Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 51
For the worship leader. A song of David after Nathan the prophet accused him of infidelity with Bathsheba.
One of the most difficult episodes in King David’s life was his affair with Bathsheba and all that resulted from it. Psalm 51 reflects the emotions he felt after Nathan confronted him with stealing Bathsheba and murdering her husband, Uriah (2 Samuel 11–12).
At one time or another, all people experience the painful consequences of sin. Psalm 51 has been a comfort and a help to millions who have prayed these words as their own. It invites all who are broken to come before God and lean upon His compassion. It teaches that we need not only to be forgiven for the wrong we have done, but we also need to be cleansed of its effects on us. Ultimately, it helps us recognize that if we are to be healed, it is the work of God to create in us a heart that is clean and a spirit that is strong.
1 Look on me with a heart of mercy, O God,
according to Your generous love.
According to Your great compassion,
wipe out every consequence of my shameful crimes.
2 Thoroughly wash me, inside and out, of all my crooked deeds.
Cleanse me from my sins.
3 For I am fully aware of all I have done wrong,
and my guilt is there, staring me in the face.
4 It was against You, only You, that I sinned,
for I have done what You say is wrong, right before Your eyes.
So when You speak, You are in the right.
When You judge, Your judgments are pure and true.[a]
5 For I was guilty from the day I was born,
a sinner from the time my mother became pregnant with me.
6 But still, You long to enthrone truth throughout my being;
in unseen places deep within me, You show me wisdom.
7 Cleanse me of my wickedness with hyssop, and I will be clean.
If You wash me, I will be whiter than snow.
8 Help me hear joy and happiness as my accompaniment,
so my bones, which You have broken, will dance in delight instead.
9 Cover Your face so You will not see my sins,
and erase my guilt from the record.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God;
restore within me a sense of being brand new.
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood waters swept over the earth. 7 Noah and his wife, his sons and their wives, all went into the ark in order to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Noah made sure to take along all of the animals (both ritually acceptable and unacceptable), the birds, and all the small creeping creatures 9 in pairs by males and females, just as God had told him to do. They all went into the ark with him, two by two. 10 After seven days, the rains began and waters flooded the earth.
8 But God remembered Noah and all of the wild and domesticated animals with him in the ark. When it was time, God sent the wind to blow over all of the earth, and the waters began to subside. 2 The subterranean waters from the depths of the earth and the casements of the heavens were again closed. The drenching rains that once fell from above finally stopped. 3 All of the waters gradually receded from the land. At last, after 150 days, the waters abated; 4 and on the 17th day of the 7th month, the ark at last came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the 10th month. On the 1st day of the 10th month, the tops of the mountains began to appear.
2 Just as false prophets rose up in the past among God’s people, false teachers will rise up in the future among you. They will slip in with their destructive opinions, denying the very Master who bought their freedom and dooming themselves to destruction swiftly, 2 but not before they attract others by their unbridled and immoral behavior. Because of them and their ways, others will criticize and condemn the path of truth we walk as seedy and disreputable. 3 These false teachers will follow their greed and exploit you with their fabrications, but be assured that their judgment was pronounced long ago and their destruction does not sleep.
New Testament writers warn the church to watch out for false teachers. Peter faults them primarily for their immoral lifestyles rather than for doctrinal differences.
4 For God did not spare the heavenly beings who sinned, but He cast them into the dark pits[a] of hell[b] to be kept until the time of judgment; 5 and He did not spare the ancient world, but He sent a flood swirling over the ungodly (although He did save Noah, God’s herald for what is right, with seven other members of his family); 6 and God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ash as a lesson of what He will do with the ungodly in the days to come 7-8 (although again He did rescue Lot, a person who did what was right in God’s eyes and who was distressed by the immorality and the lawlessness of the society around him. Day after day, the sights and sounds of their lawlessness were like daggers into that good man’s soul). 9 If all this happened in the past, it shows clearly the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials and how to hold the wicked in punishment until the day of judgment.
Is God different in the New Testament from what He is in the First Testament? In the First Testament, God seems prone to judgment; but some feel God is more concerned about love in the New Testament. However, the central and most repeated affirmation about God’s character in the First Testament is that He is gracious and compassionate (Exodus 34:6–7). And the New Testament clearly does not ignore the idea of God’s judgment, as this text shows. His judgment will come, but it is delayed by God’s patient mercy.
10 And above all, it shows He will punish those who let the desires of their bodies rule them and who have no respect for authority. People like this are so bold and willful that they aren’t even afraid of offending heavenly beings,
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.