Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

²⁶ Uriah's wife heard the news that her husband was dead. She was very sad and she wept because of his death. ²⁷ The time for Uriah's wife to weep for her husband came to an end. Then David sent some of his men to bring her to his palace. She became David's wife. Later, she gave birth to a son. But the Lord was not pleased with David because of the bad things that David had done.

Nathan warns David

12 The Lord sent Nathan to go and speak to David.^[a] Nathan told this story to David, ‘There were two men who lived in the same town. One man was rich and the other man was poor. ² The rich man had very many sheep, goats and cows. ³ But the poor man had only one little female lamb. He had bought it and he had taken care of it. It had grown up with his own children. It ate his bits of food and it drank water from his cup. It even slept while he held it. It was like a daughter for him.

⁴ One day, the rich man had a visitor to his home. The rich man needed to make a meal for his visitor. But he did not want to kill one of his own animals. Instead, he took the poor man's lamb away from him. He cooked the lamb to feed his visitor.’

⁵ When David heard what the rich man had done, he became very angry. He said to Nathan, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, that man deserves to die. ⁶ He did that cruel thing and he was not sorry for the poor man. So he must pay the poor man enough money to buy four lambs.’

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are that man! This is what the Lord, Israel's God, says: “I chose you as king to rule over Israel. I saved you from Saul's power. ⁸ I gave your master's palace to you, and his wives as well. I gave the kingdoms of Israel and Judah to you. And if that was not enough for you, I would have given you even more than that. ⁹ But now you have not respected the Lord's command. You have done an evil thing. You caused Uriah the Hittite to die in a battle. You used the Ammonite soldiers to kill Uriah. ¹⁰ So now your family will always have people who die in battle. When you took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own wife, you showed that you did not respect me.”

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

Nathan replied, ‘The Lord has forgiven your sin. He will not punish you with death. ¹⁴ But you did not respect the Lord when you did this bad thing. Because of that, your baby son will certainly die.’ ¹⁵ Then Nathan went home.

David's son dies

After that, the Lord caused the child of Uriah's wife to become very ill.

This is a special song that David wrote.

Tell God about your sins^[a]

¹⁵ We were born as Jewish people. We are not Gentiles who have never obeyed God's rules. ¹⁶ But we know that we do not become right with God because we obey his Law. A person only becomes right with God when they believe in Jesus Christ. And we, as Jewish believers, have believed in Christ Jesus. We have become right with God because we trust in what Christ has done. It is not because we obey God's Law that he accepts us. Nobody becomes right with God only because they obey the rules in God's Law.

¹⁷ So then, we Jews become right with God when we believe in Christ. That means that we no longer obey all the Jewish rules. But that does not mean that Christ causes us to do wrong things. Certainly, it does not mean that! ¹⁸ Instead, I would really be doing something wrong if I tried to obey all those rules again. I would be building again something that I had destroyed. That would really be against God's Law. ¹⁹ But God's Law showed me that I could never obey all its rules. So I became like a dead person, free from the authority of those rules. That means that I can now live to please God.^[a]

²⁰ Christ died on the cross on my behalf. It is like I died there with him. So I do not live my own life any more. Instead, Christ lives in me. The life that I live now in my body, I live because I trust what he has done for me. He has loved me so much that he died on my behalf. ²¹ So I do not refuse to accept the kind gift of God. If the rules of God's Law could make me right with him, then Christ would have died for no reason!

A woman pours expensive oil on Jesus

³⁶ One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat a meal with him. So Jesus went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat. ³⁷ In that town was a woman who had done many wrong things. She heard that Jesus was eating a meal at the house of the Pharisee. So she took a small stone jar with oil in it, and she went there. The oil had a very nice smell. ³⁸ She went into the house and she stood behind Jesus. She was crying and she made his feet wet with her tears. Then she made his feet dry again with her hair and she kissed them. She then poured the oil out of the jar onto his feet. ³⁹ When the Pharisee saw this, he said to himself, ‘This man cannot be a prophet from God. If he were, he would know all about this woman. He would know that she is a very bad person. He would not let her touch him.’

⁴⁰ Jesus said to him, ‘Simon, I want to tell you something.’ Simon replied, ‘Yes, Teacher, tell me.’ So Jesus told him a story about two men:

⁴¹ ‘Someone had lent two men some money. He had lent one of them 500 silver coins. He had lent the other one 50 coins.^{[a] 42} Neither of the men had enough money to pay him back. Then the man that had lent them the money forgave them. “You do not need to pay back my money,” he said to them both.’

Jesus then asked Simon, ‘Which of these two men will love that man most?’ ⁴³ Simon replied, ‘I think that it is the man that needed to pay back the most money.’

‘You are right,’ Jesus said. ⁴⁴ Then he turned towards the woman. ‘You see this woman,’ he said to Simon. ‘When I came into your house, you did not give me water for my feet.^[b] But she has washed my feet with her tears and she has made them dry with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not say “Hello” to me with a kiss. But this woman began to kiss my feet when she came in. And she has not stopped. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head. But she has brought oil with a nice smell and put it on my feet. ⁴⁷ So I tell you, this woman has done many bad things. But I have forgiven her. She loves me a lot, because I have forgiven her for many bad things. If I only forgive someone a little, that person only loves me a little.’

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to the woman, ‘Woman, I forgive you for all the bad things that you have done.’

⁴⁹ The other people at the meal talked among themselves. They said, ‘Who is this man? Can he really forgive the bad things that people have done?’

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, ‘You have believed in me, so God has saved you. You may go now, and be happy.’

The women that helped Jesus

8 After this, Jesus went to visit many towns and villages. He told people the good news about the kingdom of God. The 12 disciples were travelling with him. ² Some women also went with them. These women had been ill, but Jesus had made them well again. One of the women was Mary from Magdala. Jesus had sent seven bad spirits away from her. ³ Another of the women was Joanna, the wife of Chuza. Chuza had authority over all the people that worked in the house of King Herod. Another of the women was Susanna. There were also many others. These women were using their own money to help Jesus and his disciples.