Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this psalm for the music leader.
It was when the prophet Nathan came to him, after David had sex with Bathsheba.
Please forgive me, Lord[a]
51 Please forgive me, God,
because of your faithful love.
Because you are so kind,
please clean away my sins.
2 I have done bad things,
so wash me to make me clean again.[b]
3 I know that I have not obeyed you.
I cannot forget that I am guilty.
4 It is you that I have done bad things against,
only you![c]
I have done things that are evil,
as you know.
And so you are fair when you speak against me.
You are right when you say that I am guilty.
5 Yes, even from the day I was born
I have done bad things.
I have always been guilty of sin.
6 But you want me to be completely good and honest.
You want to teach me to be wise
in the way that I live.
7 Splash water over me with a hyssop plant,
and I will be really clean.[d]
Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.[e]
8 Please forgive me so that I can be happy.
Then my whole body will feel well again.
9 Hide your face from my sins.
Clean away all the bad things that I have done.[f]
10 God, please make my heart new and clean.
And make my spirit strong and true,
deep inside me.
11 Do not send me away from you.
Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me.
12 Give me joy again,
because you have made me safe.
Make me strong and ready to obey you.
13 Then I will teach your ways
to people who have turned against you.
Then sinners will turn back
and they will obey you.
14 God, I am guilty of murder.
Please forgive me!
You are the one who saves me.
When you rescue me,
I will sing aloud about your righteousness.
15 My Lord, help me to speak,
and then I will praise you.
16 I would be happy to offer sacrifices to you,
but that is not what you really want.
You do not want a burnt offering from me.
17 You want me to be humble and sorry.
That is the sacrifice that you want.
When people are humble
and they turn away from their sins,
you will not refuse them.
18 God, please be kind and help Zion.
Make the walls of Jerusalem strong again.
19 Then you will accept our proper sacrifices.
Our burnt offerings and sacrifices of whole animals
will make you happy.
Once again, people will offer bulls to you,
on your altar.[g]
Moses warns the people again
58 Be careful to obey all the words of this law that I have written in this scroll. Always respect the Lord your God. Give him the honour that his great name deserves. 59 If you refuse to do that, the Lord will punish you and your descendants more and more. You will have lots of pain and many kinds of terrible disease that will not get better. 60 He will cause you to have all the same diseases that hurt the Egyptians and that made you very afraid. Those diseases will never leave you alone. 61 The Lord will also cause you to have many other terrible diseases. This scroll of God's Law does not say anything about those diseases, but they will destroy you completely.
62 At one time, you were as many people as the stars in the sky. But if you do not obey the Lord your God, only a few of you will remain alive. 63 At one time, the Lord was happy to help you with good things. He gave you many children. But if you do not obey him, he will be happy to destroy you. He will remove you from the land that will soon become your new home.
64 If that happens, the Lord will send you away to live among many other nations, all over the world. There you will worship other gods. They are gods that people have made from wood and from stone. Neither you nor your ancestors have ever known those gods before. 65 When you live among those nations, you will not be happy. You will not find a home where you can live safely in peace. The Lord will cause you to have troubles in your mind. Your eyes will not see well. You will be sad and upset. 66 You will be in danger of death all the time. You will be afraid in the day and at night. You will never know if you will live for one more day. 67 Every morning you will say, ‘I want the night to come quickly!’ And every evening you will say, ‘I want the morning to come quickly!’ You will say that because of all the terrible things that you see. 68 The Lord told you that you must never travel on the road back to Egypt. But he will send you back to Egypt in ships. In Egypt, you will try to sell yourselves to your enemies, as slaves. But no one will agree to buy you.
God's covenant with his people
29 The Lord commanded Moses to tell the Israelites the words of his covenant with them. He made this covenant with them in Moab's country, as well as the covenant that he had made with them at Sinai.
17 Stephen then said, ‘After many years, the time arrived for God to make his promise to Abraham become true. By this time, Jacob's family who still lived in Egypt had become very many. 18 Now, a different king ruled Egypt. This new king did not know anything about Joseph and what he had done. 19 He was very cruel to our ancestors and he caused them to suffer. When new babies were born, he said that our people must put them out of their homes. He said that because he wanted the babies to die.
20 It was at this time that Moses was born. He was a very beautiful baby. His parents took care of him for three months in their own home. 21 Then they had to put him outside. But Pharaoh's daughter found him and she took him to her home. She took care of him as if he was her own son.[a] 22 Moses had teachers who taught him all the wise things that the Egyptians knew. He learned how to speak well. He could also do powerful things.
23 When Moses was 40 years old, he went to see his own people, the people of Israel. 24 He saw that an Egyptian man was being cruel to one of the Israelite men. So he went to help the Israelite man. He killed the Egyptian man to punish him. 25 Moses thought that his own people would understand him. They would know that God was using him to save them. They would no longer be slaves to work for the Egyptians. But his people did not understand all this. 26 On the next day, Moses saw two Israelite men. They were fighting each other. He tried to make them become friends. He said to them, “Listen to me, men. You are both in the family of Israel. You should not hurt each other.”
27 The man who was being cruel to the other man pushed Moses away. He said to Moses, “You have no authority to rule us. You are not our judge. 28 I know that yesterday you killed an Egyptian man. So do you want to kill me too?”
29 When Moses heard this, he decided to run away. He went to the land of Midian and he lived there. He married a wife and they had two sons.
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