Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer for Forgiveness

For the director of music. A song of David when the prophet Nathan came to David after David’s sin with Bathsheba.

⁶ Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. ⁷ He and his wife and his sons and their wives went into the boat. They went in to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ The clean animals, the unclean animals, the birds and everything that crawls on the ground ⁹ came to Noah. They went into the boat in groups of two, male and female. This was just as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ Seven days later the flood started.

The Flood Ends

8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and tame animals with him in the boat. God made a wind blow over the earth. And the water went down. ² The underground springs stopped flowing. And the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain. ^3-4 The water that covered the earth began to go down. After 150 days the water had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat.^[a] This was on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. ⁵ The water continued to go down. By the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains could be seen.

False Teachers

2 There used to be false prophets among God’s people, just as there are now. And you will have some false teachers in your group. They will secretly teach things that are wrong—teachings that will cause people to be lost. They will even refuse to accept the Master, Jesus, who bought their freedom. And so they will quickly destroy themselves. ² Many will follow their evil ways and say evil things about the Way of truth. ³ Those false teachers only want your money. So they will use you by telling you what is not true. But God has already judged them guilty. And they will not escape the One who will destroy them.

⁴ When angels sinned, God did not let them go free without punishment. God sent them to hell and put them in caves^[a] of darkness. They are being held there to be judged. ⁵ And God punished the evil people who lived long ago. He brought a flood to the world that was full of people who were against him. But God saved Noah and seven other people with him. Noah was a man who preached about being right with God. ⁶ And God also punished the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[b] He burned those cities until there was nothing left but ashes. He made those cities an example to show what will happen to those who are against God. ⁷ But God saved Lot from those cities. Lot, a good man, was troubled because of the sinful behavior of evil people. ⁸ (Lot was a good man, but he lived with evil people every day. His good heart was hurt by the evil things that he saw and heard.) ⁹ And so the Lord knows how to save those who serve him. He will save them when troubles come. And the Lord will hold evil people and punish them, while waiting for the Judgment Day. ¹⁰ That punishment is especially for those who live by doing the evil things their sinful selves want, and for those who hate the Lord’s authority.

These false teachers do anything they want and brag about it. They are not afraid to say bad things about the glorious angels.