]long, stately, sweeping] robe of white, and they were utterly amazed and struck with terror.

⁶ And he said to them, Do not be amazed and terrified; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.^(A)

⁷ But be going; tell the disciples and Peter, He goes before you into Galilee; you will see Him there, [just] as He told you.^(B)

⁸ Then they went out [and] fled from the tomb, for trembling and bewilderment and consternation had seized them. And they said nothing about it to anyone, for they were held by alarm and fear.