Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the Director: By the servant of the Lord, David, who spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hands of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.
Gratitude for Victory
18 He said:
“I love you, Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God,
my stronghold[a] in whom I take refuge, my shield, the glory[b]
of my salvation, and my high tower.”
3 I cried out to the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I was delivered from my enemies.
God’s Reward to the Righteous
20 The Lord will reward me because I am righteous;
because my hands are clean he will restore me;
21 because I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and I have not wickedly departed from my God;
22 because all his judgments were always before me,
and I did not cast off his statutes.
23 I was upright[a] before him,
and I kept myself from iniquity.
24 So the Lord restored me according to my righteousness,
because my hands were clean in his sight.
25 To the holy, you show your gracious love,
to the upright, you show yourself upright;
26 to the pure, you show yourself pure,
and to the morally corrupt, you appear to be perverse.
27 Indeed, you deliver the oppressed,[b]
but you bring down those who exalt themselves
in their own eyes.
28 For you, Lord, make my lamp shine;
my God enlightens my darkness.
29 With your help[c] I will run through an army,
with help from[d] my God I leap over walls.
30 As for God, his way is upright;[e]
the word of God is pure;
he is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.
The Acts of God for the Righteous
31 For who is God but the Lord,
and who is a Rock other than our God?—
32 the God who clothes me with strength,
and who makes my way upright;[f]
The Lord’s Response
19 The Lord saw it and became jealous,[c]
provoked by his sons and daughters.
20 So he said:
“Let me hide my face from them.
I will observe what their end will be,
because they are a perverted generation,
children within whom there is no loyalty.
Moses Warns Israel
28 They are a nation devoid of purpose
and without insight.
29 O, that they were wise to understand this
and consider their future![a]
30 How can one person[b] chase a thousand of them
and two put a myriad[c] to flight,
unless their Rock delivers them
and the Lord gives them up?
31 For their rock isn’t like our Rock,
as even[d] our enemies admit.[e]
32 Instead,[f] their vine is from the vines of Sodom
and the vineyards of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poisonous,
their clusters bitter.
33 Their wine is the venom of serpents,
a poisonous cobra.
The Lord’s Response
34 “Is this not kept in reserve,
sealed up with me in my treasury?
35 To me belong vengeance and recompense.
In due time their feet will slip,
because their time of calamity is near
and the things prepared for them draw near.
36 For the Lord will vindicate his people
and bring comfort to his servants,
because he will observe that their power[g] has waned,
when neither prisoner[h] nor free person remain.
37 “He will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge?
38 Who ate the fat of their offerings
and drank the wine that was their drink offering?
Let them rise and help you
and be your hiding place!’
In Praise of God’s Ways
33 O how deep are God’s riches,
and wisdom, and knowledge!
How unfathomable are his decisions
and unexplainable are his ways!
34 Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become his advisor?[a]
35 Or who has given him something
only to have him pay it back?”[b]
36 For all things are from him, by him, and for him.
Glory belongs to him forever! Amen.
Copyright © 1995-2014 by ISV Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY. Used by permission of Davidson Press, LLC.