Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 148
1 Praise the Eternal!
All you in the heavens, praise the Eternal;
praise Him from the highest places!
2 All you, His messengers and His armies in heaven:
praise Him!
3 Sun, moon, and all you brilliant stars above:
praise Him!
4 Highest heavens and all you waters above the heavens:
praise Him!
5 Let all things join together in a concert of praise to the name of the Eternal,
for He gave the command and they were created.
6 He put them in their places to stay forever—
He declared it so, and it is final.
7 Everything on earth, join in and praise the Eternal;
sea monsters and creatures of the deep,
8 Lightning and hail, snow and foggy mists,
violent winds all respond to His command.
9 Mountains and hills,
fruit trees and cedar forests,
10 All you animals both wild and tame,
reptiles and birds who take flight:
praise the Lord.
11 All kings and all nations,
princes and all judges of the earth,
12 All people, young men and women,
old men and children alike,
praise the Lord.
13 Let them all praise the name of the Eternal!
For His name stands alone above all others.
His glory shines greater than anything above or below.
14 He has made His people strong;
He is the praise of all who are godly,
the praise of the children of Israel, those whom He holds close.
Praise the Eternal!
Psalm 149
1 Praise the Eternal!
Write new songs; sing them to Him with all your might!
Gather with His faithful followers in joyful praise;
2 Let all of Israel celebrate their Maker, their God, their friend;
let the children of Zion find great joy in their true King.
3 So let the music begin; praise His name—dance and sing
to the rhythm of the tambourine, and to the tune of the harp.
4 For the Eternal is listening, and nothing pleases Him more than His people;
He raises up the poor and endows them with His salvation.
5 Let His faithful followers erupt in praise,
singing triumphantly wherever they are, even as they lie down for sleep in the evening.
6 With the name of God and praise in their mouths,
with a two-edged sword in their hands,
7 Let them take revenge on all nations who deny God.
Let them punish the peoples.
8 Kings and nobles will be locked up,
and their freedom will be bound in iron shackles.
9 This judgment against them, decreed by a holy God, will be carried out.
It’s an honor for all His faithful followers to serve Him.
Praise the Eternal!
Psalm 150
If Psalm 150 is any indication, then the worship of the one True God ought to be full of life and energy. Consider what it must have looked and sounded like in those days: voices lifted, shouting for joy, trumpets blaring, stringed instruments playing, people dancing, pipes humming, tambourines keeping rhythm, cymbals crashing. There are times when worship ought to break out in joy. Is it possible that our worship is too quiet, too reserved, too structured?
1 Praise the Eternal!
Praise the True God inside His temple.
Praise Him beneath massive skies, under moonlit stars and rising sun.
2 Praise Him for His powerful acts, redeeming His people.
Praise Him for His greatness that surpasses our time and understanding.
3-4 Praise Him with the blast of trumpets high into the heavens,
and praise Him with harps and lyres
and the rhythm of the tambourines skillfully played by those who love and fear the Eternal.
Praise Him with singing and dancing;
praise Him with flutes and strings of all kinds!
5 Praise Him with crashing cymbals,
loud clashing cymbals!
6 No one should be left out;
Let every man and every beast—
every creature that has the breath of the Lord—praise the Eternal!
Praise the Eternal!
This doxology not only closes Book Five, but it also closes the entire Book of Psalms. Up until now, the songs in this book have reminded us of all the reasons we should praise God. Some songs have even commanded us to praise Him. But this closing remark takes the command to praise one step further: everything alive—humans, animals, and heaven’s creatures—must praise Him. Praise is what God created us to do; it is one of our highest purposes in life. So it is no wonder that the longest book of the Bible is purely devoted to helping us do just that.
Psalm 114
1 When the time came for Israel to leave Egypt—
for Jacob’s family to be free of those who spoke another language—
2 God chose to make Judah His sacred place,
and Israel became His realm.
3 And the waters of the sea witnessed God’s actions and ran away;
the Jordan, too, turned around and ran back to where it came from.
4 All of the mountains leapt with the strength of mighty rams,
and all of the hills danced with the joy of little lambs.
5 Why do you retreat, O sea?
Why do you roll back your waters, O Jordan?
6 Why, O mountains, do you leap with the strength of rams?
Why, O hills, do you dance with joy like little lambs?
7 Shudder and quake, O you earth, at the sight of the Lord.
The God of Jacob comes,
8 Who turns rock into pools of refreshing water
and flint into fountains of life-giving streams!
Psalm 115
1 Not for us, O Eternal One; this glory is not for us—but for Your name
because of Your loyal love and truth.
2 Why should the nations ask,
“Where is their God now?”
3 Our God is in heaven
doing whatever He chooses.
4 Those nations worship idols of silver and gold,
crafted by human hands:
5 They have given their gods mouths, but they cannot speak;
eyes, but they cannot see.
6 They have provided their idols with ears, but they cannot hear;
noses, but they cannot smell.
