Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer by David.

²⁷ When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.

12 Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city: the one rich, and the other poor. ² The rich man had very many flocks and herds, ³ but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food, drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him. ⁴ A traveler came to the rich man, and he didn’t want to take of his own flock and of his own herd to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him, but took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

⁵ David’s anger burned hot against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As Yahweh lives, the man who has done this deserves to die! ⁶ He must restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and because he had no pity!”

⁷ Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. ⁸ I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that would have been too little, I would have added to you many more such things. ⁹ Why have you despised Yahweh’s word, to do that which is evil in his sight? You have struck Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. ¹⁰ Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken Uriah the Hittite’s wife to be your wife.’

¹¹ “This is what Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. ¹² For you did this secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’”

¹³ David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh.”

Nathan said to David, “Yahweh also has put away your sin. You will not die. ¹⁴ However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to Yahweh’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.” ¹⁵ Then Nathan departed to his house.

Yahweh struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he was very sick.

⁷ “To the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write:

“He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says these things:

⁸ “I know your works (behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have a little power, and kept my word, and didn’t deny my name. ⁹ Behold, I make some of the synagogue of Satan, of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie—behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you. ¹⁰ Because you kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. ¹¹ I am coming quickly! Hold firmly that which you have, so that no one takes your crown. ¹² He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will go out from there no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name. ¹³ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.