Religion

For the choir director: on the . A psalm of David. [1] LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty.

From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place,

what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?

You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:

all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild,

the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas.

LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!

For the choir director. A psalm of David. [1] The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.

There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard.

Their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun.

It is like a bridegroom coming from his home; it rejoices like an athlete running a course.

It rises from one end of the heavens and circles to their other end; nothing is hidden from its heat.

“Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and most important command.

The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Peter began to speak: “Now I truly understand that God doesn’t show favoritism,

but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

although he did not leave himself without a witness, since he did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.”

For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

The God who made the world and everything in it  — he is Lord of heaven and earth  — does not live in shrines made by hands.

Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.

He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,

because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

What the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering,

in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

But not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message?

So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.

But I ask, “Did they not hear?” Yes, they did: Their voice has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world.

If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,

is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,

but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.