Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 18[a]
Thanksgiving for God’s Help
1 For the director.[b] Of David, the servant of the Lord. He sang to the Lord the words of this song after the Lord had rescued him from the clutches of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. 2 He said:
I love you, O Lord, my strength,
3 O Lord, my rock,[c] my fortress, my deliverer.
My God is my rock in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold.
4 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy of all praise;
and I am saved from my enemies.
5 The cords of death encompassed me,
and the torrents of destruction assailed me.
6 The cords of the netherworld ensnared me,
and the snares of death[d] rose up before me.
7 In my anguish I cried out to the Lord
and called to my God for help.
From his temple[e] he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
8 [f]The earth swayed and rocked;
the foundations of the mountains shook,
rocking because of his blazing anger.
9 Smoke poured forth from his nostrils,
while a scorching fire blazed out of his mouth
and kindled coals into flame.
10 He parted the heavens and came down;
dark clouds lay under his feet.
11 He rode upon a cherub,[g]
soaring swiftly on the wings of the wind.
12 He used the darkness as his covering,
and dense thunderclouds as his canopy.
13 From the radiance before him thick clouds emerged,
spewing hail and flashes of fire.
14 The Lord thundered from the heavens,
and the Most High let his voice be heard.
15 He shot his arrows[h] and scattered them,
hurled his lightning bolts and routed them.
16 Then the depths of the sea were exposed,
and the earth’s foundations were laid bare,
at the rebuke of the Lord,[i]
at the blast of wind from his nostrils.
17 He reached down from on high and snatched me up;
he drew me out of the watery depths.[j]
18 He delivered me from my powerful enemy,
and from my foes, who were too strong for me.
19 They assailed me in the day of my misfortune,
but the Lord came forward to uphold me.
Chapter 19
Revelation of God the Judge.[a] 1 The two angels arrived in Sodom toward the evening. Lot was seated at the gate to Sodom. As soon as he saw them, Lot got up and went over to them and bowed down to the ground. 2 He said, “My lords, come to the house of your servant. Pass the night, wash your feet, and then, in the morning, you can go on your way.”
They answered, “No, we will spend the night in the town square.”
3 But he insisted so much that they went with him to his house. He prepared a banquet for them, making unleavened bread,[b] and they ate their meal. 4 But before they went to bed, the men of the city, the inhabitants of Sodom, gathered around the house, the young and the old, all of them without exception. 5 They called out to Lot and said, “Where are those men who are staying with you tonight? Make them come out to us so that we can know them!”[c]
6 Lot went out to them at the door and, after closing the door behind himself, 7 said, “No, my brothers, do not do this evil thing! 8 Listen, I have two daughters who have not yet known a man; let me bring them outside and you can do whatever you want with them. Just do not do anything to these men, for they have entered under the shelter of my roof.”
9 But they answered, “Move out of the way. This one has come into our midst as a foreigner and he would dare to judge us! Now we are going to treat you even worse than them.” And they so violently pushed against Lot that they almost broke open the door. 10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, closing the door. 11 They struck all of those who were standing outside the door with blindness so that none of them could find the door.
12 The men then said to Lot, “Who else do you have here? Your sons-in-law, your sons, and your daughters, and anyone that you have in the city, bring them out of this place 13 for we are ready to destroy this place. The complaint raised against them before the Lord is great, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
14 Lot left to speak to his sons-in-law, the men who were to marry his daughters, and he said, “Get up, let us go from this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “Get up, take your wife and the two daughters who are here and leave before you are caught up in the punishment of this city.”
16 Lot hesitated, but the men took him by the hand, along with his wife and his two daughters. They showed him the mercy of the Lord by bringing him out and leading him out of the city. 17 After they had led him out, one of them said, “Flee for your life. Do not look back and do not stop while you are still in the valley. Flee to the mountains lest you be swept away.”
18 But Lot replied, “No, my lord! 19 Look, your servant has found favor in your sight, and now you have shown even greater mercy to me by saving my life. Yet, I will not be able to flee to the mountains to keep the disaster from overtaking me. I will die. 20 Look at this city ahead. It is close enough for me to reach, and it is so small! Let me flee there. It is such a small place. That way my life will be saved.”
21 He answered, “Behold, I will grant you even this, that I will not destroy the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, flee there because I cannot do anything until you have arrived.” For this reason the city is called Zoar.
23 The sun was rising when Lot arrived in Zoar. 24 The Lord then rained sulfur and fire from the heavens upon Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He destroyed these cities and the entire valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and even the plants in the soil. 26 But the wife of Lot looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went out early in the morning to the place where he had been with the Lord. 28 He looked down from the height on Sodom and Gomorrah and the entire extension of the valley, and he saw smoke rising out of the earth, like the smoke coming out of a furnace.
29 Thus God, who destroyed the cities of the valley, remembered Abraham and had Lot flee from the disaster, while he destroyed the cities in which Lot had been living.
14 Has God Been Unjust?[a]What then are we to say to that? Has God been unjust? Of course not! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy
on whomever I will have mercy,
and I will have pity
on whomever I will have pity.”
16 Therefore, it does not depend on anyone’s will or exertion but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up so that I may display my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed throughout the earth.” 18 Consequently, he shows mercy to whomever he wills, and he hardens the hearts of whomever he wills.
19 In response, you will say to me, “Why then does he still find fault? Who can resist his will?” 20 But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Can something that is made say to its maker, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 Surely, the potter can mold the clay as he wishes. Does he not have the right to make out of the same lump of clay one vessel for a noble purpose and another for ordinary use?
22 What if God, although wishing to show his wrath and to make known his power, nevertheless with great patience endured the objects of his wrath[b] destined for destruction? 23 He did so in order to make known the riches of his glory to the recipients of his mercy whom he prepared long ago for glory. 24 We are the ones whom he has called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.
25 Witness of the Old Testament. As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people
I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved
I will call ‘beloved.’
26 And in the very place
where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they shall be called
children of the living God.”
27 And Isaiah cries out in regard to Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will be saved.
28 For the sentence of the Lord on the earth
will be executed quickly and with finality.”
29 Isaiah had foretold previously:
“If the Lord of hosts
had not left us any descendants,
we would have become like Sodom
and been made like Gomorrah.”
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