Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

123 ⁽⁰⁾ A song of ascents:

⁽¹⁾ I raise my eyes to you,
whose throne is in heaven.
² As a servant looks to the hand of his master,
or a slave-girl to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes turn to Adonai our God,
until he has mercy on us.

³ Have mercy on us, Adonai, have mercy;
for we have had our fill of contempt,
⁴ more than our fill of scorn from the complacent
and contempt from the arrogant.

² “My thoughts are pressing me to answer;
I feel such an urge to speak!
³ I have heard reproof that outrages me,
but a spirit past my understanding gives me a reply.

⁴ “Don’t you know that ever since time began,
ever since humans were placed on earth,
⁵ that the triumph of the wicked is always short-lived,
and the joy of the ungodly is gone in a moment?
⁶ His pride may mount to the heavens,
his head may touch the clouds;
⁷ but he will vanish completely, like his own dung —
those who used to see him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
⁸ Like a dream he flies off and is not found again;
like a vision in the night he is chased away.
⁹ The eye which once saw him will see him no more,
his place will not behold him again.
¹⁰ His children will have to pay back the poor;
his hands will restore their wealth.
¹¹ His bones may be filled with [the vigor of] his youth,
but it will join him lying in the dust.