Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Prayer for Forgiveness
For the director of music. A song of David when the prophet Nathan came to David after David’s sin with Bathsheba.
51 God, be merciful to me
because you are loving.
Because you are always ready to be merciful,
wipe out all my wrongs.
2 Wash away all my guilt
and make me clean again.
3 I know about my wrongs.
I can’t forget my sin.
4 You are the one I have sinned against.
I have done what you say is wrong.
So you are right when you speak.
You are fair when you judge me.
5 I was brought into this world in sin.
In sin my mother gave birth to me.
6 You want me to be completely truthful.
So teach me wisdom.
7 Take away my sin, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Make me hear sounds of joy and gladness.
Let the bones you crushed be happy again.
9 Turn your face from my sins.
Wipe out all my guilt.
10 Create in me a pure heart, God.
Make my spirit right again.
11 Do not send me away from you.
Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me.
12 Give me back the joy that comes when you save me.
Keep me strong by giving me a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach your ways to those who do wrong.
And sinners will turn back to you.
14 God, save me from the guilt of murder.
God, you are the one who saves me.
I will sing about your goodness.
15 Lord, let me speak
so I may praise you.
16 You are not pleased by sacrifices.
Otherwise, I would give them.
You don’t want burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifice God wants is a willing spirit.
God, you will not reject
a heart that is broken and sorry for its sin.
18 Do whatever good you wish for Jerusalem.
Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will be pleased with right sacrifices and whole burnt offerings.
And bulls will be offered on your altar.
58 Be careful to obey everything in these teachings. They are written in this book. You must respect the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God. 59 The Lord will give terrible diseases to you and your descendants. You will have long and serious diseases. You will have long and miserable sicknesses. 60 And the Lord will give you all the diseases of Egypt that you dread. And the diseases will stay with you. 61 The Lord will also give you every disease and sickness not written in this Book of the Teachings. Then you will be destroyed. 62 You people may have outnumbered the stars. But only a few of you will be left. You did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Once the Lord was happy with you. He gave you good things. He made you grow in number. But now the Lord will be happy to ruin and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to own.
64 Then the Lord will scatter you among the nations. He will scatter you from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. They are gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 You will have no rest among those nations. You will have no place that is yours. The Lord will make your mind worried, your sight weak and your soul sad. 66 You will live with danger. You will be afraid night and day. You will not be sure that you will live. 67 In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening.” And in the evening you will say, “I wish it were morning.” Terror will be in your heart because of the things you have seen. 68 The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. I, Moses, said you would never go back to Egypt. And there you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies. But no one will buy you.
The Agreement in Moab
29 The Lord commanded Moses to make an agreement with the Israelites in Moab. This agreement was in addition to the agreement he had made with them at Mount Sinai.
17 “The number of people in Egypt grew large. There were more and more of our people there. (The promise that God made to Abraham was soon to come true.) 18 Then a new king began to rule Egypt. He did not know who Joseph was. 19 This king tricked our people and was cruel to our ancestors. He forced them to put their babies outside to die. 20 This was the time when Moses was born. He was a fine child. For three months Moses was cared for in his father’s house. 21 When they put Moses outside, the king’s daughter took him. She raised him as if he were her own son. 22 The Egyptians taught Moses all the things they knew. He was a powerful man in the things he said and did.
23 “When Moses was about 40 years old, he thought it would be good to visit his brothers, the people of Israel. 24 Moses saw an Egyptian doing wrong to a Jew. So he defended the Jew and punished the Egyptian for hurting him. Moses killed the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his fellow Jews would understand that God was using him to save them. But they did not understand. 26 The next day, Moses saw two Jewish men fighting. He tried to make peace between them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers! Why are you hurting each other?’ 27 The man who was hurting the other man pushed Moses away. He said, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? 28 Are you going to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’[a] 29 When Moses heard him say this, he left Egypt. He went to live in the land of Midian where he was a stranger. While Moses lived in Midian, he had two sons.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.