Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals^[a] that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,^[b]
    and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

²² ‘Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
    or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
²³ which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
    for the day of battle and war?
²⁴ What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
    or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

²⁵ ‘Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,
    and a way for the thunderbolt,
²⁶ to bring rain on a land where no one lives,
    on the desert, which is empty of human life,
²⁷ to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
    and to make the ground put forth grass?

²⁸ ‘Has the rain a father,
    or who has begotten the drops of dew?
²⁹ From whose womb did the ice come forth,
    and who has given birth to the hoar-frost of heaven?
³⁰ The waters become hard like stone,
    and the face of the deep is frozen.

³¹ ‘Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
    or loose the cords of Orion?
³² Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
    or can you guide the Bear with its children?
³³ Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
    Can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴ ‘Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    so that a flood of waters may cover you?
³⁵ Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
    and say to you, “Here we are”?
³⁶ Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,^[a]
    or given understanding to the mind?^[b]
37 Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
³⁸ when the dust runs into a mass
    and the clods cling together?