⁽¹⁾ Adonai, you have been our dwelling place
in every generation.
² Before the mountains were born,
before you had formed the earth and the world,
from eternity past to eternity future
you are God.

³ You bring frail mortals to the point of being crushed,
then say, “People, repent!”
⁴ For from your viewpoint a thousand years
are merely like yesterday or a night watch.
⁵ When you sweep them away, they become like sleep;
by morning they are like growing grass,
⁶ growing and flowering in the morning,
but by evening cut down and dried up.

⁷ For we are destroyed by your anger,
overwhelmed by your wrath.
⁸ You have placed our faults before you,
our secret sins in the full light of your presence.

⁹ All our days ebb away under your wrath;
our years die away like a sigh.
¹⁰ The span of our life is seventy years,
or if we are strong, eighty;
yet at best it is toil and sorrow,
over in a moment, and then we are gone.

¹¹ Who grasps the power of your anger and wrath
to the degree that the fear due you should inspire?
¹² So teach us to count our days,
so that we will become wise.

¹³ Return, Adonai! How long must it go on?
Take pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Fill us at daybreak with your love,
so that we can sing for joy as long as we live.
¹⁵ Let our joy last as long as the time you made us suffer,
for as many years as we experienced trouble.

¹⁶ Show your deeds to your servants
and your glory to their children.
¹⁷ May the favor of Adonai our God be on us,
prosper for us all the work that we do —
yes, prosper the work that we do.

66 “Heaven is my throne,” says Adonai,
“and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house could you build for me?
What sort of place could you devise for my rest?
² Didn’t I myself make all these things?
This is how they all came to be,”

says Adonai.

“The kind of person on whom I look with favor
is one with a poor and humble spirit,
who trembles at my word.
³ Those others might as well kill a person as an ox,
as well break a dog’s neck as sacrifice a lamb,
as well offer pig’s blood as offer a grain offering,
as well bless an idol as burn incense.
Just as these have chosen their ways
and enjoy their disgusting practices,
⁴ so I will enjoy making fools of them,
and bring on them the very things they fear.
For when I called, no one answered;
when I spoke, they did not hear.
Instead they did what was evil in my sight
and chose what did not please me.”

⁵ Hear the word of Adonai,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers, who hate you and reject you
because of my name, have said:
‘Let Adonai be glorified,
so we can see your joy.’
But they will be put to shame.”
⁶ That uproar in the city,
that sound from the temple,
is the sound of Adonai repaying
his foes what they deserve.

⁷ Before going into labor, she gave birth;
before her pains came, she delivered a male child.
⁸ Who ever heard of such a thing?
Who has ever seen such things?
Is a country born in one day?
Is a nation brought forth all at once?
For as soon as Tziyon went into labor,
she brought forth her children.
⁹ “Would I let the baby break through
and not be born?” asks Adonai.
“Would I, who cause the birth,
shut the womb?” asks your God.

¹⁰ Rejoice with Yerushalayim!
Be glad with her, all you who love her!
Rejoice, rejoice with her,
all of you who mourned for her;
¹¹ so that you nurse and are satisfied
by her comforting breast,
drinking deeply and delighting
in the overflow of her glory.

¹² For Adonai says, “I will spread shalom
over her like a river,
and the wealth of nations
like a flooding stream;
you will nurse and be carried in her arm
and cuddled in her lap.
¹³ Like someone comforted by his mother,
I will comfort you;
in Yerushalayim
you will be comforted.”

¹⁴ Your heart will rejoice at the sight,
your bodies will flourish like newly sprouted grass.
It will be known that the hand of Adonai
is with his servants; but with his enemies, his fury.

¹⁵ For — look! — Adonai will come in fire,
and his chariots will be like the whirlwind,
to render his anger furiously,
his rebuke with blazing fire.
¹⁶ For Adonai will judge all humanity
with fire and with the sword,
and those slain by Adonai will be many.

¹⁷ “Those who consecrate and purify themselves
in order to enter the gardens,
then follow the one who was already there,
eating pig meat, reptiles and mice,
will all be destroyed together,” says Adonai.
¹⁸ “For I [know] their deeds and their thoughts.

²³ “Every month on Rosh-Hodesh
and every week on Shabbat,
everyone living will come
to worship in my presence,” says Adonai.
²⁴ “As they leave, they will look on the corpses
of the people who rebelled against me.
For their worm will never die,
and their fire will never be quenched;
but they will be abhorrent
to all humanity.”

[“Every month on Rosh-Hodesh
and every week on Shabbat,
everyone living will come
to worship in my presence,” says Adonai.]