Book of Common Prayer
Praise God for What He Has Done
For the director of music. A song. A psalm.
66 Everything on earth, shout with joy to God!
2 Sing about his glory!
Make his praise glorious!
3 Say to God, “Your works are amazing!
Because your power is great,
your enemies fall before you.
4 All the earth worships you
and sings praises to you.
They sing praises to your name.” Selah
5 Come and see what God has done,
the amazing things he has done for people.
6 He turned the sea into dry land.
The people crossed the river on foot.
So let us rejoice because of what he did.
7 He rules forever with his power.
He keeps his eye on the nations,
so people should not turn against him. Selah
8 You people, praise our God;
loudly sing his praise.
9 He protects our lives
and does not let us be defeated.
10 God, you have tested us;
you have purified us like silver.
11 You let us be trapped
and put a heavy load on us.
12 You let our enemies walk on our heads.
We went through fire and flood,
but you brought us to a place with good things.
13 I will come to your Temple with burnt offerings.
I will give you what I promised,
14 things I promised when I was in trouble.
15 I will bring you offerings of fat animals,
and I will offer sheep, bulls, and goats. Selah
16 All of you who fear God, come and listen,
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
17 I cried out to him with my mouth
and praised him with my tongue.
18 If I had known of any sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened to me.
19 But God has listened;
he has heard my prayer.
20 Praise God,
who did not ignore my prayer
or hold back his love from me.
9 The Lord is trying to teach the people a lesson;
he is trying to make them understand his teachings.
But the people are like babies too old for breast milk,
like those who no longer nurse at their mother’s breast.
10 So they make fun of the Lord’s prophet and say:
“A command here, a command there.
A rule here, a rule there.
A little lesson here, a little lesson there.”
11 So the Lord will use strange words and foreign languages
to speak to these people.
12 God said to them,
“Here is a place of rest;
let the tired people come and rest.
This is the place of peace.”
But the people would not listen.
13 So the words of the Lord will be,
“A command here, a command there.
A rule here, a rule there.
A little lesson here, a little lesson there.”
They will fall back and be defeated;
they will be trapped and captured.
14 So listen to the Lord’s message, you who brag,
you leaders in Jerusalem.
15 You say, “We have made an agreement with death;
we have a contract with death.
When terrible punishment passes by,
it won’t hurt us.
Our lies will keep us safe,
and our tricks will hide us.”
16 Because of these things, this is what the Lord God says:
“I will put a stone in the ground in Jerusalem,
a tested stone.
Everything will be built on this important and precious rock.
Anyone who trusts in it will never be disappointed.
The Unity of the Body
4 I am in prison because I belong to the Lord. Therefore I urge you who have been chosen by God to live up to the life to which God called you. 2 Always be humble, gentle, and patient, accepting each other in love. 3 You are joined together with peace through the Spirit, so make every effort to continue together in this way. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, and God called you to have one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. 6 There is one God and Father of everything. He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.
7 Christ gave each one of us the special gift of grace, showing how generous he is. 8 That is why it says in the Scriptures,
“When he went up to the heights,
he led a parade of captives,
and he gave gifts to people.” Psalm 68:18
9 When it says, “He went up,” what does it mean? It means that he first came down to the earth. 10 So Jesus came down, and he is the same One who went up above all the heaven. Christ did that to fill everything with his presence. 11 And Christ gave gifts to people—he made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to have the work of caring for and teaching God’s people. 12 Christ gave those gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger. 13 This work must continue until we are all joined together in the same faith and in the same knowledge of the Son of God. We must become like a mature person, growing until we become like Christ and have his perfection.
14 Then we will no longer be babies. We will not be tossed about like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to fool us. They make plans and try any kind of trick to fool people into following the wrong path. 15 No! Speaking the truth with love, we will grow up in every way into Christ, who is the head. 16 The whole body depends on Christ, and all the parts of the body are joined and held together. Each part does its own work to make the whole body grow and be strong with love.
Thanksgiving for Escaping Death
116 I love the Lord,
because he listens to my prayers for help.
2 He paid attention to me,
so I will call to him for help as long as I live.
3 The ropes of death bound me,
and the fear of the grave took hold of me.
I was troubled and sad.
4 Then I called out the name of the Lord.
I said, “Please, Lord, save me!”
5 The Lord is kind and does what is right;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord watches over the foolish;
when I was helpless, he saved me.
7 I said to myself, “Relax,
because the Lord takes care of you.”
8 Lord, you saved me from death.
You stopped my eyes from crying;
you kept me from being defeated.
9 So I will walk with the Lord
in the land of the living.
10 I believed, so I said,
“I am completely ruined.”
11 In my distress I said,
“All people are liars.”
12 What can I give the Lord
for all the good things he has given to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation,
and I will pray to the Lord.
14 I will give the Lord what I promised
in front of all his people.
15 The death of one that belongs to the Lord
is precious in his sight.
16 Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant and the son of your female servant.
You have freed me from my chains.
17 I will give you an offering to show thanks to you,
and I will pray to the Lord.
18 I will give the Lord what I promised
in front of all his people,
19 in the Temple courtyards
in Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!
A Hymn of Praise
117 All you nations, praise the Lord.
All you people, praise him
2 because the Lord loves us very much,
and his truth is everlasting.
Praise the Lord!
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will obey my commands. 16 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper[a] to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you and he will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you all alone like orphans; I will come back to you. 19 In a little while the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live, too. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and that you are in me and I am in you. 21 Those who know my commands and obey them are the ones who love me, and my Father will love those who love me. I will love them and will show myself to them.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you plan to show yourself to us and not to the rest of the world?”
23 Jesus answered, “If people love me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Those who do not love me do not obey my teaching. This teaching that you hear is not really mine; it is from my Father, who sent me.
25 “I have told you all these things while I am with you. 26 But the Helper will teach you everything and will cause you to remember all that I told you. This Helper is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.
27 “I leave you peace; my peace I give you. I do not give it to you as the world does. So don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going, but I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you should be happy that I am going back to the Father, because he is greater than I am. 29 I have told you this now, before it happens, so that when it happens, you will believe. 30 I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me, 31 but the world must know that I love the Father, so I do exactly what the Father told me to do.
“Come now, let us go.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.