Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
16 [a]But to the wicked God says:
“How can you recite my statutes
or profess my covenant on your lips?
17 For you loathe my instruction
and cast my words behind you.
18 “When you meet a thief, you join him;
you revel in the company of adulterers.
19 You employ your mouth for evil,
and your tongue frames deceit.
20 “You willingly speak against your brother
and slander the child of your own mother.
21 When you do such things, can I remain silent?
Do you think that I am[b] like you?
I will correct you
and set the charge before your face.
22 “Remember this, you who forget God,[c]
lest I tear you to pieces
and there be no one to rescue you.
23 He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me;
to him who follows my way
I will show the salvation of God.”
15 After Nathan returned home, the Lord struck the child that the wife of Uriah had borne to David, and it fell gravely ill. 16 David, therefore, pleaded with God for the child. He maintained a strict fast, and throughout the night he would lie on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood around him, urging him to rise from the ground. However, he refused to do so, nor would he take food with them.
18 On the seventh day the child died, and the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said: “While the child was alive, we spoke to him, but he refused to listen to us. How then can we inform him that the child is dead? He may do something desperate.” 19 However, David saw that his servants were whispering among themselves, and he realized that the child had died. He asked the servants: “Is the child dead?” They replied: “Yes, the child is dead.”
20 David, thereupon, rose from the ground, bathed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He then went into the house of the Lord and worshiped before he returned to his own house. When he requested food, they set it before him, and he ate. 21 His servants said to him: “Why are you acting in this way? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive, but when the child died, you got up and ate food.”
22 David said: “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I thought: ‘Perhaps the Lord will be merciful to me and allow the child to live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
24 [a]David then proceeded to console his wife Bathsheba. He went to her and slept with her. As a result, she bore a son, whom they named Solomon. The Lord loved him, 25 and he sent a message to the prophet Nathan instructing him to name the child Jedidiah according to the Lord’s wish.
17 The Newness of the Christian Life. Therefore, I declare and attest in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and their hardness of heart. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have abandoned themselves to vice, committing every kind of impurity in growing excess.
20 That is not how you learned Christ. 21 Clearly, you were told about him and were taught what the truth is in Jesus. 22 You were taught to cast aside the old self of your former way of life that had been corrupted by its captivating desires. 23 You are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to clothe yourselves with the new self created in God’s image, in the way of uprightness and holiness that belong to the truth.
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