Book of Common Prayer
106 Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord! How good you are! Your love for us continues on forever. 2 Who can ever list the glorious miracles of God? Who can ever praise him half enough?
3 Happiness comes to those who are fair to others and are always just and good.
4 Remember me too, O Lord, while you are blessing and saving your people. 5 Let me share in your chosen ones’ prosperity and rejoice in all their joys, and receive the glory you give to them.
6 Both we and our fathers have sinned so much. 7 They weren’t impressed by the wonder of your miracles in Egypt and soon forgot your many acts of kindness to them. Instead they rebelled against you at the Red Sea. 8 Even so you saved them—to defend the honor of your name and demonstrate your power to all the world. 9 You commanded the Red Sea to divide, forming a dry road across its bottom. Yes, as dry as any desert! 10 Thus you rescued them from their enemies. 11 Then the water returned and covered the road and drowned their foes; not one survived.
12 Then at last his people believed him. Then they finally sang his praise.
13 Yet how quickly they forgot again! They wouldn’t wait for him to act 14 but demanded better food,[a] testing God’s patience to the breaking point. 15 So he gave them their demands but sent them leanness in their souls.[b] 16 They were envious of Moses, yes, and Aaron too, the man anointed[c] by God as his priest. 17 Because of this, the earth opened and swallowed Dathan, Abiram, and his friends; 18 and fire fell from heaven to consume these wicked men. 19-20 For they preferred a statue of an ox that eats grass to the glorious presence of God himself. 21-22 Thus they despised their Savior who had done such mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea. 23 So the Lord declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped into the breach between the people and their God and begged him to turn from his wrath and not destroy them.
24 They refused to enter the Promised Land, for they wouldn’t believe his solemn oath to care for them. 25 Instead, they pouted in their tents and mourned and despised his command. 26 Therefore he swore that he would kill them in the wilderness 27 and send their children away to distant lands as exiles. 28 Then our fathers joined the worshipers of Baal at Peor and even offered sacrifices to the dead![d] 29 With all these things they angered him—and so a plague broke out upon them 30 and continued until Phinehas executed those whose sins had caused the plague to start. 31 (For this good deed Phinehas will be remembered forever.)
32 At Meribah, too, Israel angered God, causing Moses serious trouble, 33 for he became angry and spoke foolishly.
34 Nor did Israel destroy the nations in the land as God had told them to, 35 but mingled in among the heathen and learned their evil ways, 36 sacrificing to their idols, and were led away from God. 37-38 They even sacrificed their little children to the demons—the idols of Canaan—shedding innocent blood and polluting the land with murder. 39 Their evil deeds defiled them, for their love of idols was adultery in the sight of God. 40 That is why Jehovah’s anger burned against his people, and he abhorred them. 41-42 That is why he let the heathen nations crush them. They were ruled by those who hated them and oppressed by their enemies.
43 Again and again he delivered them from their slavery, but they continued to rebel against him and were finally destroyed by their sin. 44 Yet, even so, he listened to their cries and heeded their distress; 45 he remembered his promises to them and relented because of his great love, 46 and caused even their enemies who captured them to pity them.
47 O Lord God, save us! Regather us from the nations so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you.
48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say, “Amen!” Hallelujah!
23 1-2 The Lord said to Moses, “Announce to the people of Israel that they are to celebrate several annual festivals of the Lord—times when all Israel will assemble and worship me. 3 (These are in addition to your Sabbaths[a]—the seventh day of every week—which are always days of rest in every home, times for assembling to worship, and for resting from the normal business of the week.) 4 These are the holy festivals which are to be observed each year:
5 “The Passover of the Lord: This is to be celebrated on the first day of April,[b] beginning at sundown.
6 “The Festival of Unleavened Bread: This is to be celebrated beginning the day following the Passover, and for seven days you must not eat any bread made with yeast. 7 On the first day of this festival, you shall gather the people for worship, and all ordinary work shall cease.[c] 8 You shall do the same on the seventh day of the festival. On each of the intervening days you shall make an offering by fire to the Lord.
