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.
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.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the same day, all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
13 On the very same day Noah and the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark. 14 They and every wild animal according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every bird of every sort, 15 went with Noah into the ark, two by two of all flesh in which was the breath of life. 16 So they went in, male and female of all flesh, just as God had commanded him; then the Lord shut him in.
17 The flood was on the earth forty days, and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose up above the earth. 18 The water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 The water prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed upward and the mountains were covered fifteen cubits deep.[a] 21 All flesh that moved on the earth died: birds and livestock and beasts, and every creeping thing that crept on the earth, and every man. 22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was on the dry land, died. 23 So He blotted out every living thing which was on the face of the ground, both man and animals and the creeping things and the birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.
24 The waters prevailed on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
The Flood Recedes
8 God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the water receded. 2 Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of heaven were closed, and the rain from the heavens was restrained. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth, and after the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4 The ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The water continually decreased until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.
4 For if God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be kept for judgment; 5 and if He did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, making them an example to those afterward who would live ungodly lives; 7 and if He delivered righteous Lot, who was distressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked 8 (for that righteous man lived among them, and what he saw and heard of their lawless deeds tormented his righteous soul day after day); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the Day of Judgment, 10 especially those who walk after the flesh in pursuit of unclean desires, and despise authority.
They are presumptuous and arrogant, and are not afraid to slander the angelic beings.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.