Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 18
For the worship leader. A song of David, the Eternal One’s servant, who addressed these words to the Eternal after He had rescued him from Saul and his other enemies.
This Davidic psalm is also found in 2 Samuel 22. It expresses gratitude to God for saving him.
1 I love You, Eternal One, source of my power.
2 The Eternal is my rock, my fortress, and my salvation;
He is my True God, the stronghold in which I hide,
my strong shield, the horn that calls forth help, and my tall-walled tower.
3 I call out to the Eternal, who is worthy to be praised—
that’s how I will be rescued from my enemies.
4 The bonds of death encircled me;
the currents of destruction tugged at me;
5 The sorrows of the grave wrap around me;
the traps of death lay in wait for me.
6 In my time of need, I called to the Eternal;
I begged my True God for help.
He heard my voice echo up to His temple,
and my cry came to His ears.
7 Because of His great anger, the earth shook and staggered;
the roots of the mountains shifted.
8 Smoke poured out from His nose,
and devouring fire burst from His mouth.
Coals glowed from Him.
9 He bent the heavens and descended;
inky darkness was beneath His feet.
10 He rode upon a heavenly creature,[a] flying;
He was carried quickly on the wings of the wind.
11 He took darkness as His hiding place—
both the dark waters of the seas and the dark clouds of the sky.
12 Out from His brilliance
hailstones and burning coals
broke through the clouds.
13 The Eternal thundered in the heavens;
the Highest spoke; His voice rumbled [in the midst of hail and lightning].[b]
14 He shot forth His arrows and scattered the wicked;
He flung forth His lightning and struck them.
15 Then the deepest channels of the seas were visible,
and the very foundations of the world were uncovered
At Your rebuke, O Eternal One,
at the blast of wind from Your nostrils.
16 He reached down His hand from above me; He held me.
He lifted me from the raging waters.
17 He rescued me from my strongest enemy,
from all those who sought my death,
for they were too strong.
18 They came for me in the day of my destruction,
but the Eternal was the support of my life.
19 He set me down in a safe place;
He saved me to His delight; He took joy in me.
19 The two heavenly messengers arrived in Sodom that evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of the city. When Lot saw them, he went out to meet them and bowed low, his face touching the ground.
Lot: 2 Please, my lords, take time to come into your servant’s house to spend the night and wash your feet. Then you can rise early and be on your way.
Messengers: No, we will be fine spending the night in the city square.
3 But Lot persisted and urged them to come home with him and enjoy his hospitality. They agreed finally and came with Lot to his house. Lot prepared a huge meal for them, served with unleavened bread, and they ate until they were full. 4 But before they could lie down to rest for the night, the men of the city—that is, the men of Sodom, young and old alike, every last one of them—surrounded the house 5 and called out to Lot.
Men of Sodom: Where are the men who came with you to your house tonight? We saw them go in with you! Bring them out here. We want to have sex with them!
6 Lot slipped out of the door to address the men, shutting it firmly behind him.
Lot: 7 Look, I beg you, brothers, don’t do this. Don’t sink to this level of depravity! 8 Look—I have two daughters. Both are virgins. How about this: I’ll bring them out for you instead. You can do with them as you please. But please don’t do anything to these men. They are my guests. They deserve the protection of my home.
Lot leaves the safety of his home to negotiate with the men of the city, all of whom seem determined to have sex with his guests. Al though his courage is commend able, his solution is deplorable—offering his virgin daughters for the deviant pleasures of his neighbors. But Lot knows their sexual preference is for his guests, not his daughters; so the offer is safe, and he has bought some time.
Men of Sodom: 9 Get out of the way, man!
(to each other) Look, this guy came to our city as a stranger. He’s not one of us, and yet he thinks he has the right to judge all of us!
(to Lot) You better watch out, or we’ll treat you far worse than we will your guests!
They came at Lot and pushed him hard against the door until it was about to break. 10 Just then the men inside reached out and pulled Lot into the house with them, shutting the door securely to block the men of Sodom out. 11 Then the heavenly messengers struck all of the men pressing at the door with blindness—both young and old alike. It wasn’t long before they exhausted themselves blindly groping for the door.
Messengers (to Lot): 12 Do you have anyone else here in the city—sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or any other members of your family—whom you want to save? If so, you need to get them out of here right now! 13 We are going to destroy this place. Because of the immense outcry the Eternal One has received regarding the depravity of this city, the Eternal has sent us here to destroy it.
14 So Lot went out and found the young men who had pledged to marry his daughters.
Lot: Get up, and get out of this place. The Eternal One is going to destroy the city!
