Book of Common Prayer
The World Should Praise the Lord
148 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the skies.
Praise him high above the earth.
2 Praise him, all you angels.
Praise him, all you armies of heaven.
3 Praise him, sun and moon.
Praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, highest heavens
and you waters above the sky.
5 Let them praise the Lord,
because they were created by his command.
6 He put them in place forever and ever;
he made a law that will never change.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you large sea animals and all the oceans,
8 lightning and hail, snow and mist,
and stormy winds that obey him,
9 mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
crawling animals and birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
princes and all rulers of the earth,
12 young men and women,
old people and children.
13 Praise the Lord,
because he alone is great.
He is more wonderful than heaven and earth.
14 God has given his people a king.
He should be praised by all who belong to him;
he should be praised by the Israelites, the people closest to his heart.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the God of Israel
149 Praise the Lord!
Sing a new song to the Lord;
sing his praise in the meeting of his people.
2 Let the Israelites be happy because of God, their Maker.
Let the people of Jerusalem rejoice because of their King.
3 They should praise him with dancing.
They should sing praises to him with tambourines and harps.
4 The Lord is pleased with his people;
he saves the humble.
5 Let those who worship him rejoice in his glory.
Let them sing for joy even in bed!
6 Let them shout his praise
with their two-edged swords in their hands.
7 They will punish the nations
and defeat the people.
8 They will put those kings in chains
and those important men in iron bands.
9 They will punish them as God has written.
God is honored by all who worship him.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord with Music
150 Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his Temple;
praise him in his mighty heaven.
2 Praise him for his strength;
praise him for his greatness.
3 Praise him with trumpet blasts;
praise him with harps and lyres.
4 Praise him with tambourines and dancing;
praise him with stringed instruments and flutes.
5 Praise him with loud cymbals;
praise him with crashing cymbals.
6 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord!
Praise for the Lord’s Kindness
113 Praise the Lord!
Praise him, you servants of the Lord;
praise the name of the Lord.
2 The Lord’s name should be praised
now and forever.
3 The Lord’s name should be praised
from where the sun rises to where it sets.
4 The Lord is supreme over all the nations;
his glory reaches to the skies.
5 No one is like the Lord our God,
who rules from heaven,
6 who bends down to look
at the skies and the earth.
7 The Lord lifts the poor from the dirt
and takes the helpless from the ashes.
8 He seats them with princes,
the princes of his people.
9 He gives children to the woman who has none
and makes her a happy mother.
Praise the Lord!
God Brought Israel from Egypt
114 When the Israelites went out of Egypt,
the people of Jacob left that foreign country.
2 Then Judah became God’s holy place;
Israel became the land he ruled.
3 The Red Sea looked and ran away;
the Jordan River turned back.
4 The mountains danced like sheep
and the hills like little lambs.
5 Sea, why did you run away?
Jordan, why did you turn back?
6 Mountains, why did you dance like sheep?
Hills, why did you dance like little lambs?
7 Earth, shake with fear before the Lord,
before the God of Jacob.
8 He turned a rock into a pool of water,
a hard rock into a spring of water.
Thanksgiving for Victory
118 Thank the Lord because he is good.
His love continues forever.
2 Let the people of Israel say,
“His love continues forever.”
3 Let the family of Aaron say,
“His love continues forever.”
4 Let those who respect the Lord say,
“His love continues forever.”
5 I was in trouble, so I called to the Lord.
The Lord answered me and set me free.
6 I will not be afraid, because the Lord is with me.
People can’t do anything to me.
7 The Lord is with me to help me,
so I will see my enemies defeated.
8 It is better to trust the Lord
than to trust people.
9 It is better to trust the Lord
than to trust princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me,
but I defeated them in the name of the Lord.
11 They surrounded me on every side,
but with the Lord’s power I defeated them.
12 They surrounded me like a swarm of bees,
but they died as quickly as thorns burn.
By the Lord’s power, I defeated them.
13 They chased me until I was almost defeated,
but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord gives me strength and a song.
He has saved me.
15 Shouts of joy and victory
come from the tents of those who do right:
“The Lord has done powerful things.”
16 The power of the Lord has won the victory;
with his power the Lord has done mighty things.
17 I will not die, but live,
and I will tell what the Lord has done.
18 The Lord has taught me a hard lesson,
but he did not let me die.
19 Open for me the Temple gates.
Then I will come in and thank the Lord.
20 This is the Lord’s gate;
only those who are good may enter through it.
21 Lord, I thank you for answering me.
You have saved me.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
became the cornerstone.
23 The Lord did this,
and it is wonderful to us.
24 This is the day that the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad today!
25 Please, Lord, save us;
please, Lord, give us success.
26 God bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless all of you from the Temple of the Lord.
27 The Lord is God,
and he has shown kindness to us.
