Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Adonai lives! Blessed Be My Rock

Psalm 18

Sodom and Gomorrah

19 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. ² Then he said, “Here, please my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house, spend the night and wash your feet. Then you can get up early and go on your way.”

But they said, “No. We will spend the night in the open plaza.”

³ But he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and they came into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked matzot, and they ate. ⁴ They had not yet lain down when the men of the city (the men of Sodom) surrounded the house—from youth to elderly, all the people without exception. ⁵ And they called out to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have relations with them!”

⁶ But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him, ⁷ and said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act wickedly. ⁸ Look, I have two daughters who haven’t been intimate with a man. Please let me bring them out to you—do to them whatever is good in your eyes! However, do nothing to these men—since they have come under the protection of my roof.”

⁹ “Get out of the way!” they said, and they said, “This one came as an outsider and dares to judge! Now we’ll treat you worse than them!”

So they strongly pressed against the man, Lot, and moved in close to break the door down. ¹⁰ But the men reached out their hands, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. ¹¹ Then they struck the men at the doorway of the house with blindness—from youth to elderly—so that they gave up trying to find the doorway.

¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Who else related to you is still here? A son-in-law, your sons and your daughters, whoever else is related to you in the city—bring them out of the place! ¹³ For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before Adonai that Adonai has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters, “Get up!” he said, “Get out of this place! For Adonai is about to destroy the city!” But in the eyes of his sons-in-law, he was like a joker.

¹⁵ So when morning dawned the angels rushed Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be swept away with the city’s iniquity!” ¹⁶ But he hesitated. So the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand and his two daughters’ hands—because of Adonai’s compassion for him—and they brought him out and left him outside the city.

¹⁷ When they brought them outside, one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the surrounding area! Escape to the hills, or else you’ll be swept away!”

¹⁸ But Lot said to them, “No, my Lord, please! ¹⁹ Look, please, your servant has found favor in Your eyes and You have magnified Your merciful loyalty, which You have shown me by letting me live. But I can’t escape to the hill country—for the disaster will overtake me and I’ll die! ²⁰ Look, please, this city is close enough to flee there, and it’s little. Please let me escape there. Isn’t it small? And let me live!”

²¹ So He said to him, “Behold, I will grant your request concerning this matter too—not to demolish the city of which you have spoken. ²² Hurry! Flee to safety there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (This is why the town is named Zoar.)

²³ The moment the sun rose upon the land, Lot entered Zoar, ²⁴ and Adonai rained sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from Adonai out of the sky. ²⁵ So He demolished these cities and the whole surrounding area, all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.

²⁶ But his wife looked behind him and she turned into a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Now Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Adonai, ²⁸ and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the entire land of the surrounding area, and saw, behold, the smoke of the land ascended like smoke from a furnace. ²⁹ So it was, as God destroyed the cities of the surrounding area, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the upheaval, when He demolished the cities where Lot had dwelt.

¹⁴ What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! ¹⁵ For to Moses He says,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”^[a]

¹⁶ So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who strives, but on God who shows mercy. ¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up—to demonstrate My power in you, so My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ^{[b] 18} So then He has mercy on whom He wills, and He hardens whom He wills.

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” ²⁰ But who in the world are you, O man, who talks back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” ^{[c] 21} Does the potter have no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for common use? ²² Now what if God, willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath designed for destruction? ²³ And what if He did so to make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory?

²⁴ Even us He called—not only from the Jewish people, but also from the Gentiles— ²⁵ as He says also in Hosea,

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,

²⁹ And just as Isaiah foretold,