This canticle, drawn from Revelation 4 and 5, was introduced in the 1979 Prayer Book, recommended to be used as the second Canticle in Morning Prayer on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The Gloria Patri is omitted, not because this is a penitential hymn like Canticle 3, but because the whole text is already purely doxological.

Splendor and honor and kingly power * are yours by right, O Lord our God,
For you created everything that is, * and by your will they were created and have their being;
And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain, * for with your blood you have redeemed for God,
From every family, language, people, and nation, * a kingdom of priests to serve our God.
And so, to him who sits upon the throne, * and to Christ the Lamb,
Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor, * for ever and for evermore. Amen.

An amalgamation of heavenly worship reported of chapters 4 and 5 of St. John’s Revelation, this Canticle focuses heavily on the accomplishments of Christ’s death and resurrection.  It praises not only God’s work of creation but particularly of his redemption of the peoples of the world by his blood.  By addressing this hymn to God “who sits upon the throne, and to Christ the Lamb”, it is rendered especially appropriate (per the rubric) for Ascensiontide, when the session of Christ at God’s right hand is a particular theological emphasis. The imagery of “every family, language, people, and nation” is well-known, and reminds the worshiper of the global universality of the Church – we praise Christ not only in our own congregation but with untold multitudes in all times and places.  And we are united together under one king, to whom “worship and praise, dominion and splendor” belongs forevermore.