Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 51
Cleanse Me From My Sin
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For the choir director. A psalm by David.
When Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone to Bathsheba.[a]
David’s Plea for Forgiveness
1 Be gracious to me, God,
according to your mercy.
Erase my acts of rebellion
according to the greatness of your compassion.
2 Scrub me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
David’s Confession
3 For I admit my rebellious acts.
My sin is always in front of me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and I have done this evil in your eyes.
So you are justified when you sentence me.
You are blameless when you judge.
5 Certainly, I was guilty when I was born.
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
David’s Need for Renewal
6 Since you desire truth on the inside,
in my hidden heart you teach me wisdom.
7 Remove my sin with hyssop, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness.
Let the bones you have crushed celebrate.
9 Hide your face from my sins.
Erase all my guilty deeds.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God.
Renew an unwavering spirit within me.
The Flood
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood[a] came, and water covered the earth.
7 Noah went into the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, because of the waters of the flood. 8 Clean animals, animals that are not clean, birds, and everything that creeps on the ground 9 went into the ark with Noah two by two (male and female), just as God had commanded Noah.
10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came on the earth.
8 God remembered Noah, as well as all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were also closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained. 3 The waters kept receding from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters had decreased. 4 In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters receded continuously until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.
A Warning About False Teachers
2 There were false prophets also among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved ways, and because of them the way of the truth will be blasphemed. 3 In their greed they will exploit you with fabricated messages. Their condemnation announced long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
God Will Punish These False Teachers
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but handed them over to chains[a] of darkness by casting them into hell, to be kept under guard for judgment; 5 and if God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others when he brought a flood on the world of ungodly people; 6 and if God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction,[b] by turning them into ashes when he made them an example of things to come for the ungodly;[c] 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the unrestrained immorality of the wicked people 8 (while that righteous man was living among them, he was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by the lawless deeds he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under guard until the day of judgment, in order to punish them.
10 This is especially true of those who follow the defiling lust of the flesh and who despise authority. Daring and arrogant, they do not tremble when they blaspheme glorious beings,
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.