Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

148 Praise the Lord, O heavens! Praise him from the skies! ² Praise him, all his angels, all the armies of heaven. ³ Praise him, sun and moon and all you twinkling stars. ⁴ Praise him, skies above. Praise him, vapors high above the clouds.

⁵ Let everything he has made give praise to him. For he issued his command, and they came into being; ⁶ he established them forever and forever. His orders will never be revoked.

⁷ And praise him down here on earth, you creatures of the ocean depths. ⁸ Let fire and hail, snow, rain, wind, and weather all obey. ⁹ Let the mountains and hills, the fruit trees and cedars, ¹⁰ the wild animals and cattle, the snakes and birds, ¹¹ the kings and all the people with their rulers and their judges, ¹² young men and maidens, old men and children— ¹³ all praise the Lord together. For he alone is worthy. His glory is far greater than all of earth and heaven. ¹⁴ He has made his people strong, honoring his godly ones—the people of Israel, the people closest to him.

Hallelujah! Yes, praise the Lord!

¹⁸ Then Moses asked to see God’s glory.

¹⁹ The Lord replied, “I will make my goodness pass before you, and I will announce to you the meaning of my name^[a] Jehovah, the Lord. I show kindness and mercy to anyone I want to. ²⁰ But you may not see the glory of my face, for man may not see me and live. ²¹ However, stand here on this rock beside me. ²² And when my glory goes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed. ²³ Then I will remove my hand, and you shall see my back but not my face.”

1 Christ was alive when the world began, yet I myself have seen him with my own eyes and listened to him speak. I have touched him with my own hands. He is God’s message of life. ² This one who is life from God has been shown to us, and we guarantee that we have seen him; I am speaking of Christ, who is eternal Life. He was with the Father and then was shown to us. ³ Again I say, we are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may share the fellowship and the joys we have with the Father and with Jesus Christ his son. ⁴ And if you do as I say in this letter, then you, too, will be full of joy, and so will we.

⁵ This is the message God has given us to pass on to you: that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ So if we say we are his friends but go on living in spiritual darkness and sin, we are lying. ⁷ But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. ⁹ But if we confess our sins to him,^[a] he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins.