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Psalm 29

1  Ascribe to the Lord, you powers of heaven, ♦︎
   ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
2  Ascribe to the Lord the honour due to his name; ♦︎
   worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
3  The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;
      the God of glory thunders; ♦︎
   the Lord is upon the mighty waters.
4  The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation; ♦︎
   the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice.
5  The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; ♦︎
   the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;
6  He makes Lebanon skip like a calf ♦︎
   and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7  The voice of the Lord splits the flash of lightning;
      the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; ♦︎
   the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
8  The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe
      and strips the forests bare; ♦︎
   in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’
9  The Lord sits enthroned above the water flood; ♦︎
   the Lord sits enthroned as king for evermore.
10  The Lord shall give strength to his people; ♦︎
   the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

The Future Glory of the Survivors in Zion

2 On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. ³Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, ⁴once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning. ⁵Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy. ⁶It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

Unity in the Body of Christ

4I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸Therefore it is said,
‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
   he gave gifts to his people.’
⁹(When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended^* into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.