Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the director: A song of David written when Nathan the prophet came to him after David’s sin with Bathsheba.
51 God, be merciful to me
because of your faithful love.
Because of your great compassion,
erase all the wrongs I have done.
2 Scrub away my guilt.
Wash me clean from my sin.
3 I know I have done wrong.
I remember that sin all the time.
4 I did what you said is wrong.
You are the one I have sinned against.
I say this so that people will know
that I am wrong and you are right.
What you decided is fair.
5 I was born to do wrong,
a sinner before I left my mother’s womb.
6 You want me to be completely loyal,
so put true wisdom deep inside of me.
7 Remove my sin and make me pure.[a]
Wash me until I am whiter than snow!
8 Let me hear sounds of joy and happiness again.
Let the bones you crushed be happy again.
9 Don’t look at my sins.
Erase them all.
10 God, create a pure heart in me,
and make my spirit strong again.
11 Don’t push me away
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Your help made me so happy.
Give me that joy again.
Make my spirit strong and ready to obey you.
13 I will teach the guilty how you want them to live,
and the sinners will come back to you.
14 God, spare me from the punishment of death.[b]
My God, you are the one who saves me!
Let me sing about all the good things you do for me!
15 My Lord, I will open my mouth and sing your praises!
16 You don’t really want sacrifices,
or I would give them to you.
17 The sacrifice that God wants is a humble spirit.
God, you will not turn away someone who comes with a humble heart and is willing to obey you.[c]
18 God, please be good to Zion.
Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you can enjoy the kind of sacrifices you want.[d]
You will receive whole burnt offerings,
and people will again offer bulls on your altar.
God Calls and Jonah Obeys
3 Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again and said, 2 “Go to that big city Nineveh, and say what I tell you.”
3 So Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh. It was a very large city. A person had to walk for three days to travel through it.
4 Jonah went to the center of the city and began speaking to the people. He said, “After 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed!”
5 The people of Nineveh believed God. They decided to stop eating for a time to think about their sins. They put on special clothes to show they were sorry. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important.
6 When the king of Nineveh heard about this, he left his throne, removed his robe, put on special clothes to show that he was sorry, and sat in ashes.[a] 7 The king wrote a special message and sent it throughout the city:
A command from the king and his great rulers:
For a short time no person or animal should eat anything. No herd or flock will be allowed in the fields. Nothing living in Nineveh will eat or drink water. 8 But every person and every animal must be covered with a special cloth to show they are sad. People must cry loudly to God. Everyone must change their life and stop doing bad things. 9 Who knows? Maybe God will stop being angry and change his mind, and we will not be punished.
10 God saw what the people did. He saw that they stopped doing evil. So God changed his mind and did not do what he planned. He did not punish the people.
1 Greetings from Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus.
God chose me to be an apostle and gave me the work of telling his Good News. 2 God promised long ago through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures to give this Good News to his people. 3-4 The Good News is about God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As a human, he was born from the family of David, but through the Holy Spirit[a] he was shown to be God’s powerful Son when he was raised from death.
5 Through Christ, God gave me the special work of an apostle—to lead people of all nations to believe and obey him. I do all this to honor Christ. 6 You are some of those who have been chosen to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 This letter is to all of you in Rome. God loves you, and he has chosen you to be his holy people.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International