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Psalm 146

Praise for God’s Help

¹ Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
² I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
   I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

³ Do not put your trust in princes,
   in mortals, in whom there is no help.
⁴ When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
   on that very day their plans perish.

⁵ Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the Lord their God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
   the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
⁷   who executes justice for the oppressed;
   who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
   the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the strangers;
   he upholds the orphan and the widow,
   but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign for ever,
   your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

THE

Acts

OF THE APOSTLES

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

1In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ²until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ⁴While staying^* with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with^* the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’

The Ascension of Jesus

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ ⁷He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’