Grace Abounds Where Sin Increased

1. David spoke to Yahweh the words of this song in the day that Yahweh delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul, 2. and he said: “Yahweh is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, even mine; 3. God is my rock in whom I take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge. My savior, you save me from violence. 4. I call on Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies. 5. For the waves of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid. 6. The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death caught me. 7. In my distress, I called on Yahweh. Yes, I called to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry came into his ears. 8. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven quaked and were shaken, because he was angry. 9. Smoke went up out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it. 10. He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. 11. He rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he was seen on the wings of the wind. 12. He made darkness a shelter around himself: gathering of waters, and thick clouds of the skies. 13. At the brightness before him, coals of fire were kindled. 14. Yahweh thundered from heaven. The Most High uttered his voice. 15. He sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and confused them. 16. Then the channels of the sea appeared. The foundations of the world were laid bare by Yahweh’s rebuke, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. 17. He sent from on high and he took me. He drew me out of many waters. 18. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 19. They came on me in the day of my calamity, but Yahweh was my support. 20. He also brought me out into a large place. He delivered me, because he delighted in me. 21. Yahweh rewarded me according to my righteousness. He rewarded me according to the cleanness of my hands. 22. For I have kept Yahweh’s ways, and have not wickedly departed from my God. 23. For all his ordinances were before me. As for his statutes, I did not depart from them. 24. I was also perfect toward him. I kept myself from my iniquity. 25. Therefore Yahweh has rewarded me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness in his eyesight. 26. With the merciful you will show yourself merciful. With the perfect man you will show yourself perfect. 27. With the pure you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd. 28. You will save the afflicted people, But your eyes are on the haughty, that you may bring them down. 29. For you are my lamp, Yahweh. Yahweh will light up my darkness. 30. For by you, I run against a troop. By my God, I leap over a wall. 31. As for God, his way is perfect. Yahweh’s word is tested. He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him. 32. For who is God, besides Yahweh? Who is a rock, besides our God? 33. God is my strong fortress. He makes my way perfect. 34. He makes his feet like hinds’ feet, and sets me on my high places. 35. He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms bend a bow of brass. 36. You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your gentleness has made me great. 37. You have enlarged my steps under me. My feet have not slipped. 38. I have pursued my enemies and destroyed them. I didn’t turn again until they were consumed. 39. I have consumed them, and struck them through, so that they can’t arise. Yes, they have fallen under my feet. 40. For you have armed me with strength for the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me. 41. You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me. 42. They looked, but there was no one to save; even to Yahweh, but he didn’t answer them. 43. Then I beat them as small as the dust of the earth. I crushed them as the mire of the streets, and spread them abroad. 44. You also have delivered me from the strivings of my people. You have kept me to be the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known will serve me. 45. The foreigners will submit themselves to me. As soon as they hear of me, they will obey me. 46. The foreigners will fade away, and will come trembling out of their close places. 47. Yahweh lives! Blessed be my rock! Exalted be God, the rock of my salvation, 48. even the God who executes vengeance for me, who brings down peoples under me, 49. who brings me away from my enemies. Yes, you lift me up above those who rise up against me. You deliver me from the violent man. 50. Therefore I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations, and will sing praises to your name. 51. He gives great deliverance to his king, and shows loving kindness to his anointed, to David and to his offspring, forever more.” 1. Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse says, the man who was raised on high says, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel: 2. “Yahweh’s Spirit spoke by me. His word was on my tongue. 3. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, ‘One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, 4. shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth, through clear shining after rain.’ 5. Isn’t my house so with God? Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he doesn’t make it grow. 6. But all the ungodly will be as thorns to be thrust away, because they can’t be taken with the hand, 7. But the man who touches them must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear. They will be utterly burned with fire in their place.” 8. These are the names of the mighty men whom David had: Josheb Basshebeth a Tahchemonite, chief of the captains; the same was Adino the Eznite, against eight hundred slain at one time. 9. After him was Eleazar the son of Dodai the son of an Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines who were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel had gone away. 10. He arose and struck the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand froze to the sword; and Yahweh worked a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to take plunder. 11. After him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite. The Philistines had gathered together into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines. 12. But he stood in the middle of the plot and defended it, and killed the Philistines; and Yahweh worked a great victory. 13. Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim. 14. David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. 15. David longed, and said, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!” 16. The three mighty men broke through the army of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David; but he would not drink of it, but poured it out to Yahweh. 17. He said, “Be it far from me, Yahweh, that I should do this! Isn’t this the blood of the men who risked their lives to go?” Therefore he would not drink it. The three mighty men did these things. 18. Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief of the three. He lifted up his spear against three hundred and killed them, and had a name among the three. 19. Wasn’t he most honorable of the three? therefore he was made their captain. However he wasn’t included as one of the three. 20. Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit in a time of snow. 21. He killed a huge Egyptian, and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and killed him with his own spear. 22. Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did these things, and had a name among the three mighty men. 23. He was more honorable than the thirty, but he didn’t attain to the three. David set him over his guard. 24. Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty: Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, 25. Shammah the Harodite, Elika the Harodite, 26. Helez the Paltite, Ira the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite, 27. Abiezer the Anathothite, Mebunnai the Hushathite, 28. Zalmon the Ahohite, Maharai the Netophathite, 29. Heleb the son of Baanah the Netophathite, Ittai the son of Ribai of Gibeah of the children of Benjamin, 30. Benaiah a Pirathonite, Hiddai of the brooks of Gaash. 31. Abialbon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite, 32. Eliahba the Shaalbonite, the sons of Jashen, Jonathan, 33. Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Ararite, 34. Eliphelet the son of Ahasbai, the son of the Maacathite, Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite, 35. Hezro the Carmelite, Paarai the Arbite, 36. Igal the son of Nathan of Zobah, Bani the Gadite, 37. Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, armor bearers to Joab the son of Zeruiah, 38. Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite, 39. and Uriah the Hittite: thirty-seven in all. 1. Again Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.” 2. The king said to Joab the captain of the army, who was with him, “Now go back and forth through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the sum of the people.” 3. Joab said to the king, “Now may Yahweh your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” 4. Notwithstanding, the king’s word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the army. Joab and the captains of the army went out from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel. 5. They passed over the Jordan, and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer; 6. then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan, and around to Sidon, 7. and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba. 8. So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. 9. Joab gave up the sum of the counting of the people to the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men. 10. David’s heart struck him after he had counted the people. David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.” 11. When David rose up in the morning, Yahweh’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, 12. “Go and speak to David, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’” 13. So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” 14. David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.” 15. So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba. 16. When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17. David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.” 18. Gad came that day to David, and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19. David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded. 20. Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. 21. Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.” 22. Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing instruments and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23. All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.” 24. The king said to Araunah, “No; but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25. David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.

1. Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2. through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; 4. and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: 5. and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6. For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7. For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. 8. But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life. 11. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. 12. Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned. 13. For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law. 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come. 15. But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16. The gift is not as through one who sinned: for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses to justification. 17. For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. 18. So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. 19. For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous. 20. The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly; 21. that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2. May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? 3. Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4. We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; 6. knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. 7. For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him; 9. knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him! 10. For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. 11. Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace. 15. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be! 16. Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17. But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. 18. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. 19. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. 20. For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22. But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life. 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 1. Or don’t you know, brothers (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? 2. For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3. So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4. Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might produce fruit to God. 5. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death. 6. But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8. But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9. I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10. The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death; 11. for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12. Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good. 13. Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was producing death in me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceedingly sinful. 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15. For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. 19. For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. 20. But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21. I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22. For I delight in God’s law after the inward man, 23. but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, the sin’s law. 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3. For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4. that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7. because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8. Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. 9. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10. If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11. But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 12. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13. For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15. For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17. and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. 18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. 19. For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21. that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. 22. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. 24. For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? 25. But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience. 26. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can’t be uttered. 27. He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit’s mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God. 28. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. 29. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30. Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified. 31. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32. He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? 33. Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. 34. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36. Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” 37. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39. nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1. Deliver me, Yahweh, from the evil man. Preserve me from the violent man; 2. those who devise mischief in their hearts. They continually gather themselves together for war. 3. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent. Viper’s poison is under their lips. Selah. 4. Yahweh, keep me from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the violent men who have determined to trip my feet. 5. The proud have hidden a snare for me, they have spread the cords of a net by the path. They have set traps for me. Selah. 6. I said to Yahweh, “You are my God.” Listen to the cry of my petitions, Yahweh. 7. Yahweh, the Lord, the strength of my salvation, you have covered my head in the day of battle. 8. Yahweh, don’t grant the desires of the wicked. Don’t let their evil plans succeed, or they will become proud. Selah. 9. As for the head of those who surround me, let the mischief of their own lips cover them. 10. Let burning coals fall on them. Let them be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, from where they never rise. 11. An evil speaker won’t be established in the earth. Evil will hunt the violent man to overthrow him. 12. I know that Yahweh will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the needy. 13. Surely the righteous will give thanks to your name. The upright will dwell in your presence.