With branches in your hands, join the feast.
Come to the corners of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will thank you;
you are my God, and I will praise your greatness.
29 Thank the Lord because he is good.
His love continues forever.
The First Passover
12 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 “This month will be the beginning of months, the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must get one lamb for the people in his house. 4 If there are not enough people in his house to eat a whole lamb, he must share it with his closest neighbor, considering the number of people. There must be enough lamb for everyone to eat. 5 The lamb must be a one-year-old male that has nothing wrong with it. This animal can be either a young sheep or a young goat. 6 Take care of the animals until the fourteenth day of the month. On that day all the people of the community of Israel will kill them in the evening before dark. 7 The people must take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 On this night they must roast the lamb over a fire. They must eat it with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the lamb raw or boiled in water. Roast the whole lamb over a fire—with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You must not leave any of it until morning, but if any of it is left over until morning, you must burn it with fire.
11 “This is the way you must eat it: You must be fully dressed as if you were going on a trip. You must have your sandals on and your walking stick in your hand. You must eat it in a hurry; this is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “That night I will go through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn animals and people in the land of Egypt. I will also punish all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 But the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. Nothing terrible will hurt you when I punish the land of Egypt.
14 “You are always to remember this day and celebrate it with a feast to the Lord. Your descendants are to honor the Lord with this feast from now on.
9 Wake up, wake up, and use your strength,
powerful Lord.
Wake up as you did in the old times,
as you did a long time ago.
With your own power, you cut Rahab into pieces
and killed that sea monster.
10 You dried up the sea
and the waters of the deep ocean.
You made the deepest parts of the sea into a road
for your people to cross over and be saved.
11 The people the Lord has freed will return
and enter Jerusalem with joy.
Their happiness will last forever.
They will have joy and gladness,
and all sadness and sorrow will be gone far away.
Christ Comes to the World
1 In the beginning there was the Word.[a] The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were made by him, and nothing was made without him. 4 In him there was life, and that life was the light of all people. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered[b] it.
6 There was a man named John[c] who was sent by God. 7 He came to tell people the truth about the Light so that through him all people could hear about the Light and believe. 8 John was not the Light, but he came to tell people the truth about the Light. 9 The true Light that gives light to all was coming into the world!
10 The Word was in the world, and the world was made by him, but the world did not know him. 11 He came to the world that was his own, but his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who did accept him and believe in him he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They did not become his children in any human way—by any human parents or human desire. They were born of God.
14 The Word became a human and lived among us. We saw his glory—the glory that belongs to the only Son of the Father—and he was full of grace and truth. 15 John tells the truth about him and cries out, saying, “This is the One I told you about: ‘The One who comes after me is greater than I am, because he was living before me.’”
16 Because he was full of grace and truth, from him we all received one gift after another. 17 The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. But God the only Son is very close to the Father,[d] and he has shown us what God is like.
Jesus on the Road to Emmaus
13 That same day two of Jesus’ followers were going to a town named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking about everything that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and began walking with them, 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 Then he said, “What are these things you are talking about while you walk?”
The two followers stopped, looking very sad. 18 The one named Cleopas answered, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know what just happened there?”
19 Jesus said to them, “What are you talking about?”
They said, “About Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet who said and did many powerful things before God and all the people. 20 Our leaders and the leading priests handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. 21 But we were hoping that he would free Israel. Besides this, it is now the third day since this happened. 22 And today some women among us amazed us. Early this morning they went to the tomb, 23 but they did not find his body there. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive! 24 So some of our group went to the tomb, too. They found it just as the women said, but they did not see Jesus.”
25 Then Jesus said to them, “You are foolish and slow to believe everything the prophets said. 26 They said that the Christ must suffer these things before he enters his glory.” 27 Then starting with what Moses and all the prophets had said about him, Jesus began to explain everything that had been written about himself in the Scriptures.
28 They came near the town of Emmaus, and Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29 But they begged him, “Stay with us, because it is late; it is almost night.” So he went in to stay with them.
30 When Jesus was at the table with them, he took some bread, gave thanks, divided it, and gave it to them. 31 And then, they were allowed to recognize Jesus. But when they saw who he was, he disappeared. 32 They said to each other, “It felt like a fire burning in us when Jesus talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us.”
33 So the two followers got up at once and went back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven apostles and others gathered. 34 They were saying, “The Lord really has risen from the dead! He showed himself to Simon.”
35 Then the two followers told what had happened on the road and how they recognized Jesus when he divided the bread.
Jesus Appears to His Followers
19 When it was evening on the first day of the week, Jesus’ followers were together. The doors were locked, because they were afraid of the elders. Then Jesus came and stood right in the middle of them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. His followers were thrilled when they saw the Lord.
21 Then Jesus said again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, I now send you.” 22 After he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you don’t forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.