Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

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.

7 This further message came to me from God:

² “Tell Israel, ‘Wherever you look—east, west, north, or south—your land is finished. ³ No hope remains, for I will loose my anger on you for your worshiping of idols. ⁴ I will turn my eyes away and show no pity; I will repay you in full, and you shall know I am the Lord.’”

^5-6 The Lord God says: “With one blow after another I will finish you. The end has come; your final doom is waiting. ⁷ O Israel, the day of your damnation dawns; the time has come; the day of trouble nears. It is a day of shouts of anguish, not shouts of joy! ^8-9 Soon I will pour out my fury and let it finish its work of punishing you for all your evil deeds. I will not spare nor pity you, and you will know that I, the Lord, am doing it.

⁸ Then the fourth angel poured out his flask upon the sun, causing it to scorch all men with its fire. ⁹ Everyone was burned by this blast of heat, and they cursed the name of God who sent the plagues—they did not change their mind and attitude to give him glory.

¹⁰ Then the fifth angel poured out his flask upon the throne of the Creature from the sea,^[a] and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. And his subjects gnawed their tongues in anguish, ¹¹ and cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores, but they refused to repent of all their evil deeds.

¹² The sixth angel poured out his flask upon the great River Euphrates and it dried up so that the kings from the east could march their armies westward without hindrance. ¹³ And I saw three evil spirits disguised as frogs leap from the mouth of the Dragon, the Creature, and his False Prophet.^{[b] 14} These miracle-working demons conferred with all the rulers of the world to gather them for battle against the Lord on that great coming Judgment Day of God Almighty.

¹⁵ “Take note: I will come as unexpectedly as a thief! Blessed are all who are awaiting me, who keep their robes in readiness and will not need to walk naked and ashamed.”

¹⁶ And they gathered all the armies of the world near a place called, in Hebrew, Armageddon—the Mountain of Megiddo.

¹⁷ Then the seventh angel poured out his flask into the air; and a mighty shout came from the throne of the temple in heaven, saying, “It is finished!”^{[c] 18} Then the thunder crashed and rolled, and lightning flashed; and there was a great earthquake of a magnitude unprecedented in human history. ¹⁹ The great city of “Babylon” split into three sections, and cities around the world fell in heaps of rubble; and so all of “Babylon’s” sins were remembered in God’s thoughts, and she was punished to the last drop of anger in the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. ²⁰ And islands vanished, and mountains flattened out, ²¹ and there was an incredible hailstorm from heaven; hailstones weighing a hundred pounds fell from the sky onto the people below, and they cursed God because of the terrible hail.