2 Samuel 22; Psalms 144; 1 Corinthians 2

2 Samuel 22

1 David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.

2 He said: “The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

3 my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior— from violent people you save me.

4 “I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and have been saved from my enemies.

5 The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

6 The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.

7 “In my distress I called to the LORD; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears.

8 The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry.

9 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

10 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.

11 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.

12 He made darkness his canopy around him— the dark rain clouds of the sky.

13 Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth.

14 The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.

15 He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them.

16 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils.

17 “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

18 He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

19 They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support.

20 He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

21 “The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I am not guilty of turning from my God.

23 All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees.

24 I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.

25 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.

26 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

27 to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.

28 You save the humble, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.

29 You, LORD, are my lamp; the LORD turns my darkness into light.

30 With your help I can advance against a troop ; with my God I can scale a wall.

31 “As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him.

32 For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?

33 It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.

34 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights.

35 He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

36 You make your saving help my shield; your help has made me great.

37 You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way.

38 “I pursued my enemies and crushed them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed.

39 I crushed them completely, and they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet.

40 You armed me with strength for battle; you humbled my adversaries before me.

41 You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes.

42 They cried for help, but there was no one to save them— to the LORD, but he did not answer.

43 I beat them as fine as the dust of the earth; I pounded and trampled them like mud in the streets.

44 “You have delivered me from the attacks of the peoples; you have preserved me as the head of nations. People I did not know now serve me,

45 foreigners cower before me; as soon as they hear of me, they obey me.

46 They all lose heart; they come trembling from their strongholds.

47 “The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior!

48 He is the God who avenges me, who puts the nations under me,

49 who sets me free from my enemies. You exalted me above my foes; from a violent man you rescued me.

50 Therefore I will praise you, LORD, among the nations; I will sing the praises of your name.

51 “He gives his king great victories; he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.”

Psalms 144

1 Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

2 He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.

3 LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them?

4 They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.

5 Part your heavens, LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, so that they smoke.

6 Send forth lightning and scatter the enemy; shoot your arrows and rout them.

7 Reach down your hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters, from the hands of foreigners

8 whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful.

9 I will sing a new song to you, my God; on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you,

10 to the One who gives victory to kings, who delivers his servant David. From the deadly sword

11 deliver me; rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful.

12 Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.

13 Our barns will be filled with every kind of provision. Our sheep will increase by thousands, by tens of thousands in our fields;

14 our oxen will draw heavy loads.There will be no breaching of walls, no going into captivity, no cry of distress in our streets.

15 Blessed is the people of whom this is true; blessed is the people whose God is the LORD.

1 Corinthians 2

1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.

4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,

5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,

16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.