Psalm 18:4-18

GOD’S WORD Translation

⁴ The ropes of death had become tangled around me.
The torrents of destruction had overwhelmed me.
⁵ The ropes of the grave had surrounded me.
The clutches of death had confronted me.

⁶ I called on the Lord in my distress.
I cried to my God for help.
He heard my voice from his temple,
and my cry for help reached his ears.

⁷ Then the earth shook and quaked.
Even the foundations of the mountains trembled.
They shook violently because he was angry.
⁸ Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and a raging fire came out of his mouth.
Glowing coals flared up from it.
⁹ He spread apart the heavens
and came down with a dark cloud under his feet.
¹⁰ He rode on one of the angels ^[a] as he flew,
and he soared on the wings of the wind.
¹¹ He made the darkness his hiding place,
the dark rain clouds his covering.
¹² Out of the brightness in front of him,
those rain clouds passed by with hailstones and lightning.
¹³ The Lord thundered in the heavens.
The Most High made his voice heard with hailstones and lightning.
¹⁴ He shot his arrows and scattered them.
He flashed streaks of lightning and threw them into confusion.
¹⁵ Then the ocean floor could be seen.
The foundations of the earth were laid bare
at your stern warning, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath from your nostrils.

¹⁶ He reached down from high above and took hold of me.
He pulled me out of the raging water.
¹⁷ He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
because they were too strong for me.
¹⁸ On the day when I faced disaster, they confronted me,
but the Lord came to my defense.