Book of Common Prayer
146 Halleluyah!
Praise Adonai, my soul!
2 I will praise Adonai as long as I live.
I will sing praise to my God all my life.
3 Don’t put your trust in princes
or in mortals, who cannot help.
4 When they breathe their last, they return to dust;
on that very day all their plans are gone.
5 Happy is he whose help is Ya‘akov’s God,
whose hope is in Adonai his God.
6 He made heaven and earth,
the sea and everything in them;
he keeps faith forever.
7 He secures justice for the oppressed,
he gives food to the hungry.
Adonai sets prisoners free,
8 Adonai opens the eyes of the blind,
Adonai lifts up those who are bent over.
Adonai loves the righteous.
9 Adonai watches over strangers,
he sustains the fatherless and widows;
but the way of the wicked he twists.
10 Adonai will reign forever,
your God, Tziyon, through all generations.
Halleluyah!
147 Halleluyah!
How good it is to sing praises to our God!
How sweet, how fitting to praise him!
2 Adonai is rebuilding Yerushalayim,
gathering the dispersed of Isra’el.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines how many stars there are
and calls them all by name.
5 Our Lord is great, his power is vast,
his wisdom beyond all telling.
6 Adonai sustains the humble
but brings the wicked down to the ground.
7 Sing to Adonai with thanks,
sing praises on the lyre to our God.
8 He veils the sky with clouds;
he provides the earth with rain;
he makes grass grow on the hills;
9 he gives food to the animals,
even to the young ravens when they cry.
10 He takes no delight in the strength of a horse,
no pleasure in a runner’s speed.
11 Adonai takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who wait for his grace.
12 Glorify Adonai, Yerushalayim!
Praise your God, Tziyon!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates,
he blesses your children within you,
14 he brings peace within your borders,
he gives you your fill of the finest wheat.
15 He sends his word out over the earth,
his command runs swiftly.
16 Thus he gives snow like wool,
scatters hoarfrost like ashes,
17 sends crystals of ice like crumbs of bread —
who can withstand such cold?
18 Then he sends his word out and melts them;
he makes the winds blow, and the water flows.
19 He reveals his words to Ya‘akov,
his laws and rulings to Isra’el.
20 He has not done this for other nations;
they do not know his rulings.
Halleluyah!
148 Halleluyah!
Praise Adonai from the heavens!
Praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels!
Praise him, all his armies!
3 Praise him, sun and moon!
Praise him, all shining stars!
4 Praise him, highest heaven,
and waters above the heavens!
5 Let them praise the name of Adonai;
for he commanded, and they were created.
6 He established them forever and ever;
he has given a law to which they must conform.
7 Praise Adonai from the earth,
sea monsters and watery depths,
8 fire and hail, snow and mist,
storm-winds that obey his word,
9 mountains and every hill,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all livestock,
creeping reptiles, flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women alike,
old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of Adonai,
for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above both earth and heaven.
14 He has increased the power of his people,
granted praise to all his faithful,
to the descendants of Isra’el,
a people close to him.
Halleluyah!
149 Halleluyah!
Sing to Adonai a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
2 Let Isra’el rejoice in their maker,
let Tziyon’s children take joy in their king.
3 Let them praise his name with dancing,
make melody to him with tambourine and lyre;
4 for Adonai takes delight in his people,
he crowns the humble with salvation.
5 Let the faithful exult gloriously,
let them sing for joy on their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats,
but a two-edged sword in their hands
7 to carry out vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with chains
and put their nobles in irons,
9 to execute the judgments decreed for them;
for this will glorify all his faithful.
Halleluyah!
37 With the hand of Adonai upon me, Adonai carried me out by his Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones. 2 He had me pass by all around them — there were so many bones lying in the valley, and they were so dry! 3 He asked me, “Human being, can these bones live?” I answered, “Adonai Elohim! Only you know that!” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones! Say to them, ‘Dry bones! Hear what Adonai has to say! 5 To these bones Adonai Elohim says, “I will make breath enter you, and you will live. 6 I will attach ligaments to you, make flesh grow on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you. You will live, and you will know that I am Adonai.”’”
7 So I prophesied as ordered; and while I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound; it was the bones coming together, each bone in its proper place. 8 As I watched, ligaments grew on them, flesh appeared and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Next he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath! Prophesy, human being! Say to the breath that Adonai Elohim says, ‘Come from the four winds, breath; and breathe on these slain, so that they can live.’”
10 So I prophesied as ordered, and the breath came into them, and they were alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army! 11 Then he said to me, “Human being! These bones are the whole house of Isra’el; and they are saying, ‘Our bones have dried up, our hope is gone, and we are completely cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy; say to them that Adonai Elohim says, ‘My people! I will open your graves and make you get up out of your graves, and I will bring you into the land of Isra’el. 13 Then you will know that I am Adonai — when I have opened your graves and made you get up out of your graves, my people! 14 I will put my Spirit in you; and you will be alive. Then I will place you in your own land; and you will know that I, Adonai, have spoken, and that I have done it,’ says Adonai.”
11 While he clung to Kefa and Yochanan, all the people came running in astonishment toward them in Shlomo’s Colonnade.
12 Seeing this, Kefa addressed the people: “Men of Isra’el! Why are you amazed at this? Or why do you stare at us as if we had made this man walk through some power or godliness of our own? 13 The God of Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov, the God of our fathers,[a] has glorified his servant Yeshua — the same Yeshua you handed over and disowned before Pilate, even after he had decided to release him. 14 You denied the holy and innocent one, and instead asked for the reprieve of a murderer! 15 You killed the author of life!
“But God has raised him from the dead! Of this we are witnesses. 16 And it is through putting trust in his name that his name has given strength to this man whom you see and know. Yes, it is the trust that comes through Yeshua which has given him this perfect healing in the presence of you all.
17 “Now, brothers, I know that you did not understand the significance of what you were doing; neither did your leaders. 18 But this is how God fulfilled what he had announced in advance, when he spoke through all the prophets, namely, that his Messiah was to die.
19 “Therefore, repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be erased; 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the Lord’s presence; and he may send the Messiah appointed in advance for you, that is, Yeshua. 21 He has to remain in heaven until the time comes for restoring everything, as God said long ago, when he spoke through the holy prophets. 22 For Moshe himself said, ‘Adonai will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You are to listen to everything he tells you. 23 Everyone who fails to listen to that prophet will be removed from the people and destroyed.’[b] 24 Indeed, all the prophets announced these days, starting with Sh’mu’el and continuing through all who followed.
25 “You are the sons of the prophets; and you are included in the covenant which God made with our fathers when he said to Avraham, ‘By your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.’[c] 26 So it is to you first that God has sent his servant whom he has raised up, so that he might bless you by turning each one of you from your evil ways.”
12 “This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than a person who lays down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends, if you do what I command you. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you. 17 This is what I command you: keep loving each other!
18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would have loved its own. But because you do not belong to the world — on the contrary, I have picked you out of the world — therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too; if they kept my word, they will keep yours too. 21 But they will do all this to you on my account, because they don’t know the One who sent me.
22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin; but now, they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done in their presence works which no one else ever did, they would not be guilty of sin; but now, they have seen them and have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this has happened in order to fulfill the words in their Torah which read, ‘They hated me for no reason at all.’[a]
26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send you from the Father — the Spirit of Truth, who keeps going out from the Father — he will testify on my behalf. 27 And you testify too, because you have been with me from the outset.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.