²⁴ I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.^{(A) 25} I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.^{(B) 26} A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.^{(C) 27} I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.^{(D) 28} Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.^(E)

Psalm 51

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Dying and Rising with Christ

6 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase?^{(A) 2} By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?^{(B) 3} Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?^{(C) 4} Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.^(D)

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.^{(E) 7} For whoever has died is freed^[a] from sin. ⁸ But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.^{(F) 10} The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.^{(G) 11} So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.^(H)

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,^{(A) 2} during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.^{(B) 3} He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,

¹⁵ As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,^{[a](A) 16} John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with^[b] the Holy Spirit and fire.^{(B) 17} His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”^(C)

The Baptism of Jesus

²¹ Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened,^{(A) 22} and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;^[a] with you I am well pleased.”^[b](B)