Book of Common Prayer
The Majesty of the Lord
93 The Lord is king. He is clothed in majesty.
The Lord is clothed in majesty
and armed with strength.
The world is set,
and it cannot be moved.
2 Lord, your kingdom was set up long ago;
you are everlasting.
3 Lord, the seas raise,
the seas raise their voice.
The seas raise up their pounding waves.
4 The sound of the water is loud;
the ocean waves are powerful,
but the Lord above is much greater.
5 Lord, your laws will stand forever.
Your Temple will be holy forevermore.
Praise for the Lord’s Glory
96 Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord and praise his name;
every day tell how he saves us.
3 Tell the nations of his glory;
tell all peoples the miracles he does,
4 because the Lord is great; he should be praised at all times.
He should be honored more than all the gods,
5 because all the gods of the nations are only idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 The Lord has glory and majesty;
he has power and beauty in his Temple.
7 Praise the Lord, all nations on earth;
praise the Lord’s glory and power.
8 Praise the glory of the Lord’s name.
Bring an offering and come into his Temple courtyards.
9 Worship the Lord because he is holy.
Tremble before him, everyone on earth.
10 Tell the nations, “The Lord is king.”
The earth is set, and it cannot be moved.
He will judge the people fairly.
11 Let the skies rejoice and the earth be glad;
let the sea and everything in it shout.
12 Let the fields and everything in them rejoice.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
13 before the Lord, because he is coming.
He is coming to judge the world;
he will judge the world with fairness
and the peoples with truth.
Praise God Who Judges and Saves
David’s song from the time he acted crazy so Abimelech would send him away, and David did leave.
34 I will praise the Lord at all times;
his praise is always on my lips.
2 My whole being praises the Lord.
The poor will hear and be glad.
3 Glorify the Lord with me,
and let us praise his name together.
4 I asked the Lord for help, and he answered me.
He saved me from all that I feared.
5 Those who go to him for help are happy,
and they are never disgraced.
6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him
and saved him from all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord camps around those who fear God,
and he saves them.
8 Examine and see how good the Lord is.
Happy is the person who trusts him.
9 You who belong to the Lord, fear him!
Those who fear him will have everything they need.
10 Even lions may get weak and hungry,
but those who look to the Lord will have every good thing.
11 Children, come and listen to me.
I will teach you to worship the Lord.
12 You must do these things
to enjoy life and have many happy days.
13 You must not say evil things,
and you must not tell lies.
14 Stop doing evil and do good.
Look for peace and work for it.
15 The Lord sees the good people
and listens to their prayers.
16 But the Lord is against those who do evil;
he makes the world forget them.
17 The Lord hears good people when they cry out to him,
and he saves them from all their troubles.
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted,
and he saves those whose spirits have been crushed.
19 People who do what is right may have many problems,
but the Lord will solve them all.
20 He will protect their very bones;
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil will kill the wicked;
those who hate good people will be judged guilty.
22 But the Lord saves his servants’ lives;
no one who trusts him will be judged guilty.
Joseph Sets a Trap
44 Then Joseph gave a command to the servant in charge of his house. He said, “Fill the men’s sacks with as much grain as they can carry, and put each man’s money into his sack with the grain. 2 Put my silver cup in the sack of the youngest brother, along with his money for the grain.” The servant did what Joseph told him.
3 At dawn the brothers were sent away with their donkeys. 4 They were not far from the city when Joseph said to the servant in charge of his house, “Go after the men. When you catch up with them, say, ‘Why have you paid back evil for good? 5 The cup you have stolen is the one my master uses for drinking and for explaining dreams. You have done a very wicked thing!’”
6 So the servant caught up with the brothers and said to them what Joseph had told him to say.
7 But the brothers said to the servant, “Why do you say these things? We would not do anything like that! 8 We brought back to you from the land of Canaan the money we found in our sacks. So surely we would not steal silver or gold from your master’s house. 9 If you find that silver cup in the sack of one of us, then let him die, and we will be your slaves.”
10 The servant said, “We will do as you say, but only the man who has taken the cup will become my slave. The rest of you may go free.”
11 Then every brother quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it. 12 The servant searched the sacks, going from the oldest brother to the youngest, and found the cup in Benjamin’s sack. 13 The brothers tore their clothes to show they were afraid. Then they put their sacks back on the donkeys and returned to the city.
14 When Judah and his brothers went back to Joseph’s house, Joseph was still there, so the brothers bowed facedown on the ground before him. 15 Joseph said to them, “What have you done? Didn’t you know that a man like me can learn things by signs and dreams?”
16 Judah said, “Master, what can we say? And how can we show we are not guilty? God has uncovered our guilt, so all of us will be your slaves, not just Benjamin.”
17 But Joseph said, “I will not make you all slaves! Only the man who stole the cup will be my slave. The rest of you may go back safely to your father.”
Be Ruled by the Spirit
8 So now, those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty.[a] 2 Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you[b] free from the law that brings sin and death. 3 The law was without power, because the law was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that others use for sin. By sending his Son to be an offering for sin, God used a human life to destroy sin. 4 He did this so that we could be the kind of people the law correctly wants us to be. Now we do not live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.
5 Those who live following their sinful selves think only about things that their sinful selves want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about the things the Spirit wants them to do. 6 If people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. 7 When people’s thinking is controlled by the sinful self, they are against God, because they refuse to obey God’s law and really are not even able to obey God’s law. 8 Those people who are ruled by their sinful selves cannot please God.
9 But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ. 10 Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God.
25 I tell you the truth, the time is coming and is already here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will have life. 26 Life comes from the Father himself, and he has allowed the Son to have life in himself as well. 27 And the Father has given the Son the approval to judge, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Don’t be surprised at this: A time is coming when all who are dead and in their graves will hear his voice. 29 Then they will come out of their graves. Those who did good will rise and have life forever, but those who did evil will rise to be judged guilty.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.