Book of Common Prayer

90 A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! ² Before the mountains were created, before the earth was formed, you are God without beginning or end.

³ You speak, and man turns back to dust. ⁴ A thousand years are but as yesterday to you! They are like a single hour!^{[a] 5-6} We glide along the tides of time as swiftly as a racing river and vanish as quickly as a dream. We are like grass that is green in the morning but mowed down and withered before the evening shadows fall. ⁷ We die beneath your anger; we are overwhelmed by your wrath. ⁸ You spread out our sins before you—our secret sins—and see them all. ⁹ No wonder the years are long and heavy here beneath your wrath. All our days are filled with sighing.

¹⁰ Seventy years are given us! And some may even live to eighty. But even the best of these years are often empty and filled with pain; soon they disappear, and we are gone. ¹¹ Who can realize the terrors of your anger? Which of us can fear you as he should?

¹² Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.

¹³ O Jehovah, come and bless us! How long will you delay? Turn away your anger from us. ¹⁴ Satisfy us in our earliest^[b] youth with your loving-kindness, giving us constant joy to the end of our lives. ¹⁵ Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. ¹⁶ Let us see your miracles again; let our children see glorious things, the kind you used to do, ¹⁷ and let the Lord our God favor us and give us success. May he give permanence to all we do.

¹⁵ Your name shall be a curse word among my people, for the Lord God will slay you and call his true servants by another name.^[a]

¹⁶ And yet, the days will come^[b] when all who invoke a blessing or take an oath shall swear by the God of Truth; for I will put aside my anger and forget the evil that you did. ¹⁷ For see, I am creating new heavens and a new earth—so wonderful that no one will even think about the old ones anymore. ¹⁸ Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation. Look! I will re-create Jerusalem as a place of happiness, and her people shall be a joy! ¹⁹ And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and in my people; and the voice of weeping and crying shall not be heard there anymore.

²⁰ No longer will babies die when only a few days old; no longer will men be considered old at 100! Only sinners will die that young! ^21-22 In those days, when a man builds a house, he will keep on living in it—it will not be destroyed by invading armies as in the past. My people will plant vineyards and eat the fruit themselves—their enemies will not confiscate it. For my people will live as long as trees and will long enjoy their hard-won gains. ²³ Their harvests will not be eaten by their enemies; their children will not be born to be cannon fodder. For they are the children of those the Lord has blessed; and their children, too, shall be blessed. ²⁴ I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking to me about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers! ²⁵ The wolf and lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw as the ox does, and poisonous snakes shall strike no more!^[c] In those days nothing and no one shall be hurt or destroyed in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

21 Then I saw a new earth (with no oceans!) and a new sky, for the present earth and sky had disappeared. ² And I, John, saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. It was a glorious sight, beautiful as a bride at her wedding.

³ I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, “Look, the home of God is now among men, and he will live with them and they will be his people; yes, God himself will be among them.^{[a] 4} He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever.”

⁵ And the one sitting on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true: ⁶ It is finished! I am the A and the Z—the Beginning and the End. I will give to the thirsty the springs of the Water of Life—as a gift!