9-11 “The Festival of First Fruits: When you arrive in the land I will give you and you reap your first harvest, bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest on the day after the Sabbath. He shall wave it before the Lord in a gesture of offering, and it will be accepted by the Lord as your gift. 12 That same day you shall sacrifice to the Lord a male yearling lamb without defect as a burnt offering. 13 A grain offering shall accompany it, consisting of a fifth of a bushel of finely ground flour mixed with olive oil, to be offered by fire to the Lord; this will be very pleasant to him. Also offer a drink offering consisting of three pints of wine. 14 Until this is done you must not eat any of the harvest for yourselves—neither fresh kernels nor bread nor parched grain. This is a permanent law throughout your nation.
15-16 “The Harvest Festival (Festival of Pentecost): Fifty days later you shall bring to the Lord an offering of a sample of the new grain of your later crops. 17 This shall consist of two loaves of bread from your homes to be waved before the Lord in a gesture of offering. Bake this bread from a fifth of a bushel of fine flour containing yeast. It is an offering to the Lord of the first sampling of your later crops.[d] 18 Along with the bread and the wine, you shall sacrifice as burnt offerings to the Lord seven yearling lambs without defects, one young bull, and two rams. All are fire offerings, very acceptable to Jehovah.[e] 19 And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering and two male yearling lambs for a peace offering.
20 “The priests shall wave these offerings before the Lord along with the loaves representing the first sampling of your later crops. They are holy to the Lord and will be given to the priests as food. 21 That day shall be announced as a time of sacred convocation of all the people; don’t do any work that day. This is a law to be honored from generation to generation. 22 (When you reap your harvests, you must not thoroughly reap all the corners of the fields, nor pick up the fallen grain; leave it for the poor and for foreigners living among you who have no land of their own; I am Jehovah your God!)
2 1-2 And now, what about the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to meet him? Please don’t be upset and excited, dear brothers, by the rumor that this day of the Lord has already begun. If you hear of people having visions and special messages from God about this, or letters that are supposed to have come from me, don’t believe them. 3 Don’t be carried away and deceived regardless of what they say.
For that day will not come until two things happen: first, there will be a time of great rebellion against God, and then the man of rebellion will come—the son of hell. 4 He will defy every god there is and tear down every other object of adoration and worship. He will go in and sit as God in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God. 5 Don’t you remember that I told you this when I was with you? 6 And you know what is keeping him from being here already; for he can come only when his time is ready.
7 As for the work this man of rebellion and hell will do when he comes, it is already going on,[a] but he himself will not come until the one who is holding him back steps out of the way. 8 Then this wicked one will appear, whom the Lord Jesus will burn up with the breath of his mouth and destroy by his presence when he returns. 9 This man of sin will come as Satan’s tool, full of satanic power, and will trick everyone with strange demonstrations, and will do great miracles. 10 He will completely fool those who are on their way to hell because they have said no to the Truth; they have refused to believe it and love it and let it save them, 11 so God will allow them to believe lies with all their hearts, 12 and all of them will be justly judged for believing falsehood, refusing the Truth, and enjoying their sins.
13 But we must forever give thanks to God for you, our brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose from the very first to give you salvation,[b] cleansing you by the work of the Holy Spirit and by your trusting in the Truth. 14 Through us he told you the Good News. Through us he called you to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 With all these things in mind, dear brothers, stand firm and keep a strong grip on the truth that we taught you in our letters and during the time we were with you.
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting comfort and hope, which we don’t deserve, 17 comfort your hearts with all comfort, and help you in every good thing you say and do.
7 “Don’t criticize, and then you won’t be criticized. 2 For others will treat you as you treat them. 3 And why worry about a speck in the eye of a brother when you have a board in your own? 4 Should you say, ‘Friend, let me help you get that speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t even see because of the board in your own? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the board. Then you can see to help your brother.
6 “Don’t give holy things to depraved men. Don’t give pearls to swine! They will trample the pearls and turn and attack you.
7 “Ask, and you will be given what you ask for. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Anyone who seeks, finds. If only you will knock, the door will open. 9 If a child asks his father for a loaf of bread, will he be given a stone instead? 10 If he asks for fish, will he be given a poisonous snake? Of course not! 11 And if you hard-hearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them?
12 “Do for others what you want them to do for you. This is the teaching of the laws of Moses in a nutshell.[a]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.