The LORD Is My Rock
(2 Samuel 22:1–51)

1Unto the end. For David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke the words of this canticle to the Lord, in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. And he said: I will love you, O Lord my strength.

2The Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my liberator. My God is my helper, and I hope in him: my protector, and the horn of my salvation, and my support.

3Praising, I will call upon the Lord. And I will be saved from my enemies.

4The sorrows of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity dismayed me.

5The sorrows of Hell encompassed me, and the snares of death intercepted me.

6In my tribulation, I called upon the Lord, and I cried out to my God. And he listened to my voice from his holy temple. And my cry in his presence entered into his ears.

7The earth was shaken, and it trembled. The foundations of the mountains were disturbed, and they were shaken, because he was angry with them.

8A smoke ascended by his wrath, and a fire flared up from his face: coals were kindled by it.

9He bent the heavens, and they descended. And darkness was under his feet.

10And he ascended upon the cherubim, and he flew: he flew upon the feathers of the winds.

11And he set darkness as his hiding place, with his tabernacle all around him: dark waters in the clouds of the air.

12At the brightness that was before his sight, the clouds crossed by, with hail and coals of fire.

13And the Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice: hail and coals of fire.

14And he sent forth his arrows and scattered them. He multiplied lightnings, and he set them in disarray.

15Then the fountains of waters appeared, and the foundations of the world were revealed, by your rebuke, O Lord, by the inspiration of the Spirit of your wrath.

16He sent from on high, and he accepted me. And he took me up, out of many waters.

17He rescued me from my strongest enemies, and from those who hated me. For they had been too strong for me.

18They intercepted me in the day of my affliction, and the Lord became my protector.

19And he led me out, into a wide place. He accomplished my salvation, because he willed me.

20And the Lord will reward me according to my justice, and he will repay me according to the purity of my hands.

21For I have preserved the ways of the Lord, and I have not behaved impiously before my God.

22For all his judgments are in my sight, and his justice, I have not pushed away from me.

23And I will be immaculate together with him, and I will keep myself from my iniquity.

24And the Lord will reward me according to my justice and according to the purity of my hands before his eyes.

25With the holy, you will be holy, and with the innocent, you will be innocent,

26and with the elect, you will be elect, and with the perverse, you will be perverse.

27For you will save the humble people, but you will bring down the eyes of the arrogant.

28For you illuminate my lamp, O Lord. My God, enlighten my darkness.

29For in you, I will be delivered from temptation; and with my God, I will climb over a wall.

30As for my God, his way is undefiled. The eloquence of the Lord has been examined by fire. He is the protector of all who hope in him.

31For who is God, except the Lord? And who is God, except our God?

32It is God who has wrapped me with virtue and made my way immaculate.

33It is he who has perfected my feet, like the feet of deer, and who stations me upon the heights.

34It is he who trains my hands for battle. And you have set my arms like a bow of brass.

35And you have given me the protection of your salvation. And your right hand sustains me. And your discipline has corrected me unto the end. And your discipline itself will teach me.

36You have expanded my footsteps under me, and my tracks have not been weakened.

37I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them. And I will not turn back until they have failed.

38I will break them, and they will not be able to stand. They will fall under my feet.

39And you have wrapped me with virtue for the battle. And those rising up against me, you have subdued under me.

40And you have given the back of my enemies to me, and you have destroyed those who hated me.

41They cried out, but there was none to save them, to the Lord, but he did not heed them.

42And I will crush them into dust before the face of the wind, so that I will obliterate them like the mud in the streets.

43You will rescue me from the contradictions of the people. You will set me at the head of the Gentiles.

44A people I did not know has served me. As soon as their ears heard, they were obedient to me.

45The sons of foreigners have been deceitful to me, the sons of foreigners have grown weak with time, and they have wavered from their paths.

46The Lord lives, and blessed is my God, and may the God of my salvation be exalted:

47O God, who vindicates me and who subdues the people under me, my liberator from my enraged enemies.

48And you will exalt me above those who rise up against me. From the iniquitous man, you will rescue me.

49Because of this, O Lord, I will confess to you among the nations, and I will compose a psalm to your name:

50magnifying the salvation of his king, and showing mercy to David, his Christ, and to his offspring, even for all time.