Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
It Is Better to Confess Sin
A maskil of David.
32 Happy is the person
whose sins are forgiven,
whose wrongs are pardoned.
2 Happy is the person
whom the Lord does not consider guilty
and in whom there is nothing false.
3 When I kept things to myself,
I felt weak deep inside me.
I moaned all day long.
4 Day and night you punished me.
My strength was gone as in the summer heat. Selah
5 Then I confessed my sins to you
and didn’t hide my guilt.
I said, “I will confess my sins to the Lord,”
and you forgave my guilt. Selah
6 For this reason, all who obey you
should pray to you while they still can.
When troubles rise like a flood,
they will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place.
You protect me from my troubles
and fill me with songs of salvation. Selah
8 The Lord says, “I will make you wise and show you where to go.
I will guide you and watch over you.
9 So don’t be like a horse or donkey,
that doesn’t understand.
They must be led with bits and reins,
or they will not come near you.”
10 Wicked people have many troubles,
but the Lord’s love surrounds those who trust him.
11 Good people, rejoice and be happy in the Lord.
Sing all you whose hearts are right.
Rocks to Remind the People
4 After all the people had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe. 3 Tell them to get twelve rocks from the middle of the river, from where the priests stood. Carry the rocks and put them down where you stay tonight.”
4 So Joshua chose one man from each tribe. Then he called the twelve men together 5 and said to them, “Go out into the river where the Ark of the Lord your God is. Each of you bring back one rock, one for each tribe of Israel, and carry it on your shoulder. 6 They will be a sign among you. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these rocks mean?’ 7 Tell them the water stopped flowing in the Jordan when the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord crossed the river. These rocks will always remind the Israelites of this.”
8 So the Israelites obeyed Joshua and carried twelve rocks from the middle of the Jordan River, one rock for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, just as the Lord had commanded Joshua. They carried the rocks with them and put them down where they made their camp. 9 Joshua also put twelve rocks in the middle of the Jordan River where the priests had stood while carrying the Ark of the Agreement. These rocks are still there today.
10 The priests carrying the Ark continued standing in the middle of the river until everything was done that the Lord had commanded Joshua to tell the people, just as Moses had told Joshua. The people hurried across the river. 11 After they finished crossing the river, the priests carried the Ark of the Lord to the other side as the people watched. 12 The men from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh obeyed what Moses had told them. They were dressed for war, and they crossed the river ahead of the other people. 13 About forty thousand soldiers prepared for war passed before the Lord as they marched across the river, going toward the plains of Jericho.
Living by Faith
16 So we do not give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. 17 We have small troubles for a while now, but they are helping us gain an eternal glory that is much greater than the troubles. 18 We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.
5 We know that our body—the tent we live in here on earth—will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a house for us. It will not be a house made by human hands; instead, it will be a home in heaven that will last forever. 2 But now we groan in this tent. We want God to give us our heavenly home, 3 because it will clothe us so we will not be naked. 4 While we live in this body, we have burdens, and we groan. We do not want to be naked, but we want to be clothed with our heavenly home. Then this body that dies will be fully covered with life. 5 This is what God made us for, and he has given us the Spirit to be a guarantee for this new life.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.