Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

130 O Lord, from the depths of despair I cry for your help: ² “Hear me! Answer! Help me!”

^3-4 Lord, if you keep in mind our sins, then who can ever get an answer to his prayers? But you forgive! What an awesome thing this is! ⁵ That is why I wait expectantly, trusting God to help, for he has promised. ⁶ I long for him more than sentinels long for the dawn.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord; for he is loving and kind and comes to us with armloads of salvation. ⁸ He himself shall ransom Israel from her slavery to sin.

¹³ And so it was that a very large crowd assembled at Jerusalem in the month of May for the Passover celebration. ¹⁴ They set to work and destroyed the heathen altars in Jerusalem, and knocked down all the incense altars, and threw them into Kidron Brook.

¹⁵ On the first day of May the people killed their Passover lambs. Then the priests and Levites became ashamed of themselves for not taking a more active part, so they sanctified themselves and brought burnt offerings into the Temple. ¹⁶ They stood at their posts as instructed by the law of Moses the man of God; and the priests sprinkled the blood received from the Levites.

^17-19 Since many of the people arriving from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially impure because they had not undergone the purification rites, the Levites killed their Passover lambs for them, to sanctify them. Then King Hezekiah prayed for them, and they were permitted to eat the Passover anyway, even though this was contrary to God’s rules. But Hezekiah said, “May the good Lord pardon everyone who determines to follow the Lord God of his fathers, even though he is not properly sanctified for the ceremony.” ²⁰ And the Lord listened to Hezekiah’s prayer and did not destroy them.

²¹ So the people of Israel celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem for seven days with great joy.

Meanwhile the Levites and priests praised the Lord with music and cymbals day after day. ²² (King Hezekiah spoke very appreciatively to the Levites of their excellent music.)

So for seven days the observance continued, and peace offerings were sacrificed, and the people confessed their sins to the Lord God of their fathers. ²³ The enthusiasm continued, so it was unanimously decided to continue the observance for another seven days. ²⁴ King Hezekiah gave the people 1,000 young bulls for offerings and 7,000 sheep; and the princes donated 1,000 young bulls and 10,000 sheep. And at this time another large group of priests stepped forward and sanctified themselves.

²⁵ Then the people of Judah, together with the priests, the Levites, the foreign residents, and the visitors from Israel, were filled with deep joy. ²⁶ For Jerusalem hadn’t seen a celebration like this one since the days of King David’s son Solomon. ²⁷ Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed the people, and the Lord heard their prayers from his holy temple in heaven.

2 Several days later he returned to Capernaum, and the news of his arrival spread quickly through the city. ² Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there wasn’t room for a single person more, not even outside the door. And he preached the Word to them. ³ Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. ⁴ They couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head and lowered the sick man on his stretcher, right down in front of Jesus.^[a]

⁵ When Jesus saw how strongly they believed that he would help, Jesus said to the sick man, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”

⁶ But some of the Jewish religious leaders^[b] said to themselves as they sat there, ⁷ “What? This is blasphemy! Does he think he is God? For only God can forgive sins.”

⁸ Jesus could read their minds and said to them at once, “Why does this bother you? ^9-11 I, the Messiah,^[c] have the authority on earth to forgive sins. But talk is cheap—anybody could say that. So I’ll prove it to you by healing this man.” Then, turning to the paralyzed man, he commanded, “Pick up your stretcher and go on home, for you are healed!”

¹² The man jumped up, took the stretcher, and pushed his way through the stunned onlookers! Then how they praised God. “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” they all exclaimed.