Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 51
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David; when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had sinned with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to the multitude of Your tender mercy and loving-kindness blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly [and repeatedly] from my iniquity and guilt and cleanse me and make me wholly pure from my sin!
3 For I am conscious of my transgressions and I acknowledge them; my sin is ever before me.
4 Against You, You only, have I sinned and done that which is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified in Your sentence and faultless in Your judgment.(A)
5 Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].(B)
6 Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart.
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean [ceremonially]; wash me, and I shall [in reality] be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt and iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.
20 And Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean [four-footed] animal and of every clean fowl or bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing odor [a scent of satisfaction to His heart], the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination (the strong desire) of man’s heart is evil and wicked from his youth; neither will I ever again smite and destroy every living thing, as I have done.
22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
9 And God pronounced a blessing upon Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread and terror of you shall be upon every beast of the land, every bird of the air, all that creeps upon the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are delivered into your hand.
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green vegetables and plants, I give you everything.
4 But you shall not eat flesh with the life of it, which is its blood.
5 And surely for your lifeblood I will require an accounting; from every beast I will require it; and from man, from every man [who spills another’s lifeblood] I will require a reckoning.
6 Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man.
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply on it.
11 I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd risks and lays down His [own] life for the sheep.(A)
12 But the hired servant (he who merely serves for wages) who is neither the shepherd nor the owner of the sheep, when he sees the wolf coming, deserts the flock and runs away. And the wolf chases and snatches them and scatters [the flock].
13 Now the hireling flees because he merely serves for wages and is not himself concerned about the sheep [cares nothing for them].
14 I am the Good Shepherd; and I know and recognize My own, and My own know and recognize Me—
15 Even as [truly as] the Father knows Me and I also know the Father—and I am giving My [very own] life and laying it down on behalf of the sheep.
16 And I have other sheep [beside these] that are not of this fold. I must bring and [a]impel those also; and they will listen to My voice and heed My call, and so there will be [they will become] one flock under one Shepherd.(B)
17 For this [reason] the Father loves Me, because I lay down My [own] life—to take it back again.
18 No one takes it away from Me. On the contrary, I lay it down voluntarily. [I put it from Myself.] I am authorized and have power to lay it down (to resign it) and I am authorized and have power to take it back again. These are the instructions (orders) which I have received [as My charge] from My Father.
19 Then a fresh division of opinion arose among the Jews because of His saying these things.
20 And many of them said, He has a demon and He is mad (insane—He raves, He rambles). Why do you listen to Him?
21 Others argued, These are not the thoughts and the language of one possessed. Can a demon-possessed person open blind eyes?
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