Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer for Forgiveness
For the director of music. A psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to David after David’s sin with Bathsheba.
51 God, be merciful to me
because you are loving.
Because you are always ready to be merciful,
wipe out all my wrongs.
2 Wash away all my guilt
and make me clean again.
3 I know about my wrongs,
and I can’t forget my sin.
4 You are the only one I have sinned against;
I have done what you say is wrong.
You are right when you speak
and fair when you judge.
5 I was brought into this world in sin.
In sin my mother gave birth to me.
6 You want me to be completely truthful,
so teach me wisdom.
7 Take away my sin, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Make me hear sounds of joy and gladness;
let the bones you crushed be happy again.
9 Turn your face from my sins
and wipe out all my guilt.
10 Create in me a pure heart, God,
and make my spirit right again.
11 Do not send me away from you
or take your Holy Spirit away from me.
12 Give me back the joy of your salvation.
Keep me strong by giving me a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach your ways to those who do wrong,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 God, save me from the guilt of murder,
God of my salvation,
and I will sing about your goodness.
15 Lord, let me speak
so I may praise you.
16 You are not pleased by sacrifices, or I would give them.
You don’t want burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit.
God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.
18 Do whatever good you wish for Jerusalem.
Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will be pleased with right sacrifices and whole burnt offerings,
and bulls will be offered on your altar.
58 Be careful to obey everything in these teachings that are written in this book. You must respect the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God, 59 or the Lord will give terrible diseases to you and your descendants. You will have long and serious diseases, and long and miserable sicknesses. 60 He will give you all the diseases of Egypt that you dread, and the diseases will stay with you. 61 The Lord will also give you every disease and sickness not written in this Book of the Teachings, until you are destroyed. 62 You people may have outnumbered the stars, but only a few of you will be left, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Just as the Lord was once happy with you and gave you good things and made you grow in number, so then the Lord will be happy to ruin and destroy you, and you will be removed from the land you are entering to take as your own.
64 Then the Lord will scatter you among the nations—from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone, gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 You will have no rest among those nations and no place that is yours. The Lord will make your mind worried, your sight weak, and your soul sad. 66 You will live with danger and be afraid night and day. You will not be sure that you will live. 67 In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening,” and in the evening you will say, “I wish it were morning.” Terror will be in your heart, and the things you have seen will scare you. 68 The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships, even though I, Moses, said you would never go back to Egypt. And there you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies, but no one will buy you.
The Agreement in Moab
29 The Lord commanded Moses to make an agreement with the Israelites in Moab in addition to the agreement he had made with them at Mount Sinai. These are the words of that agreement.
17 “The promise God made to Abraham was soon to come true, and the number of people in Egypt grew large. 18 Then a new king, who did not know who Joseph was, began to rule Egypt. 19 This king tricked our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to leave their babies outside to die. 20 At this time Moses was born, and he was very beautiful. For three months Moses was cared for in his father’s house. 21 When they put Moses outside, the king’s daughter adopted him and raised him as if he were her own son. 22 The Egyptians taught Moses everything they knew, and he was a powerful man in what he said and did.
23 “When Moses was about forty years old, he thought it would be good to visit his own people, the people of Israel. 24 Moses saw an Egyptian mistreating one of his people, so he defended the Israelite and punished the Egyptian by killing him. 25 Moses thought his own people would understand that God was using him to save them, but they did not. 26 The next day when Moses saw two men of Israel fighting, he tried to make peace between them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you hurting each other?’ 27 The man who was hurting the other pushed Moses away and said, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? 28 Are you going to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’[a] 29 When Moses heard him say this, he left Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian where he was a stranger. While Moses lived in Midian, he had two sons.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.