Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A prayer of Moses, God's servant.
God lives for ever![a]
90 Lord, from long ago,
you have always been a safe home for us.[b]
2 From before the mountains began,
and before you made the world,
you were already there, as God.
You have no beginning and no end.
3 People return to dust in the ground when they die.
You say, ‘Become dust again, you people.’[c]
4 For you, a thousand years is only a short time.
They pass as quickly as a day for you,
or just a few hours in the night.
5 You cause people's lives to end,
as a dream finishes when you wake up.
People are like grass that appears in the morning.
6 During the morning, it grows well.
By the evening,
it becomes dry and it dies.
7 Your anger destroys us,
and we become very afraid.
8 All our sins are there for you to see.
You even see the sins that we have tried to hide.
9 Your anger gives us trouble all through our lives.
Then our lives end in a short groan.
10 The number of our days make 70 years,
or maybe 80 years if we are strong enough.
But even in the best years of our lives,
we have trouble and pain.
Our lives quickly pass,
and we hurry towards death.
11 Lord, nobody knows all the power of your anger.
It is your anger that causes people to be afraid of you.
12 Teach us to count carefully the days of our short lives.
Then we will be wise in how we live.
The day has come for the Lord to punish Israel
7 The Lord gave this message to me: 2 ‘Son of man, this is what I, the Almighty Lord, say to the land of Israel: The end is now here! I will soon destroy the whole land. 3 The time has come for your final punishment! You will know that I am very angry with you. I will punish you because of the bad way that you have lived. You will receive the punishment that you deserve for all the disgusting things that you have done. 4 I will not be sorry for you. I will not be kind to you. I will punish you as you deserve. You have done disgusting things. So I will punish you and you will know that I am the Lord.
5 This is what the Almighty Lord says: Terrible trouble is coming to you! It will be worse than any other trouble. 6 The end has now come! It is finally here to destroy you! Look out! 7 You people who live in the land will now receive terrible punishment. The day for that to happen is very near. There will be no more sound of happy parties on the mountains. Instead there will be shouts of fear. 8 Very soon, I will punish you because of my great anger. You will know how angry I am. I will judge you for the way that you have lived. I will punish you as you deserve for the disgusting things that you have done. 9 I will not be sorry for you. I will not be kind to you. I will punish you as you deserve, because of the disgusting things that you have done. Then you will know that I, the Lord, am causing you pain.
8 Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun. God gave authority to the sun so that it burned people with fire. 9 The strong heat burned people and it hurt them very much. As a result, they said bad things against God's name, because he had the power to cause these terrible troubles. But they refused to change how they lived. They refused to agree that God is great.
10 Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the wild animal. As a result, the whole kingdom that the wild animal ruled became dark. People were biting their tongues because of their great pain. 11 They cursed the God of heaven because of their pain and because of the sores on their skin. But they did not stop doing bad things.
12 Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great Euphrates river. As a result, the river became dry. This prepared a way for kings from the east to march across it. 13 Then I saw three bad spirits that looked like frogs. One bad spirit came out of the dragon's mouth.[a] Another one came out of the first wild animal's mouth. The third one came out of the false prophet's mouth.[b] 14 Those bad spirits are the spirits of demons. They had the power to do miracles. They went to all the rulers in the whole world, to bring them together to fight in a big war. That war will happen on the great day of God, who has all power and authority.
15 The Lord says: ‘Listen! I will come secretly, like someone who robs people. If you continue to watch carefully, you will be happy. Keep your clothes with you all the time. Then, when I come, you will not be ashamed because you have no clothes.’[c]
16 Then the bad spirits brought the rulers together to fight in the big war. They came to the place that is called Armageddon in the Hebrew language.
17 Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air. A voice spoke loudly from the throne in God's house. The voice said, ‘Now it has happened!’ 18 There was a great storm, with bright lightning and loud noises of thunder. The ground shook with a strong earthquake. The earthquake was stronger than anything that had happened since people first lived on the earth. 19 As a result, the great city of Babylon broke into three parts. When the ground shook, it also destroyed the big cities of other nations in the world. God did not forget the evil things that the people of the great city of Babylon had done. So they had to drink wine from the cup of God's great anger.
20 When the ground shook, every island in the sea disappeared. There were no more mountains anywhere. 21 Strong rain with stones of ice fell from the sky. The stones hit people and caused them great pain. The weight of each stone was about 50 kilograms. The people cursed God because the strong rain and the stones of ice caused them to have such terrible pain.[d]
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