Book of Common Prayer
God Reigns
93 The Lord reigns! He is clothed in majesty;
the Lord is clothed,
and he is girded[a] with strength.
Indeed, the world is well established,
and cannot be shaken.
2 Your throne has been established since time immemorial;
you are king from eternity.
3 The rivers have flooded, Lord;
the rivers have spoken aloud,
the rivers have lifted up their crushing waves.
4 More than the sound of surging waters—
the majestic waves of the sea—
the Lord on high is majestic.
5 Your decrees are very trustworthy,
and holiness always befits your house, Lord.
A psalm
Sing Praise to the King
98 Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done awesome deeds!
His right hand and powerful[a] arm[b]
have brought him victory.
2 The Lord has made his deliverance known;
he has disclosed his justice before the nations.
3 He has remembered his gracious love;
his faithfulness toward the house of Israel;
all the ends of the earth saw our God’s deliverance.
4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Break forth into joyful songs of praise!
5 Sing praises to the Lord with a lyre—
with a lyre and a melodious song!
6 With trumpets and the sound of a ram’s horn
shout in the presence of the Lord, the king!
7 Let the sea and everything in it shout,[c]
along with the world and its inhabitants;
8 let the rivers clap their hands in unison;
and let the mountains sing for joy
9 in the Lord’s presence, who comes to judge the earth;
He’ll judge the world righteously;
and its people fairly.
To the Director: A song. A Psalm.
A Song of Praise
66 Shout praise to God all the earth!
2 Sing praise about the glory of his name.[a]
Make his praise glorious.
3 Say to God: “How awesome are your works!
Because of your great strength
your enemies cringe before you.”
4 The whole earth worships you.
They sing praise to you.
They sing praise to your name.
5 Come and see the awesome works of God
on behalf of human beings:
6 He turned the sea into dry land.
Israel[b] crossed the river on foot;
let us rejoice in him.
7 He rules by his power forever,
his eyes watching over the nations.
Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves.
8 Bless our God, people,
and let the sound of his praise be heard.
9 He gives us life
and does not permit our feet to slip.
10 For you, God, tested us,
to purify us like fine silver.
11 You have led us into a trap[c]
and set burdens on our backs.
12 You caused men to ride over us.[d]
You brought us through fire and water,
but you led us to abundance.
13 I will come to your house with burnt offerings.
I will fulfill my vows to you
14 that my lips uttered and that my mouth spoke
when I was in trouble.
15 I will offer to you burnt offerings of fat,
along with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams.
I will offer bulls along with goats.
16 Come and listen, all of you who fear God,
and I will tell you what he did for me.
17 I called aloud to him
and praised him with my tongue.
18 Were I to cherish iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not listen to me.
19 Surely God has heard,
and he paid attention to my[e] prayers.
20 Blessed be God, who did not turn away my prayers
nor his gracious love from me.
14 “‘This day is to be a memorial for you, and you are to celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it as a perpetual ordinance from generation to generation. 15 You are to eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day be sure to remove all the leaven from your houses, because any person who eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh will be cut off from Israel. 16 Also, on the first day you’re to hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day you’re to hold a holy assembly. No work is to be done during those days, except for preparing what is to be eaten by each person.
17 “‘You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread, since on this very day I brought your tribal divisions from the land of Egypt. You are to observe this day from generation to generation as a perpetual ordinance. 18 In the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day of the month, you are to eat unleavened bread. 19 For seven days leaven is not to be found in your houses. Indeed, any person who eats anything leavened, is to be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether an alien or a native of the land. 20 You are not to eat what is leavened. You are to eat unleavened bread in all your settlements.’”
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “Choose sheep for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bundle of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply some of the blood in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts. None of you is to go out of the doorway of his house until morning, 23 because the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the doorway, and won’t allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. 24 You are to observe this event as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children forever. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you, just as he promised, you are to observe this ritual. 26 And when your children say to you, ‘What does this ritual mean?’[a] 27 you are to say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelis in Egypt when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” Then the people bowed down and worshipped.
The Resurrection of the Messiah
15 Now I’m making known to you, brothers, the gospel that I proclaimed to you, which you accepted, on which you have taken your stand, 2 and by which you are also being saved if you hold firmly to the message I proclaimed to you—unless, of course, your faith was worthless.
3 For I passed on to you the most important points that[a] I received: The Messiah[b] died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures—and is still alive!— 5 and he was seen by Cephas,[c] and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.[d] 7 Next he was seen by James, then by all the apostles, 8 and finally he was seen by me, as though I were born abnormally late.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and not even fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted God’s church. 10 But by God’s grace I am what I am, and his grace shown to me was not wasted. Instead, I worked harder than all the others—not I, of course, but God’s grace that was with me. 11 So, whether it was I or the others, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Jesus is Raised from the Dead(A)
16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene,[a] Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices to go and anoint Jesus.[b] 2 Very early on the first day of the week,[c] when the sun had just come up, they were going to the tomb. 3 They kept saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 Then they looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away. (It was a very large stone.)
5 As they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were utterly astonished. 6 But he told them, “Stop being astonished! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Look at the place where they laid him. 7 But go and tell his disciples—especially Peter—that Jesus[d] is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
8 So they left the tomb and ran away, overwhelmed by shock and astonishment. They didn’t say a thing to anyone, because they were afraid.[e]
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