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.
11 Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
16 For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.(C)
17 My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.
18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then will You delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, justice, and right, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then bullocks will be offered upon Your altar.
58 If you will not be watchful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may [reverently] fear this glorious and fearful name [and presence]—the lord your god—
59 Then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary strokes and blows, great plagues of long continuance, and grievous sicknesses of long duration.
60 Moreover, He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you.
61 Also every sickness and every affliction which is not written in this Book of the Law the Lord will bring upon you until you are destroyed.
62 And you shall be [a]left few in number, whereas you had been as the stars of the heavens for multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.
63 And as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice to bring ruin upon you and to destroy you; and you shall be [b]plucked from the land into which you go to possess.
64 And the Lord shall scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall [be forced to] serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. [Fulfilled in Dan. 3:6.]
65 And among these nations you shall find no ease and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes [from disappointment of hope], fainting of mind, and languishing of spirit.
66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; day and night you shall be worried, and have no assurance of your life.
67 In the morning you shall say, Would that it were evening! and at evening you shall say, Would that it were morning!—because of the anxiety and dread of your [minds and] hearts and the sights which you shall see with your [own] eyes.
68 And the Lord shall [c]bring you into Egypt again with ships by the way about which I said to you, You shall never see it again. And there you shall be sold to your enemies as bondmen and bondwomen, but no man shall buy you.(A)
29 These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.
17 But as the time for the fulfillment of the promise drew near which God had made to Abraham, the [Hebrew] people increased and multiplied in Egypt,
18 Until [the time when] there arose over Egypt another and a different king who did not know Joseph [neither knowing his history and services nor recognizing his merits].(A)
19 He dealt treacherously with and defrauded our race; he abused and oppressed our forefathers, forcing them to expose their babies so that they might not be kept alive.(B)
20 At this juncture Moses was born, and was exceedingly beautiful in God’s sight. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house;(C)
21 Then when he was exposed [to perish], the daughter of Pharaoh rescued him and took him and reared him as her own son.(D)
22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom and culture of the Egyptians, and he was mighty (powerful) in his speech and deeds.
23 And when he was in his fortieth year, it came into his heart to visit his kinsmen the children of Israel [[a]to help them and to care for them].
24 And on seeing one of them being unjustly treated, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian and slaying [him].
25 He expected his brethren to understand that God was granting them deliverance by his hand [taking it for granted that they would accept him]; but they did not understand.
26 Then on the next day he [b]suddenly appeared to some who were quarreling and fighting among themselves, and he urged them to make peace and become reconciled, saying, Men, you are brethren; why do you abuse and wrong one another?
27 Whereupon the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed [Moses] aside, saying, Who appointed you a ruler (umpire) and a judge over us?
28 Do you intend to slay me as you slew the Egyptian yesterday?
29 At that reply Moses sought safety by flight and he was an exile and an alien in the country of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.(E)
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