Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Create in Me a Clean Heart
Psalm 51
1 For the music director: a psalm of David, 2 when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he went to Bathsheba.
3 Be gracious to me, O God,
according to Your mercy.
According to Your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
4 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
5 For I know my transgressions
and my sin is ever before me.
6 Against You, You only, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You are just when You speak,
and blameless when You judge.
7 Behold, I was born in iniquity and in sin
when my mother conceived me.
8 Surely You desire truth in the inner being.
Make me know wisdom inwardly.
9 Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
10 Let me hear joy and gladness,
so the bones You crushed may rejoice.
11 Hide Your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
12 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
13 Do not cast me from Your presence—
take not Your Ruach ha-Kodesh from me.
14 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and sustain me with a willing spirit.
15 Then will I teach transgressors Your ways
and sinners will return to You.
16 Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God—
God of my salvation.
Then my tongue will sing for joy of Your righteousness.
17 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare Your praise.
18 For You would not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it,
nor be pleased by burnt offerings.
19 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
A broken and a contrite heart, O God,
You will not despise.
20 In Your favor do good to Zion.
Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
21 Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
Jonah’s Displeasure at God’s Mercy
4 But it greatly displeased Jonah and he resented it. 2 So he prayed to Adonai and said, “Please, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my own country? That’s what I anticipated, fleeing to Tarshish—for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and full of kindness, and relenting over calamity. 3 So please, Adonai, take my soul from me—because better is my death than my life.”
4 Yet Adonai said, “Is it good for you to be so angry?”
5 So Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. There He made a sukkah and he sat under it, in the shade, until he saw what would happen in the city. 6 Then Adonai God prepared a plant and it grew up over Jonah, to give shade over his head to spare him from his discomfort. So Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But God at dawn the next day prepared a worm that crippled the plant and it withered away. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. So he implored that his soul would die, saying, “My death would be better than my life!”
9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it good for you to be so angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said, “I am angry enough to die!”
10 But Adonai said, “You have pity on the plant for which you did no labor or make it grow, that appeared overnight and perished overnight. So shouldn’t I have pity on Nineveh—the great city that has in it more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left—as well as many animals?”
Eager to Visit
8 First, I thank my God through Messiah Yeshua for all of you, because your faithfulness is made known throughout the whole world. 9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Good News of His Son. How unceasingly I make mention of you, 10 always pleading in my prayers, if somehow by God’s will now at last I will be granted a good journey to come to you. 11 For I long to see you, so I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you. 12 That is to say, we would be encouraged together by one another’s faithfulness—both yours and mine.
13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,[a] that many times I planned to come to you (though I was prevented until now)—so I might have some fruit among you also, just as I have among the rest of the nations. 14 I have an obligation to both Greeks and barbarians, to both the wise and the foolish. 15 So I am eager to proclaim the Good News also to you who are in Rome.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
16 For I am not ashamed of the Good News, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who trusts—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 In it the righteousness of God is revealed, from trust to trust.[b] As it is written, “But the righteous shall live by emunah.”[c]
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.