Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
For the choir director; by David, the servant of the Lord. He sang this song to the Lord when the Lord rescued him from all his enemies, especially from Saul. He said,
18 I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my Savior,
my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the strength of my salvation,
my stronghold.
3 The Lord should be praised.
I called on him, and I was saved from my enemies.
4 The ropes of death had become tangled around me.
The torrents of destruction had overwhelmed me.
5 The ropes of the grave had surrounded me.
The clutches of death had confronted me.
6 I called on the Lord in my distress.
I cried to my God for help.
He heard my voice from his temple,
and my cry for help reached his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked.
Even the foundations of the mountains trembled.
They shook violently because he was angry.
8 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and a raging fire came out of his mouth.
Glowing coals flared up from it.
9 He spread apart the heavens
and came down with a dark cloud under his feet.
10 He rode on one of the angels [a] as he flew,
and he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 He made the darkness his hiding place,
the dark rain clouds his covering.
12 Out of the brightness in front of him,
those rain clouds passed by with hailstones and lightning.
13 The Lord thundered in the heavens.
The Most High made his voice heard with hailstones and lightning.
14 He shot his arrows and scattered them.
He flashed streaks of lightning and threw them into confusion.
15 Then the ocean floor could be seen.
The foundations of the earth were laid bare
at your stern warning, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath from your nostrils.
16 He reached down from high above and took hold of me.
He pulled me out of the raging water.
17 He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
because they were too strong for me.
18 On the day when I faced disaster, they confronted me,
but the Lord came to my defense.
19 He brought me out to a wide-open place.
He rescued me because he was pleased with me.
Lot’s Guests Are Assaulted
19 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed with his face touching the ground. 2 He said, “Please, gentlemen, why don’t you come to my home and spend the night? ⌞You can⌟ wash your feet there. Then early tomorrow morning you can continue your journey.”
“No,” they answered, “we’d rather spend the night in the city square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they came with him and went into his home. He prepared a special dinner for them, baked some unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the young and old male citizens of Sodom surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to ⌞stay with⌟ you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
6 Then Lot went outside and shut the door behind him. 7 “Please, my friends, don’t be so wicked,” he said. 8 “Look, I have two daughters who have never had sex. Why don’t you let me bring them out to you? Do whatever you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, since I’m responsible for them.”
9 But the men yelled, “Get out of the way! This man came here to stay awhile. Now he wants to be our judge! We’re going to treat you worse than those men.” They pushed hard against Lot and lunged forward to break down the door. 10 The men ⌞inside⌟ reached out, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. 11 Then they struck all the men who were in the doorway of the house, young and old alike, with blindness so that they gave up trying to find the door.
Lot Leaves Sodom, and the Cities Are Destroyed
12 Then the men asked Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—any in-laws, sons, daughters, or any other relatives in the city? Get them out of here 13 because we’re going to destroy this place. The complaints to the Lord against its people are so loud that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to the men engaged to his daughters. He said, “Hurry! Get out of this place, because the Lord is going to destroy the city.” But they thought he was joking.
15 As soon as it was dawn, the angels urged Lot by saying, “Quick! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you’ll be swept away when the city is punished.” 16 When he hesitated, the men grabbed him, his wife, and his two daughters by their hands, because the Lord wanted to spare Lot. They brought them safely outside the city. 17 As soon as they were outside, one ⌞of the angels⌟ said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stop on the plain. Run for the hills, or you’ll be swept away!”
18 Lot answered, “Oh no! 19 Even though you’ve been so good to me and though you’ve been very kind to me by saving my life, I can’t run as far as the hills. This disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, there’s a city near enough to flee to, and it’s small. Why don’t you let me run there? Isn’t it small? Then my life will be saved.”
21 The angel said to him, “Alright, I will grant you this request too. I will not destroy the city you’re talking about. 22 Run there quickly, because I can’t do anything until you get there.” (The city is named Zoar [Small].)
23 The sun had just risen over the land as Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the Lord made burning sulfur and fire rain out of heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He destroyed those cities, the whole plain, all who lived in the cities, and whatever grew on the ground. 26 Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a column of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham came to the place where he had stood in front of the Lord. 28 When he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land in the plain, he saw smoke rising from the land like the thick smoke of a furnace.
29 When God destroyed the cities on the plain, he remembered Abraham. Lot was allowed to escape from the destruction that came to the cities where he was living.
14 What can we say—that God is unfair? That’s unthinkable! 15 For example, God said to Moses, “I will be kind to anyone I want to. I will be merciful to anyone I want to.” 16 Therefore, God’s choice does not depend on a person’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
17 For example, Scripture says to Pharaoh, “I put you here for this reason: to demonstrate my power through you and to spread my name throughout the earth.” 18 Therefore, if God wants to be kind to anyone, he will be. If he wants to make someone stubborn, he will.
19 You may ask me, “Why does God still find fault with anyone? Who can resist whatever God wants to do?”
20 Who do you think you are to talk back to God like that? Can an object that was made say to its maker, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 A potter has the right to do whatever he wants with his clay. He can make something for a special occasion or something for everyday use from the same lump of clay.
22 If God wants to demonstrate his anger and reveal his power, he can do it. But can’t he be extremely patient with people who are objects of his anger because they are headed for destruction? 23 Can’t God also reveal the riches of his glory to people who are objects of his mercy and who he had already prepared for glory? 24 This is what God did for us whom he called—whether we are Jews or not.
God Chose People Who Are Not Jewish
25 As God says in Hosea:
“Those who are not my people
I will call my people.
Those who are not loved
I will call my loved ones.
26 Wherever they were told,
‘You are not my people,’
they will be called children of the living God.”
27 Isaiah also says about Israel:
“Although the descendants of Israel are
as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore,
only a few will be saved.
28 The Lord will carry out his sentence on the land,
completely and decisively.”
29 This is what Isaiah predicted:
“If the Lord of Armies hadn’t left us some descendants,
we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
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