Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David, the servant of Jehovah, who spoke to Jehovah the words of this song in the day that Jehovah had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul. And he said,
18 I will love thee, O Jehovah, my strength.
2 Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
3 I will call upon Jehovah, who is to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
4 The bands of death encompassed me, and torrents of Belial made me afraid.
5 The bands of Sheol surrounded me, the cords of death encountered me.
6 In my distress I called upon Jehovah, and I cried out to my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, into his ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled and shook, because he was wroth.
8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals burned forth from it.
9 And he bowed the heavens, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
10 And he rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, he flew fast upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his secret place, his tent round about him: darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
12 From the brightness before him his thick clouds passed forth: hail and coals of fire.
13 And Jehovah thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice: hail and coals of fire.
14 And he sent his arrows, and scattered [mine enemies]; and he shot forth lightnings, and discomfited them.
15 And the beds of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were uncovered at thy rebuke, Jehovah, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
16 He reached forth from above, he took me, he drew me out of great waters:
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me; for they were mightier than I.
18 They encountered me in the day of my calamity, but Jehovah was my stay.
19 And he brought me forth into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
19 And the two angels came to Sodom at even. And Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them; and he bowed down, the face toward the ground,
2 and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and lodge, and wash your feet; and ye shall rise up early, and go on your way. And they said, No; but we will pass the night in the open place.
3 And he urged them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house. And he made them a repast, and baked unleavened cakes; and they ate.
4 Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the youngest to the oldest—all the people from every quarter.
5 And they called to Lot, and said to him, Where are the men that have come in to thee to-night? bring them out to us that we may know them.
6 And Lot went out to them to the entrance, and shut the door after him,
7 and said, I pray you, my brethren, do not wickedly!
8 Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known a man: let me now bring them out to you; and do to them as is good in your sight: only, to these men do nothing; for therefore have they come under the shadow of my roof.
9 And they said, Back there! And they said [again], This one came to sojourn, and he must be a judge? Now we will deal worse with thee than with them. And they pressed hard on the man—on Lot; and drew near to break the door.
10 And the men stretched out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.
11 And they smote the men that were at the entrance of the house with blindness, from the smallest to the greatest; and they wearied themselves to find the entrance.
12 And the men said to Lot, Whom hast thou here besides? a son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and all whom thou hast in the city—bring [them] out of the place.
13 For we are going to destroy this place, because the cry of them is great before Jehovah, and Jehovah has sent us to destroy it.
14 And Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Up, go out of this place, for Jehovah will destroy the city. But he was as if he jested, in the sight of his sons-in-law.
15 And as the dawn arose, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up, take thy wife and thy two daughters who are present, lest thou perish in the iniquity of the city.
16 And as he lingered, the men laid hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, Jehovah being merciful to him; and they led him out, and set him without the city.
17 And it came to pass when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for thy life: look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou perish.
18 And Lot said to them, Not [so], I pray thee, Lord;
19 behold now, thy servant has found favour in thine eyes, and thou hast magnified thy goodness, which thou hast shewn to me in preserving my soul alive; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest calamity lay hold on me, that I die.
20 Behold now, this city is near to flee to, and it is small: I pray thee, let me escape thither—is it not small?—and my soul shall live.
21 And he said to him, Behold, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken.
22 Haste, escape thither; for I cannot do anything until thou art come there. Therefore the name of the city is called Zoar.
23 The sun rose upon the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
24 And Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,
25 and overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew upon the ground.
26 And his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 And Abraham rose early in the morning [and went] to the place where he had stood before Jehovah;
28 and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and lo, a smoke went up from the land as the smoke of a furnace.
29 And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.
14 What shall we say then? [Is there] unrighteousness with God? Far be the thought.
15 For he says to Moses, I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy, and I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion.
16 So then [it is] not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shews mercy.
17 For the scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very thing I have raised thee up from amongst [men], that I might thus shew in thee my power, and so that my name should be declared in all the earth.
18 So then, to whom he will he shews mercy, and whom he will he hardens.
19 Thou wilt say to me then, Why does he yet find fault? for who resists his purpose?
20 Aye, but thou, O man, who art *thou* that answerest again to God? Shall the thing formed say to him that has formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Or has not the potter authority over the clay, out of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour?
22 And if God, minded to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;
23 and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory,
24 us, whom he has also called, not only from amongst [the] Jews, but also from amongst [the] nations?
25 As he says also in Hosea, I will call not-my-people My people; and the-not-beloved Beloved.
26 And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, *Ye* [are] not my people, there shall they be called Sons of [the] living God.
27 But Esaias cries concerning Israel, Should the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved:
28 for [he] is bringing the matter to an end, and [cutting [it] short in righteousness; because] a cutting short of the matter will [the] Lord accomplish upon the earth.
29 And according as Esaias said before, Unless [the] Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and made like even as Gomorrha.
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