Book of Common Prayer
66 Sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing of his glorious name! Tell the world how wonderful he is.
3 How awe-inspiring are your deeds, O God! How great your power! No wonder your enemies surrender! 4 All the earth shall worship you and sing of your glories. 5 Come, see the glorious things God has done. What marvelous miracles happen to his people! 6 He made a dry road through the sea for them. They went across on foot. What excitement and joy there was that day!
7 Because of his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. O rebel lands, he will deflate your pride.
8 Let everyone bless God and sing his praises; 9 for he holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path. 10 You have purified us with fire,[a] O Lord, like silver in a crucible. 11 You captured us in your net and laid great burdens on our backs. 12 You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies.[b] We went through fire and flood. But in the end, you brought us into wealth and great abundance.
13 Now I have come to your Temple with burnt offerings to pay my vows. 14 For when I was in trouble, I promised you many offerings. 15 That is why I am bringing you these fat male goats, rams, and calves. The smoke of their sacrifice shall rise before you.
16 Come and hear, all of you who reverence the Lord, and I will tell you what he did for me: 17 For I cried to him for help with praises ready on my tongue. 18 He would not have listened if I had not confessed my sins. 19 But he listened! He heard my prayer! He paid attention to it!
20 Blessed be God, who didn’t turn away when I was praying and didn’t refuse me his kindness and love.
9 “Who does Isaiah think he is,” the people say, “to speak to us like this! Are we little children, barely old enough to talk? 10 He tells us everything over and over again, a line at a time and in such simple words!”
11 But they won’t listen; the only language they can understand is punishment! So God will punish them by sending against them foreigners who speak strange gibberish! Only then will they listen to him! 12 They could have rest in their own land if they would obey him, if they were kind and good. He told them that, but they wouldn’t listen to him. 13 So the Lord will spell it out for them again, repeating it over and over in simple words whenever he can; yet over this simple, straightforward message they will stumble and fall and be broken, trapped and captured.
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffing rulers in Jerusalem:
15 You have struck a bargain with death, you say, and sold yourselves to the devil[a] in exchange for his protection against the Assyrians. “They can never touch us,” you say, “for we are under the care of one who will deceive and fool them.”
16 But the Lord God says, “See, I am placing a Foundation Stone in Zion—a firm, tested, precious Cornerstone that is safe to build on. He who believes need never run away again.
4 I beg you—I, a prisoner here in jail for serving the Lord—to live and act in a way worthy of those who have been chosen for such wonderful blessings as these. 2 Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Try always to be led along together by the Holy Spirit and so be at peace with one another.
4 We are all parts of one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future. 5 For us there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and we all have the same God and Father who is over us all and in us all, and living through every part of us. 7 However, Christ has given each of us special abilities—whatever he wants us to have out of his rich storehouse of gifts.
8 The psalmist tells about this, for he says that when Christ returned triumphantly to heaven after his resurrection and victory over Satan, he gave generous gifts to men. 9 Notice that it says he returned to heaven. This means that he had first come down from the heights of heaven, far down to the lowest parts of the earth. 10 The same one who came down is the one who went back up, that he might fill all things everywhere with himself, from the very lowest to the very highest.
11 Some of us have been given special ability as apostles; to others he has given the gift of being able to preach well; some have special ability in winning people to Christ, helping them to trust him as their Savior; still others have a gift for caring for God’s people as a shepherd does his sheep, leading and teaching them in the ways of God.
12 Why is it that he gives us these special abilities to do certain things best? It is that God’s people will be equipped to do better work for him, building up the Church, the body of Christ, to a position of strength and maturity; 13 until finally we all believe alike about our salvation and about our Savior, God’s Son, and all become full-grown in the Lord—yes, to the point of being filled full with Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. 15-16 Instead, we will lovingly follow the truth at all times—speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly[a]—and so become more and more in every way like Christ who is the Head of his body, the Church. Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly, and each part in its own special way helps the other parts, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
116 I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them. 2 Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I breathe!
3 Death stared me in the face—I was frightened and sad. 4 Then I cried, “Lord, save me!” 5 How kind he is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! 6 The Lord protects the simple and the childlike; I was facing death, and then he saved me. 7 Now I can relax. For the Lord has done this wonderful miracle for me. 8 He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. 9 I shall live! Yes, in his presence—here on earth!
10-11 In my discouragement I thought, “They are lying when they say I will recover.”[a] 12 But now what can I offer Jehovah for all he has done for me? 13 I will bring him an offering of wine[b] and praise his name for saving me. 14 I will publicly bring him the sacrifice I vowed I would. 15 His loved ones are very precious to him, and he does not lightly let them die.[c]
16 O Lord, you have freed me from my bonds, and I will serve you forever. 17 I will worship you and offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving. 18-19 Here in the courts of the Temple in Jerusalem, before all the people, I will pay everything I vowed to the Lord. Praise the Lord.
117 Praise the Lord, all nations everywhere. Praise him, all the peoples of the earth. 2 For he loves us very dearly, and his truth endures. Praise the Lord.
15-16 “If you love me, obey me; and I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter, and he will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, for it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, for he lives with you now and some day shall be in you. 18 No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm—I will come to you. 19 In just a little while I will be gone from the world, but I will still be present with you. For I will live again—and you will too. 20 When I come back to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 The one who obeys me is the one who loves me; and because he loves me, my Father will love him; and I will too, and I will reveal myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but his other disciple with that name) said to him, “Sir, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us disciples and not to the world at large?”
23 Jesus replied, “Because I will only reveal myself to those who love me and obey me. The Father will love them too, and we will come to them and live with them. 24 Anyone who doesn’t obey me doesn’t love me. And remember, I am not making up this answer to your question! It is the answer given by the Father who sent me.
25 “I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. 26 But when the Father sends the Comforter[a] instead of me—and by the Comforter I mean the Holy Spirit—he will teach you much, as well as remind you of everything I myself have told you.
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.[b] 28 Remember what I told you—I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. 29 I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me.[c]
30 “I don’t have much more time to talk to you, for the evil prince of this world approaches. He has no power over me, 31 but I will freely do what the Father requires of me so that the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let’s be going.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.