Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

90 The prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, thou art made (a) help to us; from generation into generation. (Lord, thou hast helped us; from generation unto generation.)

² Before that (the) hills were made, either the earth and the world was formed; from the world and into the world, thou art God (forever and ever, thou art God).

³ Turn thou not away a man into lowness; and thou saidest, Ye sons of men, be turned again. (Thou hast turned people back to the lowness from whence they came; yea, thou sayest, Ye sons and daughters of men, return to dust.)

⁴ For a thousand years be before thine eyes; as yesterday, which is passed, and as [the] keeping in the night. (For in thine eyes a thousand years be like yesterday, which is just passed; yea, as fleeting as the night watch.)

⁵ The years of them shall be; that be had for nought. Early pass he, as an herb, (And their years shall be as if nothing. In the morning they shall come forth, like a blade of grass,)

⁶ early flourish he, and pass; in the eventide fall he down, be he hard, and wax he dry. (yea, that flourisheth in the morning, and groweth up; and then, in the evening, it falleth down, and hardeneth, and groweth dry.)

⁷ For we have failed in thine ire; and we be troubled in thy strong vengeance. (For we be brought to an end by thy anger; and we be dis-eased, or distressed, by thy fury.)

⁸ Thou hast set our wickednesses in thy sight; our world in the lightening of thy cheer. (Thou hast set our wickednesses before thee; our secret sins in the full light of thy face.)

⁹ For all our days have failed; and we have failed in thine ire. Our years (we) shall bethink upon as a spider; (For all our days be brought to an end by thy anger. All our years we shall remember as but a whisper;)

¹⁰ the days of our years be those seventy years. Forsooth, if fourscore years/if eighty years be in mighty men; and (yet) the more time of them is travail and sorrow. For mildness came above; and we shall be chastised. (and the days of our years be those seventy years. For strong people, they be eighty years; yet most of that time is trouble, or labour, and sorrow. For life is short; and then we be gone.)

¹¹ Who knew the power of thine ire; and durst number thine ire for thy dread? (Who knoweth the power of thy anger? and who knoweth thy anger better than those who fear thee?)

¹² Make thy right hand so known; and make men learned in heart by wisdom. (Make thy right hand, or thy power, known to us/Teach us that our days be short; and so make people learned in their hearts with thy wisdom.)

¹⁰ Lo! the day, lo! it cometh; sorrow is gone out. A rod flowered, pride burgeoned,

¹¹ wickedness rose (up) in the rod of unpiety; not (anything) of them (shall remain), and not of the people, neither of the sound of them, and no rest shall be in them.

¹² The time cometh, the day nighed; he that buyeth, be not glad, and he that selleth, mourn not (he who buyeth, be not happy, and he who selleth, mourn not); for why (my) ire is on all the people thereof.

¹³ For he that selleth, shall not turn again to that that he sold, and yet the life of them is in livers (For he who selleth, shall not return to what he sold, and yet their life is in the living); for why the vision, either revelation, to all the multitude thereof shall not go again, and a man shall not be strengthened in the wickedness of his life.

¹⁴ Sing ye with a trump, all men be made ready, and none is that shall go to battle (but no one shall go out to battle); for why my wrath is on all the people thereof.

¹⁵ Sword is without, pestilence and hunger within; he that is in the field, shall die by sword; and they that be in the city, shall be devoured by pestilence and hunger. (The sword is outside, pestilence and famine within; he who is in the field, shall die by sword; and they who be in the city, shall be devoured by pestilence and famine.)

¹⁶ And they shall be saved that flee of them; and they shall be as (the) culvers of great valleys in [the] hills, all-quaking, each man in his wickedness. (But those of them who flee shall be saved; and they shall be on the great hills, like the doves of the valleys, all-shaking, or trembling, each person in their wickedness.)

¹⁷ All hands shall be benumbed, and all knees shall flow with waters. (Every hand shall be numb, or be limp, and every knee shall tremble and sweat.)

¹⁸ And they shall gird them with hair-shirts, and inward dread shall cover them; and shame shall be in each face, and baldness shall be in all the heads of them. (And they shall gird themselves with hair-shirts, and inward fear shall cause them to tremble; and shame shall be on every face, and baldness shall be on all their heads.)

¹⁹ The silver of them shall be cast out, and the gold of them shall be into a dunghill; the silver of them and the gold of them shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the strong vengeance of the Lord. They shall not [ful]fill their soul(s), and the wombs of them shall not be filled; for it is made the cause of stumbling (out) of their wickedness.

²⁰ And they setted the ornament of their brooches into pride; and they made of it the images of their abominations and simulacra. For this thing I gave it to them, into uncleanness.

²¹ And I shall give it into the hands of aliens, to ravish, and to the unpious men of (the) earth, into prey, and they shall defoul it. (And I shall give it into the hands of strangers, or of foreigners, to rob, and to the unpious of the earth, for prey, and they shall defile it.)

²² And I shall turn away my face from them, and they shall defoul my private (place); and knaves shall enter into it, and shall defoul it.

²³ Make thou a closing together; for the land is full of doom of bloods (for the land is full of the judgement of bloodshed), and the city is full of wickedness.

²⁴ And I shall bring (in) the worst of heathen men, and they shall have in possession the houses of them; and I shall make the pride of mighty men to cease, and enemies shall have in possession the saintuaries of them. (And I shall bring in the worst of the heathen, and they shall take possession of their houses; and I shall make the pride of the mighty to cease, and their enemies shall take possession of their sanctuaries.)

²⁵ In anguish coming above (In anguish coming upon them), they shall seek peace, and it shall not be.

²⁶ Disturbing shall come on disturbing, and hearing on hearing; and they shall seek of the prophet a revelation, and (the) law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elder men. (Disturbance, or trouble, shall come upon disturbance, and rumour upon rumour/and bad news upon bad news; and they shall seek a revelation, or a vision, from the prophet, but teaching shall perish from the priest, and counsel, or good advice, from the elders.)

²⁷ The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed in wailing, and the hands of the people of the land shall be disturbed; by the way(s) of them I shall do to them, and by the dooms of them I shall deem them (I shall do to them by their own ways, and I shall judge them with their own judgements); and they shall know, that I am the Lord.

⁴³ When an unclean spirit goeth out from a man, he goeth by dry places, seeking rest, and findeth not.^[a]

⁴⁴ Then he saith, I shall turn again into mine house, from whence I went out [Then he saith, I shall turn again into my house, from whence I came out]. And he cometh, and findeth it void, and cleansed with besoms, and made fair.

⁴⁵ Then he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits worse than himself; and they enter [in], and dwell there. And the last things of that man be made worse than the former. So it shall be [and] to this worst generation.