Bible Browser

Psalm 18

1  I love you, O Lord my strength. ♦︎
   The Lord is my crag, my fortress and my deliverer,
2  My God, my rock in whom I take refuge, ♦︎
   my shield, the horn of my salvation and my stronghold.
3  I cried to the Lord in my anguish ♦︎
   and I was saved from my enemies.
20  He brought me out into a place of liberty; ♦︎
   he rescued me because he delighted in me.
21  The Lord rewarded me after my righteous dealing; ♦︎
   according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me,
22  Because I had kept the ways of the Lord ♦︎
   and had not gone wickedly away from my God,
23  For I had an eye to all his laws, ♦︎
   and did not cast out his commandments from me.
24  I was also wholehearted before him ♦︎
   and kept myself from iniquity;
25  Therefore the Lord rewarded me
      after my righteous dealing, ♦︎
   and according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
26  With the faithful you show yourself faithful; ♦︎
   with the true you show yourself true;
27  With the pure you show yourself pure, ♦︎
   but with the crooked you show yourself perverse.
28  For you will save a lowly people ♦︎
   and bring down the high looks of the proud.
29  You also shall light my candle; ♦︎
   the Lord my God shall make my darkness to be bright.
30  By your help I shall run at an enemy host; ♦︎
   with the help of my God I can leap over a wall.
31  As for God, his way is perfect;
      the word of the Lord is tried in the fire; ♦︎
   he is a shield to all who trust in him.
32  For who is God but the Lord, ♦︎
   and who is the rock except our God?

¹⁸ You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;^*
   you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹ The Lord saw it, and was jealous;^*
   he spurned^* his sons and daughters.
²⁰ He said: I will hide my face from them,
   I will see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
   children in whom there is no faithfulness.
²⁸ They are a nation void of sense;
   there is no understanding in them.
²⁹ If they were wise, they would understand this;
   they would discern what the end would be.
³⁰ How could one have routed a thousand,
   and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
   the Lord had given them up?
³¹ Indeed their rock is not like our Rock;
   our enemies are fools.^*
32 Their vine comes from the vine-stock of Sodom,
   from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
   their clusters are bitter;
³³ their wine is the poison of serpents,
   the cruel venom of asps.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with me,
   sealed up in my treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
   for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
   their doom comes swiftly.

³⁶ Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,
   have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
   neither bond nor free remaining.
³⁷ Then he will say: Where are their gods,
   the rock in which they took refuge,
³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
   and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you,
   let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, even I, am he;
   there is no god besides me.
I kill and I make alive;
   I wound and I heal;
   and no one can deliver from my hand.

33 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!
³⁴ ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?
   Or who has been his counsellor?’
³⁵ ‘Or who has given a gift to him,
   to receive a gift in return?’
³⁶For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.