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.

^10-11 The day of judgment has come; the morning dawns, for your wickedness and pride have run their course and reached their climax—none of these rich and wicked men of pride shall live. All your boasting will die away, and no one will be left to bewail your fate.

¹² “Yes, the time has come; the day draws near. There will be nothing to buy or sell, for the wrath of God is on the land. ¹³ And even if a merchant lives, his business will be gone, for God has spoken against all the people of Israel; all will be destroyed. Not one of those whose lives are filled with sin will recover.

¹⁴ “The trumpets shout to Israel’s army, ‘Mobilize!’ but no one listens, for my wrath is on them all. ¹⁵ If you go outside the walls, there stands the enemy to kill you. If you stay inside, famine and disease will devour you. ¹⁶ Any who escape will be lonely as mourning doves hiding on the mountains, each weeping for his sins. ¹⁷ All hands shall be feeble, and all knees as weak as water. ¹⁸ You shall clothe yourselves with sackcloth, and horror and shame shall cover you; you shall shave your heads in sorrow and remorse.

¹⁹ “Throw away your money! Toss it out like worthless rubbish, for it will have no value in that day of wrath. It will neither satisfy nor feed you, for your love of money is the reason for your sin. ²⁰ I gave you gold to use in decorating the Temple, and you used it instead to make idols! Therefore, I will take it all away from you. ²¹ I will give it to foreigners and to wicked men as booty. They shall defile my Temple. ²² I will not look when they defile it, nor will I stop them. Like robbers, they will loot the treasures and leave the Temple in ruins.

²³ “Prepare chains for my people, for the land is full of bloody crimes. Jerusalem is filled with violence, so I will enslave her people. ²⁴ I will crush your pride by bringing to Jerusalem the worst of the nations to occupy your homes, break down your fortifications you are so proud of, and defile your Temple. ²⁵ For the time has come for the cutting off of Israel. You will sue for peace, but you won’t get it. ^26-27 Calamity upon calamity will befall you; woe upon woe, disaster upon disaster! You will long for a prophet to guide you, but the priests and elders and the kings and princes will stand helpless, weeping in despair. The people will tremble with fear, for I will do to them the evil they have done and give them all their just deserts. They shall learn that I am the Lord.”

^43-45 “This evil nation is like a man possessed by a demon. For if the demon leaves, it goes into the deserts^[a] for a while, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, ‘I will return to the man I came from.’ So it returns and finds the man’s heart clean but empty! Then the demon finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and all enter the man and live in him. And so he is worse off than before.”