Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Praise and Prayer for Help
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
40 I waited patiently for the Lord.
He turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the pit of destruction,
out of the sticky mud.
He stood me on a rock
and made my feet steady.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many people will see this and worship him.
Then they will trust the Lord.
4 Happy is the person
who trusts the Lord,
who doesn’t turn to those who are proud
or to those who worship false gods.
5 Lord my God, you have done many miracles.
Your plans for us are many.
If I tried to tell them all,
there would be too many to count.
6 You do not want sacrifices and offerings.
But you have made a hole in my ear
to show that my body and life are yours.
You do not ask for burnt offerings
and sacrifices to take away sins.
7 Then I said, “Look, I have come.
It is written about me in the book.
8 My God, I want to do what you want.
Your teachings are in my heart.”
25 “‘If a woman has a loss of blood for many days and it is not during her regular monthly period, or if she continues to have a loss of blood after her regular period, she will be unclean, as she is during her monthly period. She will be unclean for as long as she continues to bleed. 26 Any bed she lies on during all the time of her bleeding will be like her bed during her regular monthly period. Everything she sits on will be unclean, as during her regular monthly period.
27 “‘Whoever touches those things will be unclean and must wash his clothes and bathe in water; he will be unclean until evening. 28 When the woman becomes clean from her bleeding, she must wait seven days, and after this she will be clean. 29 Then on the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Meeting Tent. 30 The priest must offer one bird for a sin offering and the other for a whole burnt offering. In this way the priest will make her clean so she can belong to the Lord again.
31 “‘So you must warn the people of Israel to stay separated from things that make them unclean. If you don’t warn the people, they might make my Holy Tent unclean, and then they would have to die!’”
22 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Tell Aaron and his sons: ‘The people of Israel will give offerings to me. These offerings are holy, and they are mine, so you must respect them to show that you respect my holy name. I am the Lord.’ 3 Say to them: ‘If any one of your descendants from now on is unclean and comes near the offerings that the Israelites made holy for me, that person must be cut off from appearing before me. I am the Lord.
4 “‘If one of Aaron’s descendants has a harmful skin disease, or if he discharges a body fluid, he cannot eat the holy offerings until he becomes clean. He could also become unclean from touching a dead body, from his own semen,[a] 5 from touching any unclean crawling animal, or from touching an unclean person (no matter what made the person unclean). 6 Anyone who touches those things will become unclean until evening. That person must not eat the holy offerings unless he washes with water. 7 He will be clean only after the sun goes down. Then he may eat the holy offerings; the offerings are his food.
8 “‘If a priest finds an animal that died by itself or that was killed by some other animal, he must not eat it. If he does, he will become unclean. I am the Lord.
9 “‘If the priests keep all the rules I have given, they will not become guilty; if they are careful, they will not die. I am the Lord who has made them holy.
Warning About Non-Christians
14 You are not the same as those who do not believe. So do not join yourselves to them. Good and bad do not belong together. Light and darkness cannot share together. 15 How can Christ and Belial, the devil, have any agreement? What can a believer have together with a nonbeliever? 16 The temple of God cannot have any agreement with idols, and we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live with them and walk with them. And I will be their God, and they will be my people.”[a]
17 “Leave those people,
and be separate, says the Lord.
Touch nothing that is unclean,
and I will accept you.” Isaiah 52:11; Ezekiel 20:34, 41
18 “I will be your father,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Samuel 7:14
7 Dear friends, we have these promises from God, so we should make ourselves pure—free from anything that makes body or soul unclean. We should try to become holy in the way we live, because we respect God.
Paul’s Joy
2 Open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone, we have not ruined the faith of anyone, and we have not cheated anyone.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.