Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 18[a]
For the music leader. Of David the Lord’s servant, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord after the Lord delivered him from the power of all his enemies and from Saul.
18 He said: I love you, Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my solid rock,
my fortress, my rescuer.
My God is my rock—
I take refuge in him!—
he’s my shield,
my salvation’s strength,
my place of safety.
3 Because he is praiseworthy,[b]
I cried out to the Lord,
and I was saved from my enemies.
4 Death’s cords were wrapped around me;
rivers of wickedness terrified me.
5 The cords of the grave[c] surrounded me;
death’s traps held me tight.
6 In my distress I cried out to the Lord;
I called to my God for help.
God heard my voice from his temple;
I called to him for help,
and my call reached his ears.
7 The earth rocked and shook;
the bases of the mountains trembled and reeled
because of God’s anger.
8 Smoke went up from God’s nostrils;
out of his mouth came a devouring fire;
flaming coals blazed out in front of him!
9 God parted the skies and came down;
thick darkness was beneath his feet.
10 God mounted the heavenly creatures and flew;
he soared on the wings of the wind.
11 God made darkness cloak him;
his covering was dark water and dense cloud.
12 God’s clouds went ahead
of the brightness before him;
hail and coals of fire went too.
13 The Lord thundered in heaven;
the Most High made his voice heard
with hail and coals of fire.
14 God shot his arrows, scattering the enemy;
he sent the lightning and threw them into confusion.
15 The seabeds were exposed;
the earth’s foundations were laid bare
at your rebuke, Lord,
at the angry blast of air coming from your nostrils.
16 From on high God reached down and grabbed me;
he took me out of all that water.
17 God saved me from my powerful enemy,
saved me from my foes,
who were too much for me.
18 They came at me on the very day of my distress,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out to wide-open spaces;
he pulled me out safe
because he is pleased with me.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day—on that day all the springs of the deep sea erupted, and the windows in the skies opened. 12 It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 That same day Noah, with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s wife, and his sons’ three wives, went into the ark. 14 They and every kind of animal—every kind of livestock, every kind that crawls on the ground, every kind of bird[a]— 15 they came to Noah and entered the ark, two of every creature that breathes. 16 Male and female of every creature went in, just as God had commanded him. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.[b]
17 The flood remained on the earth for forty days. The waters rose, lifted the ark, and it rode high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and spread out over the earth. The ark floated on the surface of the waters. 19 The waters rose even higher over the earth; they covered all of the highest mountains under the sky. 20 The waters rose twenty-three feet high, covering the mountains. 21 Every creature took its last breath: the things crawling on the ground, birds, livestock, wild animals, everything swarming on the ground, and every human being. 22 Everything on dry land with life’s breath in its nostrils died. 23 God wiped away every living thing that was on the fertile land—from human beings to livestock to crawling things to birds in the sky. They were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ark were left. 24 The waters rose over the earth for one hundred fifty days.
8 God remembered Noah, all those alive, and all the animals with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth so that the waters receded. 2 The springs of the deep sea and the skies[c] closed up. The skies held back the rain. 3 The waters receded gradually from the earth. After one hundred fifty days, the waters decreased; 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the Ararat mountains. 5 The waters decreased gradually until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the mountain peaks appeared.
Active judgment of God
4 God didn’t spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into the lowest level of the underworld and committed them to chains of darkness, keeping them there until the judgment. 5 And he didn’t spare the ancient world when he brought a flood on the world of ungodly people, even though he protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others. 6 God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to total destruction, reducing them to ashes as a warning to ungodly people. 7 And he rescued righteous Lot, who was made miserable by the unrestrained immorality of unruly people. (8 While that righteous man lived among them he felt deep distress every day on account of the immoral actions he saw and heard.) 9 These things show that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and how to keep the unrighteous for punishment on the Judgment Day. 10 This is especially true for those who follow after the corrupt cravings of the sinful nature and defy the Lord’s authority.
Evil character of the false teachers
These reckless, brash people aren’t afraid to insult the glorious ones,
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible