Psalms 148; Psalms 149; Psalms 150; 1 Corinthians 15:29-58

1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from heaven, you that live in the heights above.

2 Praise him, all his angels, all his heavenly armies.

3 Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, shining stars.

4 Praise him, highest heavens, and the waters above the sky.

5 Let them all praise the name of the Lord! He commanded, and they were created;

6 by his command they were fixed in their places forever, and they cannot disobey.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth, sea monsters and all ocean depths;

8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds, strong winds that obey his command.

9 Praise him, hills and mountains, fruit trees and forests;

10 all animals, tame and wild, reptiles and birds.

11 Praise him, kings and all peoples, princes and all other rulers;

12 young women and young men, old people and children too.

13 Let them all praise the name of the Lord! His name is greater than all others; his glory is above earth and heaven.

14 He made his nation strong, so that all his people praise him - the people of Israel, so dear to him. Praise the Lord!

1 Praise the Lord! Sing a new song to the Lord; praise him in the assembly of his faithful people!

2 Be glad, Israel, because of your Creator; rejoice, people of Zion, because of your king!

3 Praise his name with dancing; play drums and harps in praise of him.

4 The Lord takes pleasure in his people; he honors the humble with victory.

5 Let God's people rejoice in their triumph and sing joyfully all night long.

6 Let them shout aloud as they praise God, with their sharp swords in their hands

7 to defeat the nations and to punish the peoples;

8 to bind their kings in chains, their leaders in chains of iron;

9 to punish the nations as God has commanded. This is the victory of God's people. Praise the Lord!

1 Praise the Lord! Praise God in his Temple! Praise his strength in heaven!

2 Praise him for the mighty things he has done. Praise his supreme greatness.

3 Praise him with trumpets. Praise him with harps and lyres.

4 Praise him with drums and dancing. Praise him with harps and flutes.

5 Praise him with cymbals. Praise him with loud cymbals.

6 Praise the Lord, all living creatures! Praise the Lord!

29 Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?

30 And as for us - why would we run the risk of danger every hour?

31 My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this.

32 If I have, as it were, fought "wild beasts" here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."

33 Do not be fooled. "Bad companions ruin good character."

34 Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.

35 Someone will ask, "How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?"

36 You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.

37 And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up.

38 God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.

39 And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.

40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies.

41 The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.

42 This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal.

43 When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong.

44 When buried, it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.

45 For the scripture says, "The first man, Adam, was created a living being"; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit.

46 It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.

47 The first Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the second Adam came from heaven.

48 Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven.

49 Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.

50 What I mean, friends, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality.

51 Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye. For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed.

53 For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die.

54 So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: "Death is destroyed; victory is complete!"

55 "Where, Death, is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?"

56 Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law.

57 But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

58 So then, my dear friends, stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless.