Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
This is a special song that David wrote.
Tell God about your sins[a]
32 When God has forgiven someone's sins,
they are truly happy!
They may have turned against God,
but when God forgives them, they are happy.
2 They may have done something bad,
but when the Lord says, ‘Not guilty!’,
he has truly blessed them.
They are happy because they no longer try to hide their sins.
3 When I said nothing to God about my sin,
my whole body became weak.
I cried all the time because of the pain.
4 In the day and in the night,
you punished me very much.
It seemed as if the hot sun was taking away my strength.
Selah.
5 Then I told you about my sins.
I did not try to hide the bad things that I had done.
I said, ‘I will tell the Lord
about the things that I have done against him.’
When I did that, you forgave my sins.
Selah.
6 Because of this, all your own people should pray to you.
They should pray while they still have the chance.[b]
Then, when danger comes to them like a river of deep water,
they will still be safe.
7 Yes, Lord, you are a place where I can hide.
You will keep me safe from trouble.
I will hear happy songs all around me,
because you save your people from danger.
Selah.
8 I will teach you the right way to live.
I will be your guide
and I will take care of you.[c]
9 Do not be like a silly horse, or a mule.
You have to use a rope to show them which way to go.
Without that, they will not obey you.
10 Wicked people will receive a lot of trouble and pain.
But if anyone trusts in the Lord,
they will know that God always loves them.
11 So all you people who belong to the Lord,
praise him and be happy!
All of you who are good, honest people,
shout aloud because you are so happy!
14 That day the Lord caused all the Israelite people to respect Joshua. They respected him all his life, as they had respected Moses.
15 Then the Lord said to Joshua, 16 ‘Tell the priests who are carrying the Covenant Box to come up out of the Jordan River.’
17 So Joshua told the priests, ‘Come up out of the Jordan.’ 18 So the priests came up from the middle of the river. They were carrying the Lord's Covenant Box. As soon as their feet touched the dry ground on the shore, the water of the Jordan ran again. There was so much water that it made a flood, like before.
19 On the tenth day of the first month, the people left the shore of the Jordan River. They put up their tents at a place called Gilgal. That was on the east side of Jericho city. 20 At Gilgal, Joshua made a heap with the 12 stones that they had taken out of the Jordan River. 21 He said to the Israelite people, ‘In future years, your children will ask you, “What do these stones mean?” 22 Then you must tell them, “We Israelites went across the Jordan River on dry ground.” 23 Yes, you have seen what the Lord your God has done. He made the Jordan River become dry, so that you could cross over it. That was like he did to the Red Sea, so that we could cross it when we left Egypt. 24 The Lord has done this so that all the nations of the world can see how powerful he is. He did it so that you would always obey him, the Lord your God.’
6 Because God's Spirit is with us, we continue to be brave. While we still live here on earth, we know that we are not yet at home with the Lord. 7 As we live here, we have to trust God. We do not yet see the things that belong to heaven. 8 We are brave because we trust God. We would like to go away from our body here on earth. Then we would go to be at home with the Lord. And that would be better! 9 But all the time we want to please the Lord. We want to do that while we are still at home in our body here on earth. We also want to please him when we go away from these bodies. 10 Because all of us must go and stand in front of Christ as our judge. He will decide about the things that we have done during our lives here on earth. Whether we have done good things or bad things, we will receive what is right for us.
God makes us new people in Christ
11 We know that the Lord will judge us, so we are careful to obey him. Because of that, we tell God's message to people. We want them to believe in God. And God himself knows that we try to do what is right. I hope that you know that also, when you think about it.
12 We are not trying again to make you think that our work is good. But we do want to give you the chance to be proud of us. Then you will be able to show the false teachers that they are wrong. They are proud about what they look like on the outside. They do not think about what they are really like inside themselves. 13 To some people, we may seem to be crazy. That is because we want to serve God. But if we seem to be wise, that is to help you.
14 Whatever we do, we do it because Christ loves us. We know that one man, Christ, died on behalf of all people. So we also know that all of us died with him. 15 He died on behalf of all people. So, while we live, we no longer live to please ourselves. Instead, we live to please Christ. He is the one that died on our behalf. He is the one that God raised up, to live again.
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