Psalm 51

¹⁹Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away,

²²I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

²⁵I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.

⁹Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁴having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!

¹⁶Answer me, O Lord, for Your loving devotion is good; turn to me in keeping with Your great compassion.

⁷But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

⁸If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

²²let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

²⁵I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

⁷Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

¹⁴Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

¹⁶Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil!

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities:

¹⁸Yes, I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.

⁵Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

¹⁸I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’

⁴⁰But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—

⁴¹and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled and they will make amends for their iniquity,

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” “The Lord has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.

¹⁴Nevertheless, because by this deed you have shown utter contempt for the word of the Lord, the son born to you will surely die.”

²¹The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

⁹No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?”

⁶Then God said to Abimelech in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against Me. That is why I did not let you touch her.

⁴Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”

³¹For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

¹²Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.

⁴Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!

³The wicked are estranged from the womb; the liars go astray from birth.

¹⁴What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?

¹⁵If God puts no trust in His holy ones, if even the heavens are not pure in His eyes,

³All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.

⁶Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.

²He who walks with integrity and practices righteousness, who speaks the truth from his heart,

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the Lord does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.”

²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

⁴but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the heart or given understanding to the mind?

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

⁷But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

¹⁸“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.

¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that their bodies are clean,

¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!

¹⁸Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all the furnishings, and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle the one who touched a bone, a grave, or a person who has died or been slain.

¹⁹The man who is ceremonially clean is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. After he purifies the unclean person on the seventh day, the one being cleansed must wash his clothes and bathe in water, and that evening he will be clean.

¹⁹For when Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people,

⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood,

¹Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.

²After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.

¹⁷Blessed indeed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

¹⁸For He wounds, but He also binds; He strikes, but His hands also heal.

²Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am frail; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are in agony.

³My soul is deeply distressed. How long, O Lord, how long?

⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.

⁶He who goes out weeping, bearing a trail of seed, will surely return with shouts of joy, carrying sheaves of grain.

⁸¹My soul faints for Your salvation; I wait for Your word.

⁸²My eyes fail, looking for Your promise; I ask, “When will You comfort me?”

¹⁷For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

¹⁴having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.

¹⁷Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

¹⁹And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,

¹⁷Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

²²to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

²³to be renewed in the spirit of your minds;

⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

³¹Cast away from yourselves all the transgressions you have committed, and fashion for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?

²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

²³But the Lord was gracious to Israel and had compassion on them, and He turned toward them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to this day, the Lord has been unwilling to destroy them or cast them from His presence.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

⁹You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

³So the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”

²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you.

¹⁰Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

⁵But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation.

¹⁰I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

²⁴Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy—

⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

³²But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

¹⁹My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back,

²⁰consider this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

¹⁹Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away,

¹⁵When they had finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus replied, “Feed My lambs.”

¹⁶Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus told him, “Shepherd My sheep.”

¹⁸to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.’

¹⁹So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

³Sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy to all the brothers.

²⁸Then my tongue will proclaim Your righteousness and Your praises all day long.

⁹Why then have you despised the command of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You put Uriah the Hittite to the sword and took his wife as your own. You have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites.

²Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

⁹Do not take my soul away with sinners, or my life with men of bloodshed,

²⁶Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

³Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

¹⁵Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

³Because Your loving devotion is better than life, my lips will glorify You.

⁴So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift my hands.

¹⁴that I may declare all Your praises—that within the gates of Daughter Zion I may rejoice in Your salvation.

²¹In that day I will cause a horn to sprout for the house of Israel, and I will open your mouth to speak among them. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

¹³With my lips I proclaim all the judgments of Your mouth.

²⁷But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you are to tell them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’ Whoever listens, let him listen; and whoever refuses, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

⁶For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁶Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.

⁵Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me.

⁶In burnt offerings and sin offerings You took no delight.

²²But Samuel declared: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams.

⁶Surely You desire truth in the inmost being; You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

¹¹“What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the Lord. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

¹²When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of you—this trampling of My courts?

¹⁸The Lord is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.

²Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the Lord. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at My word.

³He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

¹⁰In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”

³³and to love Him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹⁶For the Lord will rebuild Zion; He has appeared in His glory.

¹³For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

⁵He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will,

⁵For I will be a wall of fire around it, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.’”

³²Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.

⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you prosper.

⁷May there be peace within your walls, and prosperity inside your fortresses.”

⁵Offer the sacrifices of the righteous and trust in the Lord.

²and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.

³And He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.

¹Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

¹³I will enter Your house with burnt offerings; I will fulfill my vows to You—

¹⁴the vows that my lips promised and my mouth spoke in my distress.

²⁷The Lord is God; He has made His light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.