Book of Common Prayer
By David.
103 Praise the Lord, my soul!
Praise his holy name, all that is within me.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and never forget all the good he has done:
3 He is the one who forgives all your sins,
the one who heals all your diseases,
4 the one who rescues your life from the pit,
the one who crowns you with mercy and compassion,
5 the one who fills your life with blessings
so that you become young again like an eagle.
6 The Lord does what is right and fair
for all who are oppressed.
7 He let Moses know his ways.
He let the Israelites know the things he had done.
8 The Lord is compassionate, merciful, patient,
and always ready to forgive.
9 He will not always accuse us of wrong
or be angry ⌞with us⌟ forever.
10 He has not treated us as we deserve for our sins
or paid us back for our wrongs.
11 As high as the heavens are above the earth—
that is how vast his mercy is toward those who fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west—
that is how far he has removed our rebellious acts from himself.
13 As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
14 He certainly knows what we are made of.
He bears in mind that we are dust.
15 Human life is as short-lived as grass.
It blossoms like a flower in the field.
16 When the wind blows over the flower, it disappears,
and there is no longer any sign of it.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting,
the Lord’s mercy is on those who fear him.
His righteousness belongs
to their children and grandchildren,
18 to those who are faithful to his promise,[a]
to those who remember to follow his guiding principles.
19 The Lord has set his throne in heaven.
His kingdom rules everything.
20 Praise the Lord, all his angels,
you mighty beings who carry out his orders
and are ready to obey his spoken orders.
21 Praise the Lord, all his armies,
his servants who carry out his will.
22 Praise the Lord, all his creatures
in all the places of his empire.
Praise the Lord, my soul!
114 When Israel left Egypt,
when Jacob’s family left people who spoke a foreign language,
2 Judah became his holy place and Israel became his kingdom.
3 The Red Sea looked at this and ran away.
The Jordan River turned back.
4 The mountains jumped like rams.
The hills jumped like lambs.
5 Red Sea, why did you run away?
Jordan River, what made you turn back?
6 Mountains, what made you jump like rams?
Hills, what made you jump like lambs?
7 Earth, tremble in the presence of the Lord,
in the presence of the God of Jacob.
8 He turns a rock into a pool filled with water
and turns flint into a spring flowing with water.
115 Don’t give glory to us, O Lord.
Don’t give glory to us.
Instead, give glory to your name
because of your mercy and faithfulness.
2 Why should other nations say, “Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven.
He does whatever he wants.
4 Their idols are made of silver and gold.
They were made by human hands.[a]
5 They have mouths, but they cannot speak.
They have eyes, but they cannot see.
6 They have ears, but they cannot hear.
They have noses, but they cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but they cannot feel.
They have feet, but they cannot walk.
They cannot ⌞even⌟ make a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make idols end up like them.
So does everyone who trusts them.
9 Israel, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
10 Descendants of Aaron, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
11 If you fear the Lord, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
12 The Lord, who is ⌞always⌟ thinking about us, will bless us.
He will bless the descendants of Israel.
He will bless the descendants of Aaron.
13 He will bless those who fear the Lord,
from the least important to the most important.
14 May the Lord continue to bless you and your children.
15 You will be blessed by the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
16 The highest heaven belongs to the Lord,
but he has given the earth to the descendants of Adam.
17 Those who are dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do those who go into the silence ⌞of the grave⌟.
18 But we will thank the Lord now and forever.
Hallelujah!
Israel Told Never to Forget God
8 Be careful to obey every command I give you today. Then you will live, and your population will increase. You will enter and take possession of the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors with an oath.
2 Remember that for 40 years the Lord your God led you on your journey in the desert. He did this in order to humble you and test you. He wanted to know whether or not you would wholeheartedly obey his commands. 3 So he made you suffer from hunger and then fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had seen before. He did this to teach you that a person cannot live on bread alone but on every word that the Lord speaks.
Greeting
1 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and from our brother Timothy.
2 To God’s holy and faithful people, our brothers and sisters who are united with Christ in the city of Colossae.
Good will [a] and peace from God our Father are yours!
Paul’s Prayer for the Colossians
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in our prayers for you. 4 We thank God because we have heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people. 5 You have these because of the hope which is kept safe for you in heaven. Some time ago you heard about this hope in the Good News which is the message of truth. 6 This Good News is present with you now. It is producing results and spreading all over the world as it did among you from the first day you heard it. At that time you came to know what God’s kindness [b] truly means. 7 You learned about this Good News from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant. He is taking your place here as a trustworthy deacon for Christ 8 and has told us about the love that the Spirit has given you.
9 For this reason we have not stopped praying for you since the day we heard about you. We ask ⌞God⌟ to fill you with the knowledge of his will through every kind of spiritual wisdom and insight. 10 We ask this so that you will live the kind of lives that prove you belong to the Lord. Then you will want to please him in every way as you grow in producing every kind of good work by this knowledge about God. 11 We ask him to strengthen you by his glorious might with all the power you need to patiently endure everything with joy. 12 You will also thank the Father, who has made you able to share the light, which is what God’s people inherit.
What God Has Done Through Christ
13 God has rescued us from the power of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of his Son, whom he loves. 14 His Son paid the price to free us, which means that our sins are forgiven.
30 The people asked him, “What miracle are you going to perform so that we can see it and believe in you? What are you going to do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the desert. Scripture says, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”
32 Jesus said to them, “I can guarantee this truth: Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 God’s bread is the man who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.”
48 “I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died. 50 This is the bread that comes from heaven so that whoever eats it won’t die. 51 I am the living bread that came from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. The bread I will give to bring life to the world is my flesh.”
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