Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Book Four

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

¹ Lord, You have been our dwelling place and our refuge in all generations [says Moses].

² Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed and given birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

³ You turn man back to dust and corruption, and say, Return, O sons of the earthborn [to the earth]!

⁴ For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.^(A)

⁵ You carry away [these disobedient people, doomed to die within forty years] as with a flood; they are as a sleep [vague and forgotten as soon as they are gone]. In the morning they are like grass which grows up—

⁶ In the morning it flourishes and springs up; in the evening it is mown down and withers.

⁷ For we [the Israelites in the wilderness] are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled, overwhelmed, and frightened away.

⁸ Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.

⁹ For all our days [out here in this wilderness, says Moses] pass away in Your wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told [for we adults know we are doomed to die soon, without reaching Canaan].^(B)

¹⁰ The days of our years are ^[a]threescore years and ten (seventy years)—or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years); yet is their pride [in additional years] only labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away.

¹¹ Who knows the power of Your anger? [Who worthily connects this brevity of life with Your recognition of sin?] And Your wrath, who connects it with the reverent and worshipful fear that is due You?

¹² So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.

¹³ Turn, O Lord [from Your fierce anger]! How long—? Revoke Your sentence and be compassionate and at ease toward Your servants.

¹⁴ O satisfy us with Your mercy and loving-kindness in the morning [now, before we are older], that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

¹⁵ Make us glad in proportion to the days in which You have afflicted us and to the years in which we have suffered evil.

¹⁶ Let Your work [the signs of Your power] be revealed to Your servants, and Your [glorious] majesty to their children.

¹⁷ And let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands—yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it.

17 And the Lord said to Moses,

² Speak to the Israelites and get from them rods or staves, one for each father’s house, from all their leaders according to their father’s houses, twelve rods. Write every man’s name on his rod.

³ And you shall write Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi [his great-grandfather]. For there shall be one rod for the head of each father’s house.

⁴ You shall lay them up in the Tent of Meeting before [the ark of] the Testimony, where I meet with you.

⁵ And the rod of the man whom I choose shall bud, and I will make to cease from Me the murmurings of the Israelites, which they murmur against you.

⁶ And Moses spoke to the Israelites, and every one of their leaders gave him a rod or staff, one for each leader according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods, and the rod of Aaron was among their rods.

⁷ And Moses deposited the rods before the Lord in the Tent of the Testimony.

⁸ And the next day Moses went into the Tent of the Testimony, and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and brought forth buds and produced blossoms and yielded [ripe] almonds.

⁹ Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord to all the Israelites; and they looked, and each man took his rod.

¹⁰ And the Lord told Moses, Put Aaron’s rod back before the Testimony [in the ark], to be kept as a [warning] sign for the rebels; and you shall make an end of their murmurings against Me, lest they die.

¹¹ And Moses did so; as the Lord commanded him, so he did.

3 Beloved, I am now writing you this second letter. In [both of] them I have stirred up your unsullied (sincere) mind by way of remembrance,

² That you should recall the predictions of the holy (consecrated, dedicated) prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior [given] through your apostles (His special messengers).

³ To begin with, you must know and understand this, that scoffers (mockers) will come in the last days with scoffing, [people who] walk after their own fleshly desires

⁴ And say, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the forefathers fell asleep, all things have continued exactly as they did from the beginning of creation.

⁵ For they willfully overlook and forget this [fact], that the heavens [came into] existence long ago by the word of God, and the earth also which was formed out of water and by means of water,

⁶ Through which the world that then [existed] was deluged with water and perished.^(A)

⁷ But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been stored up (reserved) for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly people.

⁸ Nevertheless, do not let this one fact escape you, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.^(B)

⁹ The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will vanish (pass away) with a thunderous crash, and the [^[a]material] elements [of the universe] will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.

¹¹ Since all these things are thus ^[b]in the process of being dissolved, what kind of person ought [each of] you to be [in the meanwhile] in consecrated and holy behavior and devout and godly qualities,

¹² While you wait and earnestly long for (expect and hasten) the coming of the day of God by reason of which the flaming heavens will be dissolved, and the [^[c]material] elements [of the universe] will flare and melt with fire?^(C)

¹³ But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to His promise, in which righteousness (uprightness, freedom from sin, and right standing with God) is to abide.^(D)

¹⁴ So, beloved, since you are expecting these things, be eager to be found by Him [at His coming] without spot or blemish and at peace [in serene confidence, ^[d]free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts].

¹⁵ And consider that the long-suffering of our Lord [^[e]His slowness in avenging wrongs and judging the world] is salvation (^[f]that which is conducive to the soul’s safety), even as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the spiritual insight given him,

¹⁶ Speaking of this as he does in all of his letters. There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist and misconstrue to their own ^[g]utter destruction, just as [they distort and misinterpret] the rest of the Scriptures.

¹⁷ Let me warn you therefore, beloved, that knowing these things beforehand, you should be on your guard, lest you be carried away by the error of lawless and wicked [persons and] fall from your own [present] firm condition [your own steadfastness of mind].

¹⁸ But grow in grace (undeserved favor, spiritual strength) and ^[h]recognition and knowledge and understanding of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (the Messiah). To Him [be] glory (honor, majesty, and splendor) both now and to the day of eternity. Amen (so be it)!