7 They have fashioned hands, but the idols cannot reach out and touch;
feet, but they cannot walk.
Their idols cannot make a sound in their finely crafted throats.
8 The people who make idols will become useless like them,
like all who trust in idols.
9 O Israel, put your trust in the Eternal.
He is their helper and defender.
10 O family of Aaron, put your trust in the Eternal.
He is their helper and defender.
11 All who fear and know the Eternal, put your trust in Him.
He is their helper and defender.
12 The Eternal has remembered us, and He will bless us.
He will bless the people of Israel.
He will bless the priestly family of Aaron.
13 The Eternal will bless those who worship and stand in awe of Him,
from the least to the greatest.
14 May the Eternal prosper your family,
growing both you and your descendants.
15 May the blessings of the Eternal,
maker of heaven and earth, be on you.
16 The heavens above belong to the Eternal,
and yet earth in all of its beauty has been given to humanity by Him.
17 The dead do not praise the Eternal,
nor do any who descend into the silent grave.
18 But we will praise and bless You—our Eternal One—
today and forever.
Praise the Eternal!
This prophecy echoes stories of the great exodus, when God led Israel out of slavery in Egypt and guided them safely through the barren, rocky crags of the Sinai Peninsula. God was their comfort and sustainer, an ever-present guide and protection. The ancients spoke of traveling beneath the cool shade of a cloud by day and a pillar of warm, bright fire by night. Now the prophet sees ahead to a day when God will provide His people rest and comfort—a new exodus—in His chosen place, Zion.
5 Let me now sing for my dear friend,
a love song about his vineyard.
My friend, whom I dearly love,
had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
2 He labored to prepare the ground, tilling the soil and digging out rocks,
and then he planted it with the best plants he could find.
In its midst, he built a watchtower over it
and cut out a winepress in the hill nearby;
Then he waited, hoping it would be bountiful.
But the vineyard produced only wild, bitter grapes.
3 Eternal One: That’s it. Enough. Now, you who live in My special city, Jerusalem,
you people of this choice country, Judah,
Who’s in the right—Me or My vineyard?
4 What else could I possibly have done to make it flourish?
Why, when I had every reason to expect great beauty and bushels of grapes,
Did it yield only wild, bitter fruit?
5 I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,
what I’ve determined to do to My vineyard:
I’m going to take away its protective fence
and let the deer, raccoons, and rabbits devour it.
I’ll break down its wall,
let the vines be eaten and trampled.
6 I will set it up for destruction—
do no pruning, no tilling—
And it will be overrun with nasty briars and thornbushes.
I will even order the clouds not to water it.
7 See here, the vineyard of the Eternal, the Commander of heavenly armies,
is the house of Israel, His special people.
And the shoots and buds He nursed so lovingly along
are the people of this choice country, Judah.
He expected a paragon of justice and righteousness—
but everywhere injustice runs bloodred in the streets, and cries echo in the city!
11 Knowing that one day all this will come to pass, think what sort of people you ought to be—how you should be living faithful and godly lives, 12 waiting hopefully for and hastening the coming of God’s day when the heavens will vanish in flames and the elements melt away with intense heat. 13 What will happen next, and what we hope for, is what God promised: a new heaven and a new earth where justice reigns.
14 So, my friends, while we wait for the day of the Lord, work hard to live in peace, without flaw or blemish; 15 and look at the patience of the Lord as your salvation. Our dearly loved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, has written about this. 16 He says essentially the same in all of his letters, although uneducated and unstable readers misinterpret the difficult passages, just as they always misread Scripture, to their spiritual ruin.
17 So hear my final words, my friends. Now that I have warned you about what’s ahead, keep up your guard and don’t let unprincipled people pull you away from the sure ground of the truth with their lies and misunderstandings. 18 Instead, grow in grace and in the true knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Anointed, to whom be glory, now and until the coming of the new age. Amen.
28 Listen, there is no human being greater than this man, John the Baptist. Yet even the least significant person in the coming kingdom of God is greater than John.
29 The common people and tax collectors heard God’s own wisdom in Jesus’ assessment of John because they had been ritually cleansed through baptism by John. 30 But the Pharisees and religious scholars hardened their hearts and turned their backs on God’s purposes for them because they had refused John’s baptism.[a]
Jesus: 31 The people of this generation—what are they like? To what can they be compared? 32 I’ll tell you: they’re like spoiled kids sitting in the marketplace playing games, calling out,
We played the pipes for you,
but you didn’t dance to our tune!
We cried like mourners,
but you didn’t cry with us!
33 You can’t win with this generation. John the Baptist comes along, fasting and abstaining from wine, and you say, “This guy is demon-possessed!” 34 The Son of Man comes along, feasting and drinking wine, and you say, “This guy is a glutton and a drunk, a friend of scoundrels and tax collectors!” 35 Well, wisdom’s true children know wisdom when they hear it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.