Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 51
A Prayer for Restoration
For the choir director. A Davidic psalm, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.(A)
1 Be gracious to me, God,
according to Your faithful love;
according to Your abundant compassion,
blot out my rebellion.(B)
2 Wash away my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.(C)
3 For I am conscious of my rebellion,
and my sin is always before me.(D)
4 Against You—You alone—I have sinned
and done this evil in Your sight.(E)
So You are right when You pass sentence;
You are blameless when You judge.(F)
5 Indeed, I was guilty when I was born;
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.(G)
6 Surely You desire integrity in the inner self,
and You teach me wisdom deep within.(H)
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.(I)
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones You have crushed rejoice.(J)
9 Turn Your face away[a] from my sins
and blot out all my guilt.(K)
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood came and water covered the earth. 7 So Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives entered the ark because of the waters of the flood. 8 From the clean animals, unclean animals, birds, and every creature that crawls on the ground, 9 two of each, male and female, entered the ark with Noah, just as God had commanded him. 10 Seven days later the waters of the flood came on the earth.
The Flood Recedes
8 God remembered Noah,(A) as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind[a] to pass over the earth,(B) and the water began to subside. 2 The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky stopped.(C) 3 The water steadily receded from the earth, and by the end of 150 days the waters had decreased significantly.(D) 4 The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.[b](E)
5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
The Judgment of False Teachers
2 But there were also false prophets(A) among the people, just as there will be false teachers(B) among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought(C) them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their unrestrained ways, and the way of truth will be blasphemed because of them.(D) 3 They will exploit(E) you in their greed(F) with deceptive words. Their condemnation,(G) pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.
4 For if God didn’t spare(H) the angels who sinned but threw them down into Tartarus[a](I) and delivered them to be kept in chains[b] of darkness until judgment;(J) 5 and if He didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah,(K) a preacher of righteousness, and seven others,[c](L) when He brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah(M) to ashes and condemned them to ruin,[d] making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly;[e](N) 7 and if He rescued righteous Lot,(O) distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral 8 (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard(P))— 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue(Q) the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,(R) 10 especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.(S)
Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones;
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