Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 18
To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said:
1 I love You fervently and devotedly, O Lord, my Strength.
2 The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my keen and firm Strength in Whom I will trust and take refuge, my Shield, and the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower.(A)
3 I will call upon the Lord, Who is to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.(B)
4 The cords or bands of death surrounded me, and the streams of ungodliness and the torrents of ruin terrified me.
5 The cords of Sheol (the place of the dead) surrounded me; the snares of death confronted and came upon me.
6 In my distress [when seemingly closed in] I called upon the Lord and cried to my God; He heard my voice out of His temple (heavenly dwelling place), and my cry came before Him, into His [very] ears.
7 Then the earth quaked and rocked, the foundations also of the mountains trembled; they moved and were shaken because He was indignant and angry.
8 There went up smoke from His nostrils; and lightning out of His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it.
9 He bowed the heavens also and came down; and thick darkness was under His feet.
10 And He rode upon a cherub [a storm] and flew [swiftly]; yes, He sped on with the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His secret hiding place; as His pavilion (His canopy) round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
12 Out of the brightness before Him there broke forth through His thick clouds hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered from the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, amid hailstones and coals of fire.
14 And He sent out His arrows and scattered them; and He flashed forth lightnings and put them to rout.
15 Then the beds of the sea appeared and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
16 He reached from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated and abhorred me, for they were too strong for me.
18 They confronted and came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay and support.
19 He brought me forth also into a large place; He was delivering me because He was pleased with me and delighted in me.
19 It was evening when the two angels came to Sodom. Lot was sitting at Sodom’s [city] gate. Seeing them, Lot rose up to meet them and bowed to the ground.
2 And he said, My lords, turn aside, I beg of you, into your servant’s house and spend the night and bathe your feet. Then you can arise early and go on your way. But they said, No, we will spend the night in the square.
3 [Lot] entreated and urged them greatly until they yielded and [with him] entered his house. And he made them a dinner [with drinking] and had unleavened bread which he baked, and they ate.
4 But before they lay down, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, all the men from every quarter, surrounded the house.
5 And they called to Lot and said, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know (be intimate with) them.
6 And Lot went out of the door to the men and shut the door after him
7 And said, I beg of you, my brothers, do not behave so wickedly.
8 Look now, I have two daughters who are virgins; let me, I beg of you, bring them out to you, and you can do as you please with them. But only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.
9 But they said, Stand back! And they said, This fellow came in to live here temporarily, and now he presumes to be [our] judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them. So they rushed at and pressed violently against Lot and came close to breaking down the door.
10 But the men [the angels] reached out and pulled Lot into the house to them and shut the door after him.
11 And they struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness [which dazzled them], from the youths to the old men, so that they wearied themselves [groping] to find the door.
12 And the [two] men asked Lot, Have you any others here—sons-in-law or your sons or your daughters? Whomever you have in the city, bring them out of this place,
13 For we will spoil and destroy [Sodom]; for the outcry and shriek against its people has grown great before the Lord, and He has sent us to destroy it.
14 And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, Up, get out of this place, for the Lord will spoil and destroy this city! But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be [only] joking.
15 When morning came, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, Arise, take your wife and two daughters who are here [and be off], lest you [too] be consumed and swept away in the iniquity and punishment of the city.
16 But while he lingered, the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, for the Lord was merciful to him; and they brought him forth and set him outside the city and left him there.
17 And when they had brought them forth, they said, Escape for your life! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in [a]the whole valley; escape to the mountains [of Moab], lest you be consumed.
18 And Lot said to them, Oh, not that, my lords!
19 Behold now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your kindness and mercy to me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest the evil overtake me, and I die.
20 See now yonder city; it is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape to it! Is it not a little one? And my life will be saved!
21 And [the angel] said to him, See, I have yielded to your entreaty concerning this thing also; I will not destroy this city of which you have spoken.
22 Make haste and take refuge there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar [little].
23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot entered Zoar.
24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of the heavens.
25 He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26 But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she [b]became a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went up early the next morning to the place where he [only the day before] had stood before the Lord.
28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and saw, and behold, the smoke of [c]the country went up like the smoke of a furnace.
29 When God ravaged and destroyed the cities of the plain [of Siddim], He [earnestly] remembered Abraham [imprinted and fixed him indelibly on His mind], and He sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when He overthrew the cities where Lot lived.
14 What shall we conclude then? Is there injustice upon God’s part? Certainly not!
15 For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion (pity) on whom I will have compassion.(A)
16 So then [God’s gift] is not a question of human will and human effort, but of God’s mercy. [It depends not on one’s own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God’s having mercy on him.]
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, I have raised you up for this very purpose of displaying My power in [dealing with] you, so that My name may be proclaimed the whole world over.
18 So then He has mercy on whomever He wills (chooses) and He hardens (makes stubborn and unyielding the heart of) whomever He wills.
19 You will say to me, Why then does He still find fault and blame us [for sinning]? For who can resist and withstand His will?
20 But who are you, a mere man, to criticize and contradict and answer back to God? Will what is formed say to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus?(B)
21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same mass (lump) one vessel for beauty and distinction and honorable use, and another for menial or ignoble and dishonorable use?
22 What if God, although fully intending to show [the awfulness of] His wrath and to make known His power and authority, has tolerated with much patience the vessels (objects) of [His] anger which are ripe for destruction?(C)
23 And [what if] He thus purposes to make known and show the wealth of His glory in [dealing with] the vessels (objects) of His mercy which He has prepared beforehand for glory,
24 Even including ourselves whom He has called, not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles (heathen)?
25 Just as He says in Hosea, Those who were not My people I will call My people, and her who was not beloved [I will call] My beloved.(D)
26 And it shall be that in the very place where it was said to them, You are not My people, they shall be called sons of the living God.(E)
27 And Isaiah calls out (solemnly cries aloud) over Israel: Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, only the remnant (a small part of them) will be saved [[a]from perdition, condemnation, judgment]!
28 For the Lord will execute His sentence upon the earth [He will conclude and close His account with men completely and without delay], rigorously cutting it short in His justice.(F)
29 It is as Isaiah predicted, If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed [from which to propagate descendants], we [Israel] would have fared like Sodom and have been made like Gomorrah.(G)
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