Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 25
A song of David.
1 ALWAYS I will lift up my soul to You, Eternal One,
2 BECAUSE You are my God and I put my trust in You.
Do not let me be humiliated.
Do not let my enemies celebrate at my expense.
3 CERTAINLY none of the people who rely on You will be shamed,
but those who are unfaithful, who intentionally deceive,
they are the ones who will be disgraced.
4 DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One.
Teach me to understand so I can follow.
5 EASE me down the path of Your truth.
FEED me Your word
because You are the True God who has saved me.
I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You.
6 GRACIOUS Eternal One, remember Your compassion; rekindle Your concern and love,
which have always been part of Your actions toward those who are Yours.
7 Do not HOLD against me the sins I committed when I was young;
instead, deal with me according to Your mercy and love.
Then Your goodness may be demonstrated in all the world, Eternal One.
8 IMMENSELY good and honorable is the Eternal;
that’s why He teaches sinners the way.
9 With JUSTICE, He directs the humble in all that is right,
and He shows them His way.
10 KIND and true are all the ways of the Eternal
to the people who keep His covenant and His words.
People and their land are connected. When people engage in disgusting practices, it affects the land, pollutes it, and makes it sick. But when people live by God’s rules, the land is well.
19 The Eternal One spoke to Moses.
Eternal One: 2 Go, talk with the community of Israel, and tell them that they are to be holy, for I, the Eternal your God, am holy.[a] 3 I want all of you to honor your mothers and fathers and keep My Sabbaths, for I am the Eternal your God. 4 Do not turn from Me to follow useless idols or cast metal images of other gods, for I am the Eternal your God.
32 You are to stand in respect for the older people in your community. You must fear your God. I am the Eternal One.
33 Don’t take advantage of any stranger who lives in your land. 34 You must treat the outsider as one of your native-born people—as a full citizen—and you are to love him in the same way you love yourself; for remember, you were once strangers living in Egypt. I am the Eternal One, your God.
35 In business dealings, be fair and do not cheat. Measure accurately length, weight, and volume. 36 Your scales are to be accurate, your weights true, and your containers standard. I am the Eternal your God, who led you out of Egypt.
37 You are to keep all My directives and all of My rules, and do as I have instructed. I am the Eternal One.
16 For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have everlasting life. 17 Here’s the point. God didn’t send His Son into the world to judge it; instead, He is here to rescue a world headed toward certain destruction.
18 No one who believes in Him has to fear condemnation, yet condemnation is already the reality for everyone who refuses to believe because they reject the name of the only Son of God. 19 Why does God allow for judgment and condemnation? Because the Light, sent from God, pierced through the world’s darkness to expose ill motives, hatred, gossip, greed, violence, and the like. Still some people preferred the darkness over the light because their actions were dark. 20 Some of humankind hated the light. They scampered hurriedly back into the darkness where vices thrive and wickedness flourishes. 21 Those who abandon deceit and embrace what is true, they will enter into the light where it will be clear that all their deeds come from God.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.