Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
[a] A song of David.
25 Lord, I put my life in your hands.[b]
2 I trust in you, my God,
and I will not be disappointed.
My enemies will not laugh at me.
3 No one who trusts in you will be disappointed.
But disappointment will come to those who try to deceive others.
They will get nothing.
4 Lord, help me learn your ways.
Show me how you want me to live.
5 Guide me and teach me your truths.
You are my God, my Savior.
You are the one I have been waiting for.
6 Remember to be kind to me, Lord.
Show me the tender love that you have always had.
7 Don’t remember the sinful things I did when I was young.
Because you are good, Lord, remember me with your faithful love.
8 The Lord is good and does what is right.
He shows sinners the right way to live.
9 He teaches his ways to humble people.
He leads them with fairness.
10 The Lord is kind and true to those
who obey what he said in his agreement.
Daniel’s Prayer
9 These things happened during the first year that Darius son of Ahasuerus[a] was king. Darius was a Mede by birth, but he was appointed to be the king of Babylon. 2 During his first year as king, I was studying the Scriptures[b] and noticed in the Lord’s message to Jeremiah that 70 years would pass before Jerusalem would be rebuilt.
3 Then I turned to the Lord God. I prayed to him and asked him for help. I did not eat any food. I put ashes on my head and put on the clothes that showed I was sad. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and told him about all my sins. I said,
“Lord, you are a great and awesome God. You keep your agreement of love and kindness with people who love you. You keep your agreement with the people who obey your commands.
5 “But we have sinned. We have done wrong. We have done evil things. We turned against you. We turned away from your commands and good decisions. 6 The prophets were your servants. They spoke for you to our kings, to our leaders, to our fathers, and to the common people in our country. But we did not listen to them.
7 “Lord, you are innocent, and the shame belongs to us, even now. Shame belongs to the people from Judah and Jerusalem, and to all the people of Israel, to those who are near and to those you scattered among many nations. They should be ashamed of all the evil things they did against you.
8 “Lord, we should all be ashamed. All our kings and leaders should be ashamed. Our ancestors should be ashamed, because we sinned against you.
9 “But, Lord our God, you are kind and forgiving, even though we rebelled against you. 10 We have not obeyed the Lord our God. He used his servants, the prophets, and gave us laws, but we have not obeyed his laws. 11 All the people of Israel disobeyed your teachings and turned away from you. They did not listen to you. We sinned, so you did what you promised to do. All the curses and promises[c] in the Law of Moses, your servant, happened to us.
12 “God said those things would happen to us and our leaders, and he made them happen. He made terrible things happen to us. No other city suffered the way Jerusalem suffered. 13 All those terrible things happened to us. This happened just as it is written in the Law of Moses, but we still have not asked the Lord our God for help. We still have not stopped sinning. We still do not pay attention to your truth, Lord. 14 The Lord kept the terrible things ready for us—he made them happen to us. The Lord our God did this because he is fair in everything he does. But we still have not listened to him.
3 We are telling you about what we have seen and heard because we want you to have fellowship[a] with us. The fellowship we share together is with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We write these things to you so that you can be full of joy with us.
God Forgives Our Sins
5 We heard the true teaching from God. Now we tell it to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness. 6 So if we say that we share in life with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars, who don’t follow the truth. 7 We should live in the light, where God is. If we live in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood sacrifice of Jesus, God’s Son, washes away every sin and makes us clean.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 But if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrong things we have done. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we are saying that God is a liar and that we don’t accept his true teaching.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International