But his sons-in-law thought he was kidding and wouldn’t budge. 15 At dawn, the heavenly messengers urged Lot to action again.
Messengers: Lot, you need to get up and take your wife and two daughters out of here. Otherwise you will be consumed along with the rest of the city.
16 But Lot kept procrastinating, so the two heavenly messengers grabbed him, his wife, and his two daughters by the hand. They took them outside the city, a safe distance away, because the Eternal decided to show mercy to Lot and his family. 17 As they were leading them to safety, one of the messengers gave this instruction:
Messenger: Now run! Run for your lives! Don’t look back or stop anywhere in the plain. Head for the hills, or you’ll die along with everyone else.
Lot: 18 My lords, no. 19 I realize you have shown me great kindness and favored me by saving my life. But please—I can’t run that far. The devastation will surely catch up with me, and I’ll die anyway. 20 Look, over there is a city. It’s not too far. I could escape there. It’s just a little one. Please, let me go there instead. Then my life will surely be saved!
Messenger: 21 Look, as a favor to you, I won’t destroy the little city you’re talking about. 22 But hurry now; escape there, because I can’t do anything until you arrive there safely!
Because of this, the little city Lot escaped to was called Zoar, which means, “little.”
23 Lot and his family arrived in Zoar just as the sun was coming up. 24 Then the Eternal One rained sulfur and fire from out of the heavens onto Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He destroyed both cities, along with the other villages and towns in the valley and all of the people who lived there—even the vegetation was wiped out! 26 But Lot’s wife never made it; she lagged behind her husband and looked back—despite the messenger’s advice—and turned into a pillar of salt.
Lot’s wife makes a fateful turn. She stops and looks back. No one knows why. Perhaps it is to mourn the past. Perhaps curiosity gets the better of her; but instead of looking ahead to her destination—a place of safety and security—she turns around and looks back at what she has left behind. In that instant, as the messenger warned, she perishes. All that is left of her is a standing pillar of salt.
27 Meanwhile, Abraham rose early in the morning and went out to the place where he had stood at the feet of the Eternal One. 28 He looked down toward where Sodom and Gomorrah had been. He looked up and down the valley, and everywhere he looked clouds of smoke were billowing up—black, like smoke from a giant furnace. 29 Now you know the story of how God destroyed the cities of the valley, but remembered Abraham and His covenant with him. So He sent Lot out of the destruction—out of the cities where he had been living.
14 So how do we talk about that? Are God’s dealings unjust? Absolutely not! 15 Because He said to Moses, “I will show mercy to whomever I choose to show mercy, and I will demonstrate compassion on whomever I choose to have compassion.”[a] 16 The point is that God’s mercy has nothing to do with our will or the things we pursue. It is completely up to God. 17 The Scriptures even speak to the Pharaoh himself: “I have given you a position of power so that I might show My greater power through you and so that My name might be declared throughout every land upon the earth.”[b] 18 So when and where God decides to show mercy is completely up to Him. Likewise, when He chooses to harden one’s heart, how can we argue?
19 I can hear one of you asking, “Then how can He blame us if He is the one in complete control? How can we do anything He has not chosen for us?” 20 Here’s my answer: Who are you, a mere human, to argue with God? If God takes the time to shape us from the dust, is it right to point a finger at Him and ask, “Why have You made me this way?” 21 Doesn’t the potter have the right to shape the clay in any way he chooses? Can’t he make one lump into an elegant vase, and another into a common jug? Absolutely. 22 Even though God desires to demonstrate His anger and to reveal His power, He has shown tremendous restraint toward those vessels of wrath that are doomed to be cracked and shattered. 23 And why is that? To make the wealth of His glory known to vessels of mercy that are prepared for great beauty. 24 These vessels of mercy include all of us. God has invited Jews and non-Jews, insiders and outsiders; it makes no difference. 25 The prophet Hosea says:
I will give a new name to those who are not My people; I’ll call them “My people,”
and to the one who has not been loved, I’ll rename her “beloved.”[c]
26 And it shall turn out that in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,”
they will be called “children of the living God.”[d]
27 And this is what Isaiah cries out when he speaks of Israel, “Even though the number of the children of Israel had once been like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of My people will be rescued and remain. 28 For the Lord will waste no time in carrying out every detail of His sentence upon the earth.”[e] 29 It is as Isaiah predicts:
Except for the fraction of us who hang on by the grace of the Lord, Commander of heavenly armies,
we’d be destroyed and deserted like Sodom
and Gomorrah, utterly done in.[f]
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.