Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 51[a]
For the music director, a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba.[b]
51 Have mercy on me, O God, because of[c] your loyal love.
Because of[d] your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts.[e]
2 Wash away my wrongdoing.[f]
Cleanse me of my sin.[g]
3 For I am aware of[h] my rebellious acts;
I am forever conscious of my sin.[i]
4 Against you—you above all[j]—I have sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
So[k] you are just when you confront me;[l]
you are right when you condemn me.[m]
5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,
a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.[n]
6 Look,[o] you desire[p] integrity in the inner man;[q]
you want me to possess wisdom.[r]
7 Cleanse me[s] with hyssop[t] and I will be pure;[u]
wash me[v] and I will be whiter than snow.[w]
8 Grant me the ultimate joy of being forgiven.[x]
May the bones[y] you crushed rejoice.[z]
9 Hide your face[aa] from my sins.
Wipe away[ab] all my guilt.
10 Create for me a pure heart, O God.[ac]
Renew a resolute spirit within me.[ad]
11 Do not reject me.[ae]
Do not take your holy Spirit[af] away from me.[ag]
12 Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance.
Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey.[ah]
13 Then I will teach[ai] rebels your merciful ways,[aj]
and sinners will turn[ak] to you.
14 Rescue me from the guilt of murder,[al] O God, the God who delivers me.
Then my tongue will shout for joy because of your righteousness.[am]
15 O Lord, give me the words.[an]
Then my mouth will praise you.[ao]
16 Certainly[ap] you do not want a sacrifice, or else I would offer it;[aq]
you do not desire a burnt sacrifice.[ar]
17 The sacrifice God desires is a humble spirit[as]—
O God, a humble and repentant heart[at] you will not reject.[au]
18 Because you favor Zion, do what is good for her.[av]
Fortify[aw] the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will accept[ax] the proper sacrifices, burnt sacrifices and whole offerings;
then bulls will be sacrificed[ay] on your altar.[az]
The Curse of Covenant Termination
58 “If you refuse to obey[a] all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants—great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt[b] that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you.[c] 61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments,[d] until you have perished. 62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky,[e] because you will have disobeyed[f] the Lord your God. 63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, so he[g] will also take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 65 Among those nations you will have no rest, nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next.[h] 67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
Narrative Interlude
29 (28:69)[i] These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.[j]
17 “But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared to Abraham,[a] the people increased greatly in number[b] in Egypt, 18 until another king who did not know about[c] Joseph ruled[d] over Egypt.[e] 19 This was the one who exploited[f] our people[g] and was cruel to our ancestors,[h] forcing them to abandon[i] their infants so they would die.[j] 20 At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful[k] to God. For[l] three months he was brought up in his father’s house, 21 and when he had been abandoned,[m] Pharaoh’s daughter adopted[n] him and brought him up[o] as her own son. 22 So Moses was trained[p] in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful[q] in his words and deeds. 23 But when he was about forty years old, it entered his mind[r] to visit his fellow countrymen[s] the Israelites.[t] 24 When[u] he saw one of them being hurt unfairly,[v] Moses[w] came to his defense[x] and avenged the person who was mistreated by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He thought his own people[y] would understand that God was delivering them[z] through him,[aa] but they did not understand.[ab] 26 The next day Moses[ac] saw two men[ad] fighting, and tried to make peace between[ae] them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why are you hurting one another?’ 27 But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed[af] Moses[ag] aside, saying, ‘Who made[ah] you a ruler and judge over us? 28 You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’[ai] 29 When the man said this,[aj] Moses fled and became a foreigner[ak] in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
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