Psalm 51:7-17
Living Bible
7 Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood[a] and I shall be clean again. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 And after you have punished me, give me back my joy again. 9 Don’t keep looking at my sins—erase them from your sight. 10 Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires. 11 Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to other sinners, and they—guilty like me—will repent and return to you. 14-15 Don’t sentence me to death. O my God, you alone can rescue me. Then I will sing of your forgiveness,[b] for my lips will be unsealed—oh, how I will praise you.
16 You don’t want penance;[c] if you did, how gladly I would do it! You aren’t interested in offerings burned before you on the altar. 17 It is a broken spirit you want—remorse and penitence. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not ignore.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Psalm 51:7 Sprinkle me with the cleansing blood, literally, “Purge me with hyssop”; see Exodus 12:22; Hebrews 9:18-22.
- Psalm 51:14 forgiveness, literally, “righteousness.”
- Psalm 51:16 penance, literally, “a sacrifice.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.