Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 18(A)
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord. He spoke to the Lord the words of this song on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:
1 I love You, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my pillar, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
3 I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I will be saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encircled me,
and the torrents of destruction terrified me.
5 The cords of Sheol surrounded me;
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called on the Lord,
and cried for help to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
and my cry for help came before Him to His ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked;
the foundations of the hills also moved;
they reeled because His anger burned.
8 Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
and fire from His mouth devoured;
coals were kindled by it.
9 He bent the heavens and came down,
and darkness was under His feet.
10 He rode on a cherub, and flew;
He flew swiftly on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His secret place;
His pavilion was surrounding Him,
dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
12 At the brightness before Him His thick clouds passed by,
hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High gave His voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
14 He sent out His arrows and scattered them,
and He shot out lightning and distressed them.
15 Then the channels of waters appeared,
and the foundations of the world were discovered
at Your rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
16 He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me,
for they were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He also brought me forth into a large place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.
20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands He has repaid me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His judgments were before me,
and I did not put away His statutes from me.
23 I was also upright before Him,
and I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore the Lord has repaid me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in His view.
25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
with the blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 with the pure You will show Yourself pure;
and with the crooked You will show Yourself crooked.
27 For You will save the afflicted people,
but will bring down prideful eyes.
28 For You will cause my lamp to shine;
the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
29 For by You I can run through a troop,
and by my God I can leap a wall.
30 As for God, His way has integrity;
the word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield
to all those who take refuge in Him.
31 For who is God except the Lord?
Or who is a rock besides our God?
32 It is God who clothes me with strength,
and gives my way integrity.
33 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and causes me to stand on my high places.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of Your salvation,
and Your right hand has held me up,
and Your gentleness has made me great.
36 You have lengthened my stride under me,
so that my feet did not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
I did not return until they were destroyed.
38 I wounded them, and they were not able to rise;
they are fallen under my feet.
39 For You clothed me with strength for the battle;
You subdued under me those who rose up against me.
40 You gave me the necks of my enemies,
and I destroyed those who hate me.
41 They cried for help, but there was none to save them;
even to the Lord, but He did not answer them.
42 Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind;
I cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the hostilities of the people,
and You have made me the head of nations;
a people whom I have not known serve me.
44 At hearing a report, they obey me;
foreigners come cringing to me.
45 Foreigners fade away,
and come quaking out of their prisons.
46 The Lord lives! And blessed be my Rock!
May the God of my salvation be exalted.
47 It is God who avenges me
and subdues the people under me;
48 He delivers me from my enemies.
You lift me up above those who rise up against me;
You have delivered me from the violent man.
49 Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the nations,
and sing praises to Your name.
50 He gives great deliverance to His king,
and shows lovingkindness to His anointed,
to David and to his descendants for evermore.
6 Though I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities
and lack of food in all your places,
yet you did not return to Me,
says the Lord.
7 I also withheld the rain from you,
when there were still three months to the harvest.
I would send rain on one town,
and send no rain on another town.
One field would receive rain,
but another field without rain would wither.
8 So two or three towns wandered to one town to drink water,
but they were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to Me,
says the Lord.
9 I struck you with blight and mildew.
Locusts devoured your many gardens and vineyards,
your fig trees and olive trees;
yet you did not return to Me,
says the Lord.
10 Pestilence like that of Egypt
I sent against you.
By the sword I killed your young men;
your horses were taken captive.
The stench of your camps I brought up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to Me,
says the Lord.
11 I destroyed some of you,
as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a firebrand plucked out of the fire;
yet you did not return to Me,
says the Lord.
12 Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel,
and because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
13 The One who forms the mountains
and creates the wind,
who reveals His thoughts to man,
who turns the darkness into dawn
and strides on the heights of the earth—
the Lord, the God of Hosts, is His name.
11 Seeing then that all these things are to be destroyed, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 while you are waiting for and desiring the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will be consumed by intense heat? 13 But, according to His promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless. 15 Keep in mind that the patience of our Lord means salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul has also written to you according to the wisdom given to him. 16 As in all his letters, he writes about these things, in which some things are hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable distort, as they also do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know these things beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own firm footing, being led away by the deception of the wicked. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen.
The Parable of the Vineyard and the Vinedressers(A)
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and built a wall around it. He dug a winepress in it and built a tower. Then he rented it to vinedressers and went into a distant country. 34 When the season of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers to receive his fruit.
35 “The vinedressers took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again, he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did likewise to them. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
38 “But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they caught him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?”
41 They said, “He will severely destroy those wicked men and rent his vineyard to other vinedressers who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’[a]?
43 “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing its fruits. 44 Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. But on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”
45 When the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. 46 But as they tried to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they held Him as a prophet.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.