Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

¹ ¶ Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation.

² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

³ Thou dost turn unto man until he is broken and thou saith, Become converted, ye sons of Adam.

⁴ For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night.

⁵ Thou dost cause them to pass by as the waters of a river; they are as a dream, which is strong in the morning like grass.

⁶ In the morning it blossoms and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers.

⁷ ¶ For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath we are troubled.

⁸ Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

⁹ For all our days decline because of thy wrath; we end our years according to the word.

¹⁰ The days of our years are seventy, and of the most valiant eighty years, yet their strength is labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

¹¹ Who knows the power of thine anger? that thy wrath is not less than our fear.

¹² ¶ Cause us to learn this that we might number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

¹⁰ Behold the day, behold, it comes; the morning is gone forth; the rod has blossomed; pride has budded.

¹¹ Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; nothing shall remain of them, nor of their riches, nor of anything of theirs; neither shall there be lamentation for them.

¹² The time is come, the day draws near; do not let the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

¹³ For the seller shall not return to that which is sold although they remain alive, for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof and shall not be cancelled; neither shall any in the iniquity of his life strengthen himself.

¹⁴ They shall blow the trumpet and make everything ready, but there shall be no one to go forth to the battle, for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

¹⁵ The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within; he that is in the field shall die with the sword, and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

¹⁶ ¶ And those that escape of them shall be upon the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, each one for his iniquity.

¹⁷ All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.

¹⁸ They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and trembling shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.

¹⁹ They shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold far from them their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels because it shall be the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

²⁰ Because they turned the glory of his ornament into pride and made in her the images of their abominations of their statues; therefore I have set it far from them.

²¹ And I gave it into the hands of the strangers for a prey and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.

²² I will also turn my face from them, and they shall pollute my secret place, for the destroyers shall enter into it and defile it.

²³ ¶ Make a chain, for the land is full of bloody judgments, and the city is full of violence.

²⁴ Therefore I will bring the worst of all the Gentiles, and they shall possess their houses; I will also cause the arrogance of the strong to cease; and their sanctuaries shall be defiled.

²⁵ A cutting off comes, and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.

²⁶ Destruction shall come upon destruction, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then they shall seek an answer from the prophet, but the law shall perish from the priest and counsel from the elders.

²⁷ The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their judgments I will judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

⁴³ When the unclean spirit is gone out of the man, it walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.

⁴⁴ Then it says, I will return into my house from which I came out; and when it is come, it finds it empty, swept, and garnished.

⁴⁵ Then it goes and takes with itself seven other spirits worse than itself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it also be unto this wicked generation.