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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.
4  The cords of death entwined me ♦︎
   and the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5  The cords of the Pit fastened about me ♦︎
   and the snares of death entangled me.
6  In my distress I called upon the Lord ♦︎
   and cried out to my God for help.
44  You will deliver me from the strife of the peoples; ♦︎
   you will make me the head of the nations.
45  A people I have not known shall serve me;
      as soon as they hear me, they shall obey me; ♦︎
   strangers will humble themselves before me.
46  The foreign peoples will lose heart ♦︎
   and come trembling out of their strongholds.
47  The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock! ♦︎
   Praised be the God of my salvation,
48  Even the God who vindicates me ♦︎
   and subdues the peoples under me!
49  You that deliver me from my enemies,
      you will set me up above my foes; ♦︎
   from the violent you will deliver me;
50  Therefore will I give you thanks, O Lord, among the nations ♦︎
   and sing praises to your name,
51  To the one who gives great victory to his king ♦︎
   and shows faithful love to his anointed,
      to David and his seed for ever.

The Death of Saul and His Sons

31Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and many fell^* on Mount Gilboa. ²The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. ³The battle pressed hard upon Saul; the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by them. ⁴Then Saul said to his armour-bearer, ‘Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, so that these uncircumcised may not come and thrust me through, and make sport of me.’ But his armour-bearer was unwilling; for he was terrified. So Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. ⁵When his armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. ⁶So Saul and his three sons and his armour-bearer and all his men died together on the same day. ⁷When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their towns and fled; and the Philistines came and occupied them.

8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. ⁹They cut off his head, stripped off his armour, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the houses of their idols and to the people. ¹⁰They put his armour in the temple of Astarte;^* and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. ¹¹But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, ¹²all the valiant men set out, travelled all night long, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They came to Jabesh and burned them there. ¹³Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted for seven days.

The Collection for Christians at Jerusalem

9Now it is not necessary for me to write to you about the ministry to the saints, ²for I know your eagerness, which is the subject of my boasting about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them. ³But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not prove to have been empty in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be; ⁴otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—in this undertaking.^{* 5}So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you, and arrange in advance for this bountiful gift that you have promised, so that it may be ready as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion.