Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Prayer of the Sinner

51 O God, favor me because of Your loving-kindness. Take away my wrong-doing because of the greatness of Your loving-pity. ² Wash me inside and out from my wrong-doing and make me clean from my sin. ³ For I know my wrong-doing, and my sin is always in front of me. ⁴ I have sinned against You, and You only. I have done what is sinful in Your eyes. You are always right when You speak, and fair when You judge.

⁵ See, I was born in sin and was in sin from my very beginning. ⁶ See, You want truth deep within the heart. And You will make me know wisdom in the hidden part. ⁷ Take away my sin, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ Make me hear joy and happiness. Let the bones that You have broken be full of joy. ⁹ Hide Your face from my sins. And take away all my wrong-doing.

¹⁰ Make a clean heart in me, O God. Give me a new spirit that will not be moved. ¹¹ Do not throw me away from where You are. And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Let the joy of Your saving power return to me. And give me a willing spirit to obey you. ¹³ Then I will teach wrong-doers Your ways. And sinners will turn to You.

¹⁴ Save me from the guilt of blood, O God. You are the God Who saves me. Then my tongue will sing with joy about how right and good You are. ¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips, so my mouth will praise You. ¹⁶ For You are not happy with a gift given on the altar in worship, or I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt gifts. ¹⁷ The gifts on an altar that God wants are a broken spirit. O God, You will not hate a broken heart and a heart with no pride.

¹⁸ Be pleased to do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ Then You will be happy with gifts given on the altar that are right and good, with burnt gifts and whole burnt gifts. Then young bulls will be given on Your altar.

⁵⁸ “If you are not careful to obey all the words of the Law which are written in this book, to fear this honored name of the Lord your God, ⁵⁹ then the Lord will bring bad diseases on you and your children, hard and lasting diseases and sicknesses. ⁶⁰ He will bring all the diseases upon you that you were afraid of in Egypt. And they will stay with you. ⁶¹ The Lord will bring upon you every sickness and every trouble which is not written in the book of this Law also, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You will have been as many as the stars of heaven but there will be few of you left, because you did not obey the Lord your God. ⁶³ As the Lord was happy with you and caused good to come to you and you were many, He will be happy to bring trouble upon you and destroy you. And you will be taken from the land you are going in to take. ⁶⁴ The Lord will spread you out among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods, of wood and stone, which you and your fathers have not known. ⁶⁵ You will find no rest among those nations. There will be no place of rest for the bottom of your foot. But there the Lord will give you fear in your heart, eyes that become weak, and sorrow in your soul. ⁶⁶ Your life will be full of doubts. You will be afraid night and day. And you will not be sure of anything in your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, ‘If it were only evening!’ In the evening you will say, ‘If it were only morning!’ because of the fear of your heart, and the things your eyes see. ⁶⁸ The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, in the way I said, ‘You will never see it again.’ There you will try to sell yourselves as men and women servants to those who hate you. But no one will buy you.”

The Agreement in Moab

29 These are the words of the agreement the Lord told Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, as well as the agreement He had made with them at Mount Sinai.

Stephen Speaks about the God of Moses

¹⁷ “The promise God had given Abraham was about to happen. At this time many more of our people were in the country of Egypt. ¹⁸ Then another man became king in Egypt. He was a king who did not know Joseph. ¹⁹ He was hard on our people and nation. He worked against our early fathers. He made them put their babies outside so they would die.

²⁰ “At that time Moses was born. He was beautiful in God’s sight. He was fed in his father’s house for three months. ²¹ Then he was put outside. Pharaoh’s daughter took him and cared for him as her own son. ²² Moses was taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He became a powerful man in words and in the things he did. ²³ When he was forty years old, he thought he should visit his brothers, the Jews. ²⁴ He saw one of the Jews being hurt. Moses helped the Jew and killed the man from Egypt. ²⁵ He thought his people would understand. He thought they knew God would let them go free by his help. But the people did not understand.

²⁶ “The next day Moses came to some Jews who were fighting. He tried to get them to stop. Moses said to the Jews, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you hurt each other?’ ²⁷ One was beating his neighbor. He pushed Moses away and said, ‘Who made you a leader over us? Who said you could say who is guilty? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the man from Egypt yesterday?’ ²⁹ When Moses heard that, he went as fast as he could to the country of Midian where he was a stranger. While he was there, he became the father of two sons.