Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
David wrote this prayer.
A prayer for help
17 Lord, please listen to me.
I am asking you to do something that is right.
I am speaking what is true,
so please do what I ask you to do.
2 Say clearly that I am not guilty.
You can see for yourself that I am right.
3 You look deep into my mind.
You check my thoughts at night.
When you test me,
you find nothing that is wrong.
I have decided that I will never tell any lies.
4 I have watched people do bad things.
But I have obeyed your commands.
I have not joined with cruel people
to do what they do.
5 No, I carefully follow your ways.
I do not turn away from them.
6 I pray to you, God,
because you will answer me.
Please listen to me when I pray to you.
7 Do great things that show your faithful love!
You have the power to keep people safe from their enemies.
You help them when they trust you for help.
8 Please keep me safe,
in the same way that people take care of their eyes.
Keep me near to you,
in the way that birds protect their babies under their wings.
9 Keep me safe from the wicked men who attack me.
My enemies are all around me,
and they want to kill me!
10 They refuse to be kind to anyone.
They speak proud words.
11 Now they have found me. They are ready to attack!
They look for their chance
to knock me down to the ground.
12 They are like hungry lions.
They want to tear me into pieces.
They are hiding like young lions.
They are ready to jump out and catch me!
13 Lord, please do something!
Fight against them! Knock them down!
Take your sword and save me from those wicked men.
14 Lord, use your power to save me from them.
They only think about this world,
and they enjoy the good things that it gives them.
So give them all that you have ready for them.
Give them more than they want!
May their children also have plenty,
and enough left to give to their children too.
15 As for me, Lord, I am not guilty of sin.
So I will see your face.
When I wake up, I will see you clearly,
and I will be really happy!
The Lord punishes the Israelites
21 Then Satan caused David to bring trouble to Israel.[a] He caused David to count all the men in Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and to the officers in his army, ‘Go and count the men everywhere in Israel, from Beersheba to Dan. Then come and give me a report. I want to know how many men there are.’
3 But Joab replied, ‘I pray that the Lord will make your army grow 100 times bigger! All your men are your faithful servants, my lord the king. But why do you want to do this? You will cause all Israel to become guilty.’
4 But Joab had to obey the king's command. So Joab left. He went through all Israel and then he returned to Jerusalem. 5 Joab reported to David about the number of soldiers who could fight. There were 1,100,000 men in all Israel who could fight with swords. There were 470,000 men in Judah who could fight with swords.
6 But the king's command had seemed disgusting to Joab. So he did not count the men from the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. 7 God was also angry because David had done this thing. So he decided to punish Israel. 8 Then David said to God, ‘What I have done was a bad sin. Please forgive me. I have done a foolish thing.’
9 Gad was David's prophet. The Lord said to him, 10 ‘Go and give my message to David: “There are three ways that I could punish you. You must choose one of them, and that is what I will do to punish you.” ’
11 So Gad went to David and he said to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “You must choose one of these punishments. 12 You may choose to have three years when there will be a famine. Or you may choose to have three months when you have to run away from your enemies' swords so that they do not kill you. Or you may choose to have three days when a very bad disease comes to your people. The angel of the Lord would kill many people in every part of Israel.” Now decide which punishment you will choose. I will take your answer to God, who sent me with this message.’
13 David said to Gad, ‘I am very upset. I do not want men to punish me. The Lord is kind and he forgives people. So it is better if he punishes me.’
14 So the Lord caused a very bad disease to kill people in Israel. 70,000 Israelite men died. 15 God sent his angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel started to kill people, the Lord saw what was happening. He decided to stop the punishment that he was causing. He said to the angel who was killing the people, ‘That is enough. Stop what you are doing!’ When the Lord said that, his angel was standing near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and he saw the Lord's angel. The angel was standing between the earth and the sky. He had his sword in his hand and it was pointing towards Jerusalem. David and the leaders fell down with their faces towards the ground. They were wearing clothes that were made of rough sackcloth.
17 David said to God, ‘I am the person who has done an evil thing. I told Joab to count the number of men in my army. These people have followed me like sheep that follow a shepherd. They have not done anything wrong. Lord my God, you should only punish me and my family. But please take this disease away from your people.’
God forgives our sins because of Jesus' death
2 I am writing this letter to you, my friends who are like my little children. I am writing to you because I do not want you to do wrong things. But if anyone among you does something wrong, there is someone who will speak to God on our behalf. That person is Jesus Christ, who always does only what is right. He will ask our Father God to forgive you. 2 Jesus died as a sacrifice to take the punishment for our sin. Then God could forgive us. Jesus did that not only for us. He did it for all people in the world, so that God could forgive them for their sins.
3 This is how we can be sure that we know God: If we obey God's commands, we know that we belong to him. 4 Someone may say, ‘I belong to God.’ But if he does not obey God's commands, that person is telling a lie. He is not living in the way that God's true message teaches us. 5 But anyone who obeys God's message shows that he really loves God completely. So this is how we know that we belong to God. 6 If we say that we are living in God's true way, then we must live in the way that Jesus lived.[a]
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