Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the Director: A Davidic Psalm. When the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
A Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon
51 Have mercy, God, according to your gracious love,
according to your unlimited compassion,
erase my transgressions.
2 Wash me from my iniquity,
cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgression;
my sin remains continuously before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and done what was evil in your sight.
As a result, you are just in your pronouncement
and clear in your judgment.
5 Indeed, in iniquity I was brought forth;
in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Indeed, you are pleased with truth in the inner person,
and you will teach me wisdom in my[a] innermost parts.
7 Purge me with hyssop,
and I will be clean.
Wash me,
and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me know[b] joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your countenance from my sins
and erase the record of my iniquities.
10 God, create a pure heart in me,
and renew a right attitude within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence;
do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and let a willing attitude control me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors about your ways,
and sinners will turn to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of shedding blood,[c]
God, God of my salvation.
Then my tongue will sing about your righteousness.
15 Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 Indeed, you do not delight in sacrifices,
or I would give them,
nor do you desire burnt offerings.
17 True sacrifice to God[d] is a broken spirit.
A broken and chastened heart, God,
you will not despise.
18 Show favor to Zion in your good pleasure;
and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will be pleased with right sacrifices,
with burnt offerings, and with whole burnt offerings.
Then they will offer bulls on your altar.
Reduction in Population
58 “If you aren’t careful to observe all the words of this Law that have been written in this book, instructing you[a] to fear this glorious and awesome name of the Lord your God, 59 then he[b] will inflict extraordinary plagues on you and your children, great and lasting plagues, and severe and lasting illnesses. 60 He will inflict[c] on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they won’t be curable.[d] 61 Moreover, the Lord will inflict you with illnesses and plagues that were not written in this Book of the Law, until you are exterminated. 62 Because you will not have obeyed[e] the Lord your God, very few of you will be left—instead of you being as numerous as the stars in the heavens. 63 Just as the Lord delighted to prosper and increase you, so now the Lord will delight to destroy, exterminate, and banish you from the land that you are about to enter to possess.”
Scattering among the Nations
64 “He’ll[f] scatter you among the nations[g] from one end of the earth to the other,[h] and there you’ll serve other gods made of wood and stones, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 Among those nations you’ll have no rest. There’ll be no resting place for the soles of your feet. Instead, the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a despairing spirit. 66 You’ll cling to life, being fearful by both night and day, with no assurance of survival. 67 In the morning you’ll say, ‘I wish it were evening.’ Yet in the evening you’ll say, “I wish it were morning,” on account of what you’ll dread[i] and what you’ll see.[j] 68 Finally, the Lord will bring you back to Egypt by ship, a place that I said you’ll never see again. There you’ll try to sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
Remembering the Exodus and Conquest
29 [k]These are the terms of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelis in the land of Moab in addition to the covenant that he made with them in Horeb.
17 “Now as the time approached for the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people’s population increased a great deal in Egypt. 18 Eventually, a different king who had not known Joseph became ruler of Egypt.[a] 19 By shrewdly scheming against our people, he oppressed our ancestors and forced them to abandon their infants to the elements, so that they wouldn’t live.
20 “At this time Moses was born. He was beautiful in the sight of God, and for three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 22 So Moses learned all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a great man, both in words and in deeds.
23 “When he was 40 years old, he decided[b] to visit his brothers, the descendants of Israel. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he defended him[c] and avenged the man who was being mistreated by killing the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn’t understand. 26 The next day, he presented himself to some of them while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why should you be hurting another?’
27 “But the man who was harming his neighbor pushed Moses[d] away and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 You don’t want to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’[e] 29 Because of this, Moses fled and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian. There he had two sons.
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