Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
16 But God says to the wicked:
“What right do you have to recite my statutes
and to take my covenant on your lips?(A)
17 You hate instruction
and fling my words behind you.(B)
18 When you see a thief,
you make friends with him,
and you associate with adulterers.(C)
19 You unleash your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue for deceit.(D)
20 You sit, maligning your brother,
slandering your mother’s son.(E)
21 You have done these things, and I kept silent;
you thought I was just like you.(F)
But I will rebuke you
and lay out the case before you.[a](G)
15 Then Nathan went home.
The Death of Bathsheba’s Son
The Lord struck the baby that Uriah’s(A) wife had borne to David, and he became deathly ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted, went home, and spent the night lying on the ground.(B) 17 The elders of his house stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.
18 On the seventh day the baby died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him the baby was dead. They said, “Look, while the baby was alive, we spoke to him, and he wouldn’t listen to us. So how can we tell him the baby is dead? He may do something desperate.”
19 When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the baby dead?”
“He is dead,” they replied.
20 Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate.
21 His servants asked him, “Why have you done this? While the baby was alive, you fasted and wept, but when he died, you got up and ate food.”
22 He answered, “While the baby was alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let him live.’(C) 23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me.”(D)
The Birth of Solomon
24 Then David comforted(E) his wife Bathsheba; he went to her and slept with her. She gave birth to a son and named[a] him Solomon.[b](F) The Lord loved him, 25 and he sent a message through the prophet Nathan, who named[c] him Jedidiah,[d] because of the Lord.
Living the New Life
17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because[a] of the hardness of their hearts. 19 They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity(A) with a desire for more and more.[b]
20 But that is not how you came to know Christ, 21 assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth(B) is in Jesus, 22 to take off[c](C) your former way of life,(D) the old self(E) that is corrupted by deceitful desires, 23 to be renewed[d] in the spirit(F) of your minds, 24 and to put on[e](G) the new self, the one created(H) according to God’s likeness(I) in righteousness and purity of the truth.
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