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.

¹³ O Jehovah, come and bless us! How long will you delay? Turn away your anger from us. ¹⁴ Satisfy us in our earliest^[b] youth with your loving-kindness, giving us constant joy to the end of our lives. ¹⁵ Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. ¹⁶ Let us see your miracles again; let our children see glorious things, the kind you used to do, ¹⁷ and let the Lord our God favor us and give us success. May he give permanence to all we do.

¹⁸ Then David went into the Tabernacle and sat before the Lord and prayed, “O Lord God, why have you showered your blessings on such an insignificant person as I am? ¹⁹ And now, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving me an eternal dynasty! Such generosity is far beyond any human standard! O Lord God! ²⁰ What can I say? For you know what I am like! ²¹ You are doing all these things just because you promised to and because you want to! ²² How great you are, Lord God! We have never heard of any other God like you. And there is no other God. ²³ What other nation in all the earth has received such blessings as Israel, your people? For you have rescued your chosen nation in order to bring glory to your name. You have done great miracles to destroy Egypt and its gods. ²⁴ You chose Israel to be your people forever, and you became our God.

²⁵ “And now, Lord God, do as you have promised concerning me and my family. ²⁶ And may you be eternally honored when you have established Israel as your people and have established my dynasty before you. ²⁷ For you have revealed to me, O Lord of heaven, God of Israel, that I am the first of a dynasty which will rule your people forever; that is why I have been bold enough to pray this prayer of acceptance. ²⁸ For you are indeed God, and your words are truth; and you have promised me these good things— ²⁹ so do as you have promised! Bless me and my family forever! May our dynasty continue on and on before you; for you, Lord God, have promised it.”

¹² “See, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay everyone according to the deeds he has done. ¹³ I am the A and the Z, the Beginning and the End, the First and Last. ¹⁴ Blessed forever are all who are washing their robes, to have the right to enter in through the gates of the city and to eat the fruit from the Tree of Life.

¹⁵ “Outside the city are those who have strayed away from God, and the sorcerers and the immoral and murderers and idolaters, and all who love to lie, and do so.

¹⁶ “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to you to tell the churches all these things. I am both David’s Root and his Descendant. I am the bright Morning Star.