Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
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.
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.
18 You have forgotten the Rock who begot you;
you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who gave you birth.
19 When the Lord saw it, He despised them,
because of the provocation of His sons and daughters.
20 He said: I will hide My face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
for they are a very perverse generation,
children in whom there is no loyalty.
28 For they are a nation devoid of counsel;
there is no understanding in them.
29 Would that they were wise,
so that they understood this,
so that they would comprehend their future!
30 How should one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
and the Lord had given them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock;
even our enemies themselves concede this.
32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
their clusters are bitter.
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons
and the deadly venom of cobras.
34 Is not this laid up in store with Me
and sealed up among My treasures?
35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;
their foot will slip in due time;
for the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the things to come hasten upon them.
36 For the Lord will judge His people,
and relent in regard to His servants,
when He sees that their power is gone
and there is no one left, whether restrained or free.
37 He will say: Where are their gods,
their rock in whom they trusted,
38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up and help you
and be your protection.
39 See now that I, even I, am He,
and there is no god besides Me;
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
there is no one who can deliver out of My hand.
33 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments
and unfathomable are His ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”[a]
35 “Or who has first given to Him,
and it shall be repaid to him?”[b]
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be glory forever! Amen.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.