Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

29 Praise the Lord, you angels of his; praise his glory and his strength. ² Praise him for his majestic glory, the glory of his name. Come before him clothed in sacred garments.

³ The voice of the Lord echoes from the clouds. The God of glory thunders through the skies. ⁴ So powerful is his voice; so full of majesty. ^5-6 It breaks down the cedars. It splits the giant trees of Lebanon. It shakes Mount Lebanon and Mount Sirion. They leap and skip before him like young calves! ⁷ The voice of the Lord thunders through the lightning. ⁸ It resounds through the deserts and shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. ⁹ The voice of the Lord spins and topples the mighty oaks.^[a] It strips the forests bare. They whirl and sway beneath the blast. But in his Temple all are praising, “Glory, glory to the Lord.”

¹⁰ At the Flood the Lord showed his control of all creation. Now he continues to unveil his power. ¹¹ He will give his people strength. He will bless them with peace.

¹³ “The ostrich flaps her wings grandly but has no true motherly love. ¹⁴ She lays her eggs on top of the earth, to warm them in the dust. ¹⁵ She forgets that someone may step on them and crush them, or the wild animals destroy them. ¹⁶ She ignores her young as though they weren’t her own and is unconcerned though they die, ¹⁷ for God has deprived her of wisdom. ¹⁸ But whenever she jumps up to run, she passes the swiftest horse with its rider.

¹⁹ “Have you given the horse strength or clothed his neck with a quivering mane? ²⁰ Have you made him able to leap forward like a locust? His majestic snorting is something to hear! ^21-23 He paws the earth and rejoices in his strength, and when he goes to war, he is unafraid and does not run away though the arrows rattle against him, or the flashing spear and javelin. ²⁴ Fiercely he paws the ground and rushes forward into battle when the trumpet blows. ²⁵ At the sound of the bugle he shouts, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle when far away. He rejoices at the shouts of battle and the roar of the captain’s commands.

⁴ Now God gives us many kinds of special abilities, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all. ⁵ There are different kinds of service to God, but it is the same Lord we are serving. ⁶ There are many ways in which God works in our lives, but it is the same God who does the work in and through all of us who are his. ⁷ The Holy Spirit displays God’s power through each of us as a means of helping the entire church.

⁸ To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; someone else may be especially good at studying and teaching, and this is his gift from the same Spirit. ⁹ He gives special faith to another, and to someone else the power to heal the sick. ¹⁰ He gives power for doing miracles to some, and to others power to prophesy and preach. He gives someone else the power to know whether evil spirits are speaking through those who claim to be giving God’s messages—or whether it is really the Spirit of God who is speaking. Still another person is able to speak in languages he never learned; and others, who do not know the language either, are given power to understand what he is saying. ¹¹ It is the same and only Holy Spirit who gives all these gifts and powers, deciding which each one of us should have.

¹² Our bodies have many parts, but the many parts make up only one body when they are all put together. So it is with the “body” of Christ. ¹³ Each of us is a part of the one body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But the Holy Spirit has fitted us all together into one body. We have been baptized into Christ’s body by the one Spirit, and have all been given that same Holy Spirit.