A Prayer for Cleansing

511 Have pity on me, O God, in your mercy; out of a full heart, take away my sin. 2 Let all my wrongdoing be washed away, and make me clean from evil. 3 For I am conscious of my error; my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I done wrong, working that which is evil in your eyes; so that your words may be seen to be right, and you may be clear when you are judging. 5 Truly, I was formed in evil, and in sin did my mother give me birth. 6 Your desire is for what is true in the inner parts: in the secrets of my soul you will give me knowledge of wisdom.

7 Make me free from sin with hyssop: let me be washed whiter than snow. 8 Make me full of joy and rapture; so that the bones which have been broken may be glad. 9 Let your face be turned from my wrongdoing, and take away all my sins. 10 Make a clean heart in me, O God; give me a right spirit again. 11 Do not put me away from before you, or take your holy spirit from me. 12 Give me back the joy of your salvation; let a free spirit be my support. 13 Then will I make your ways clear to wrongdoers; and sinners will be turned to you.

14 Be my saviour from violent death, O God, the God of my salvation; and my tongue will give praise to your righteousness. 15 O Lord, let my lips be open, so that my mouth may make clear your praise. 16 You have no desire for an offering or I would give it; you have no delight in burned offerings. 17 The offerings of God are a broken spirit; a broken and sorrowing heart, O God, you will not put from you. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure, building up the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then you will have delight in the offerings of righteousness, in burned offerings and offerings of beasts; then they will make offerings of oxen on your altar.

The Futility of Boastful Wickedness

521 Why do you take pride in wrongdoing, lifting yourself up against the upright man all the day? 2 Purposing destruction, using deceit; your tongue is like a sharp blade. 3 You have more love for evil than for good, for deceit than for works of righteousness. (Selah.) 4 Destruction is in all your words, O false tongue. 5 But God will put an end to you for ever; driving you out from your tent, uprooting you from the land of the living. (Selah.)

6 The upright will see it with fear, and will say, laughing at you: 7 See, this is the man who did not make God his strength, but had faith in his goods and his property, and made himself strong in his wealth. 8 But I am like a branching olive-tree in the house of God; I have put my faith in his mercy for ever and ever. 9 I will give you praise without end for what you have done; I will give honour to your name before your saints, for it is good.

The Folly and Wickedness of Men

531 The foolish man has said in his heart, God will not do anything. They are unclean, they have done evil works; there is not one who does good. 2 God was looking down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there were any who had wisdom, searching after God. 3 Every one of them has gone back; they are unclean: there is not one who does good, no, not one. 4 Have the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food, as they would take bread; they make no prayer to God. 5 They were in great fear, where there was no cause for fear: for the bones of those who make war on you have been broken by God; you have put them to shame, because God has no desire for them. 6 May the salvation of Israel come out of Zion! When the fate of his people is changed by God, Jacob will have joy, and Israel will be glad.

The Righteous Judgment of God

21 So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging: for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things. 2 And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things. 3 But you who are judging another for doing what you do yourself, are you hoping that God's decision will not take effect against you? 4 Or is it nothing to you that God had pity on you, waiting and putting up with you for so long, not seeing that in his pity God's desire is to give you a change of heart? 5 But by your hard and unchanged heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of the revelation of God's judging in righteousness; 6 Who will give to every man his right reward: 7 To those who go on with good works in the hope of glory and honour and salvation from death, he will give eternal life: 8 But to those who, from a love of competition, are not guided by what is true, will come the heat of his wrath, 9 Trouble and sorrow on all whose works are evil, to the Jew first and then to the Greek; 10 But glory and honour and peace to all whose works are good, to the Jew first and then to the Greek: 11 For one man is not different from another before God. 12 All those who have done wrong without the law will get destruction without the law: and those who have done wrong under the law will have their punishment by the law; 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who will be judged as having righteousness before God, but only the doers: 14 For when the Gentiles without the law have a natural desire to do the things in the law, they are a law to themselves; 15 Because the work of the law is seen in their hearts, their sense of right and wrong giving witness to it, while their minds are at one time judging them and at another giving them approval; 16 In the day when God will be a judge of the secrets of men, as it says in the good news of which I am a preacher, through Jesus Christ.

The Jews and the Law

17 But as for you who have the name of Jew, and are resting on the law, and take pride in God, 18 And have knowledge of his desires, and are a judge of the things which are different, having the learning of the law, 19 In the belief that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in the dark, 20 A teacher of the foolish, having in the law the form of knowledge and of what is true; 21 You who give teaching to others, do you give it to yourself? you who say that a man may not take what is not his, do you take what is not yours? 22 You who say that a man may not be untrue to his wife, are you true to yours? you who are a hater of images, do you do wrong to the house of God? 23 You who take pride in the law, are you doing wrong to the honour of God by behaviour which is against the law? 24 For the name of God is shamed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is said in the holy Writings. 25 It is true that circumcision is of use if you keep the law, but if you go against the law it is as if you had it not. 26 If those who have not circumcision keep the rules of the law, will it not be credited to them as circumcision? 27 And they, by their keeping of the law without circumcision, will be judges of you, by whom the law is broken though you have the letter of the law and circumcision. 28 The true Jew is not one who is only so publicly, and circumcision is not that which may be seen in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew who is a secret one, whose circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.