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.
67 O God, in mercy bless us; let your face beam with joy as you look down at us.
2 Send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all mankind. 3 How everyone throughout the earth will praise the Lord! 4 How glad the nations will be, singing for joy because you are their King[c] and will give true justice to their people! 5 Praise God, O world! May all the peoples of the earth give thanks to you. 6-7 For the earth has yielded abundant harvests. God, even our own God, will bless us. And peoples from remotest lands will worship him.
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.
10 In that day he who created the royal dynasty of David[a] will be a banner of salvation to all the world. The nations will rally to him, for the land where he lives will be a glorious place. 11 At that time the Lord will bring back a remnant of his people for the second time, returning them to the land of Israel from Assyria, Upper and Lower Egypt, Ethiopia, Elam, Babylonia, Hamath, and all the distant coastal lands. 12 He will raise a flag among the nations for them to rally to; he will gather the scattered Israelites from the ends of the earth. 13 Then at last the jealousy between Israel and Judah will end; they will not fight each other anymore. 14 Together they will fly against the nations possessing their land on the east and on the west, uniting forces to destroy them, and they will occupy the nations of Edom and Moab and Ammon.
15 The Lord will dry a path through the Red Sea[b] and wave his hand over the Euphrates, sending a mighty wind to divide it into seven streams that can easily be crossed. 16 He will make a highway from Assyria for the remnant there, just as he did for all of Israel long ago when they returned from Egypt.
11 And I saw a great white throne and the one who sat upon it, from whose face the earth and sky fled away, but they found no place to hide.[a] 12 I saw the dead, great and small, standing before God; and The Books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to the things written in The Books, each according to the deeds he had done. 13 The oceans surrendered the bodies buried in them; and the earth and the underworld gave up the dead in them. Each was judged according to his deeds. 14 And Death and Hell were thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is the Second Death—the Lake of Fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found recorded in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the Lake of Fire.
21 Then I saw a new earth (with no oceans!) and a new sky, for the present earth and sky had disappeared. 2 And I, John, saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. It was a glorious sight, beautiful as a bride at her wedding.
3 I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, “Look, the home of God is now among men, and he will live with them and they will be his people; yes, God himself will be among them.[b] 4 He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever.”
5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true: 6 It is finished! I am the A and the Z—the Beginning and the End. I will give to the thirsty the springs of the Water of Life—as a gift! 7 Everyone who conquers will inherit all these blessings, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But cowards who turn back from following me, and those who are unfaithful to me, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those conversing with demons, and idol worshipers and all liars—their doom is in the Lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This is the Second Death.”
5 My story begins with a Jewish priest, Zacharias, who lived when Herod was king of Judea. Zacharias was a member of the Abijah division of the Temple service corps. (His wife, Elizabeth, was, like himself, a member of the priest tribe of the Jews, a descendant of Aaron.) 6 Zacharias and Elizabeth were godly folk, careful to obey all of God’s laws in spirit as well as in letter. 7 But they had no children, for Elizabeth was barren; and now they were both very old.
8-9 One day as Zacharias was going about his work in the Temple—for his division was on duty that week—the honor fell to him by lot[a] to enter the inner sanctuary and burn incense before the Lord. 10 Meanwhile, a great crowd stood outside in the Temple court, praying as they always did during that part of the service when the incense was being burned.
11-12 Zacharias was in the sanctuary when suddenly an angel appeared, standing to the right of the altar of incense! Zacharias was startled and terrified.
13 But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zacharias! For I have come to tell you that God has heard your prayer, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son! And you are to name him John. 14 You will both have great joy and gladness at his birth, and many will rejoice with you. 15 For he will be one of the Lord’s great men. He must never touch wine or hard liquor—and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from before his birth! 16 And he will persuade many a Jew to turn to the Lord his God. 17 He will be a man of rugged[b] spirit and power like Elijah, the prophet of old; and he will precede the coming of the Messiah, preparing the people for his arrival. He will soften adult hearts to become like little children’s, and will change disobedient minds to the wisdom of faith.”
18 Zacharias said to the angel, “But this is impossible! I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”
19 Then the angel said, “I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to you with this good news! 20 And now, because you haven’t believed me, you are to be stricken silent, unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly come true at the proper time.”
21 Meanwhile the crowds outside were waiting for Zacharias to appear and wondered why he was taking so long. 22 When he finally came out, he couldn’t speak to them, and they realized from his gestures that he must have seen a vision in the Temple. 23 He stayed on at the Temple for the remaining days of his Temple duties and then returned home. 24 Soon afterwards Elizabeth his wife became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months.
25 “How kind the Lord is,” she exclaimed, “to take away my disgrace of having no children!”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.