The mighty one, God the Lord,
   speaks and summons the earth
   from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
   God shines forth.

Our God comes and does not keep silence,
   before him is a devouring fire,
   and a mighty tempest all around him.

He calls to the heavens above
   and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

‘Gather to me my faithful ones,
   who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!’

The heavens declare his righteousness,
   for God himself is judge.
          Selah

 

‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
   O Israel, I will testify against you.
   I am God, your God.

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
   your burnt-offerings are continually before me.

I will not accept a bull from your house,
   or goats from your folds.

For every wild animal of the forest is mine,
   the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the air,
   and all that moves in the field is mine.

‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
   for the world and all that is in it is mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,
   or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
   and pay your vows to the Most High.

Call on me in the day of trouble;
   I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.’

But to the wicked God says:
   ‘What right have you to recite my statutes,
   or take my covenant on your lips?

For you hate discipline,
   and you cast my words behind you.

You make friends with a thief when you see one,
   and you keep company with adulterers.

‘You give your mouth free rein for evil,
   and your tongue frames deceit.

You sit and speak against your kin;
   you slander your own mother’s child.

These things you have done and I have been silent;
   you thought that I was one just like yourself.
But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.

‘Mark this, then, you who forget God,
   or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.

Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honour me;
   to those who go the right way
   I will show the salvation of God.’

 

Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct;

for it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold,

but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.

Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.

Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.

You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

For
‘All flesh is like grass
   and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
   and the flower falls,

but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’
That word is the good news that was announced to you.