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.
Lot leaves Sodom
19 The two messengers entered Sodom in the evening. Lot, who was sitting at the gate of Sodom, saw them, got up to greet them, and bowed low. 2 He said, “Come 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 town square.” 3 He pleaded earnestly with them, so they went with him and entered his house. He made a big meal for them, even baking unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom—everyone from the youngest to the oldest—surrounded the house 5 and called to Lot, “Where are the men who arrived tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”
6 Lot went out toward the entrance, closed the door behind him, 7 and said, “My brothers, don’t do such an evil thing. 8 I’ve got two daughters who are virgins. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them whatever you wish. But don’t do anything to these men because they are now under the protection of my roof.”
9 They said, “Get out of the way!” And they continued, “Does this immigrant want to judge us? Now we will hurt you more than we will hurt them.” They pushed Lot back and came close to breaking down the door. 10 The men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house with them and slammed the door. 11 Then the messengers blinded the men near the entrance of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, so that they groped around trying to find the entrance.
12 The men said to Lot, “Who’s still with you here? Take away from this place your sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and everyone else you have in the city 13 because we are about to destroy this place. The Lord has found the cries of injustice so serious that the Lord sent us to destroy it.”
14 Lot went to speak to his sons-in-law, married to his daughters, and said, “Get up and get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 When dawn broke, the messengers urged Lot, “Get up and take your wife and your two daughters who are here so that you are not swept away because of the evil in this city.” 16 He hesitated, but because the Lord intended to save him, the men grabbed him, his wife, and two daughters by the hand, took him out, and left him outside the city.
17 After getting them out, the men said, “Save your lives! Don’t look back! And don’t stay in the valley. Escape to the mountains so that you are not swept away.”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please. 19 You’ve done me a favor and have been so kind to save my life. But I can’t escape to the mountains since the catastrophe might overtake me there and I’d die. 20 This city here is close enough to flee to, and it’s small. It’s small, right? Let me escape there, and my life will be saved.”
21 He said to Lot, “I’ll do this for you as well; I won’t overthrow the city that you have described. 22 Hurry! Escape to it! I can’t do anything until you get there.” That is why the name of the city is Zoar.[a]
Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed
23 As the sun rose over the earth, Lot arrived in Zoar; 24 and the Lord rained down burning asphalt from the skies onto Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 The Lord destroyed these cities, the entire valley, everyone who lived in the cities, and all of the fertile land’s vegetation. 26 When Lot’s wife looked back, she turned into a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham set out early for the place where he had stood with the Lord, 28 and looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the valley. He saw the smoke from the land rise like the smoke from a kiln.
Origin of Moab and Ammon
29 When God destroyed the cities in the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot away from the disaster that overtook the cities in which Lot had lived.
14 So what are we going to say? Isn’t this unfair on God’s part? Absolutely not! 15 He says to Moses, I’ll have mercy on whomever I choose to have mercy, and I’ll show compassion to whomever I choose to show compassion.[a] 16 So then, it doesn’t depend on a person’s desire or effort. It depends entirely on God, who shows mercy. 17 Scripture says to Pharaoh, I have put you in this position for this very thing: so I can show my power in you and so that my name can be spread through the entire earth.[b] 18 So then, God has mercy on whomever he wants to, but he makes resistant whomever he wants to.
19 So you are going to say to me, “Then why does he still blame people? Who has ever resisted his will?” 20 You are only a human being. Who do you think you are to talk back to God? Does the clay say to the potter, “Why did you make me like this?”[c] 21 Doesn’t the potter have the power over the clay to make one pot for special purposes and another for garbage from the same lump of clay? 22 What if God very patiently puts up with pots made for wrath that were designed for destruction, because he wanted to show his wrath and to make his power known? 23 What if he did this to make the wealth of his glory known toward pots made for mercy, which he prepared in advance for glory? 24 We are the ones God has called. We don’t come only from the Jews but we also come from the Gentiles. 25 As it says also in Hosea,
I will call “my people” those who aren’t my people,
and the one who isn’t well loved, I will call “loved one.”[d]
26 And in the place where it was said to them,
“You aren’t my people,”
there they will be called “the living God’s children.”[e]
27 But Isaiah cries out for Israel,
Though the number of Israel’s children will be like the sand of the sea,
only a remaining part will be saved,
28 because the Lord does what he says completely and quickly.[f]
29 As Isaiah prophesied,
If the Lord of the heavenly forces had not left descendants for us,
we would have been like Sodom,
and we would have become like Gomorrah.[g]
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible