Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
51 (0) For the leader. A psalm of David, 2 when Natan the prophet came to him after his affair with Bat-Sheva:
3 (1) God, in your grace, have mercy on me;
in your great compassion, blot out my crimes.
4 (2) Wash me completely from my guilt,
and cleanse me from my sin.
5 (3) For I know my crimes,
my sin confronts me all the time.
6 (4) Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil from your perspective;
so that you are right in accusing me
and justified in passing sentence.
7 (5) True, I was born guilty,
was a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.
8 (6) Still, you want truth in the inner person;
so make me know wisdom in my inmost heart.
9 (7) Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
10 (8) Let me hear the sound of joy and gladness,
so that the bones you crushed can rejoice.
11 (9) Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my crimes.
12 (10) Create in me a clean heart, God;
renew in me a resolute spirit.
13 (11) Don’t thrust me away from your presence,
don’t take your Ruach Kodesh away from me.
14 (12) Restore my joy in your salvation,
and let a willing spirit uphold me.
15 (13) Then I will teach the wicked your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
16 (14) Rescue me from the guilt of shedding blood,
God, God of my salvation!
Then my tongue will sing
about your righteousness —
17 (15) Adonai, open my lips;
then my mouth will praise you.
18 (16) For you don’t want sacrifices, or I would give them;
you don’t take pleasure in burnt offerings.
19 (17) My sacrifice to God is a broken spirit;
God, you won’t spurn a broken, chastened heart.
20 (18) In your good pleasure, make Tziyon prosper;
rebuild the walls of Yerushalayim.
21 (19) Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then they will offer bulls on your altar.
6 So listen now to what Adonai says:
“Stand up and state your case to the mountains,
let the hills hear what you have to say.”
2 Listen, mountains, to Adonai’s case;
also you enduring rocks that support the earth!
Adonai has a case against his people;
he wants to argue it out with Isra’el:
3 “My people, what have I done to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 I brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from a life of slavery.
I sent Moshe, Aharon
and Miryam to lead you.
5 My people, just remember what Balak
the king of Mo’av had planned,
what Bil‘am the son of B‘or answered him,
[and what happened] between Sheetim and Gilgal —
so that you will understand
the saving deeds of Adonai.”
6 “With what can I come before Adonai
to bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with burnt offerings?
with calves in their first year?
7 Would Adonai take delight in thousands of rams
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Could I give my firstborn to pay for my crimes,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 Human being, you have already been told
what is good, what Adonai demands of you —
no more than to act justly, love grace
and walk in purity with your God.
31 After Y’hudah had left, Yeshua said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If the Son has glorified God, God will himself glorify the Son, and will do so without delay. 33 Little children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and, as I said to the Judeans, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ now I say it to you as well.
34 “I am giving you a new command: that you keep on loving each other. In the same way that I have loved you, you are also to keep on loving each other. 35 Everyone will know that you are my talmidim by the fact that you have love for each other.”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.