Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

90 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, a habitation Thou -- Thou hast been, To us -- in generation and generation,

² Before mountains were brought forth, And Thou dost form the earth and the world, Even from age unto age Thou [art] God.

³ Thou turnest man unto a bruised thing, And sayest, Turn back, ye sons of men.

⁴ For a thousand years in Thine eyes [are] as yesterday, For it passeth on, yea, a watch by night.

⁵ Thou hast inundated them, they are asleep, In the morning as grass he changeth.

⁶ In the morning it flourisheth, and hath changed, At evening it is cut down, and hath withered.

¹³ Turn back, O Jehovah, till when? And repent concerning Thy servants.

¹⁴ Satisfy us at morn [with] Thy kindness, And we sing and rejoice all our days.

¹⁵ Cause us to rejoice according to the days Wherein Thou hast afflicted us, The years we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, And Thine honour on their sons.

¹⁷ And let the pleasantness of Jehovah our God be upon us, And the work of our hands establish on us, Yea, the work of our hands establish it!

¹⁴ And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Lo, thy days have drawn near to die; call Joshua, and station yourselves in the tent of meeting, and I charge him;' and Moses goeth -- Joshua also -- and they station themselves in the tent of meeting,

¹⁵ and Jehovah is seen in the tent, in a pillar of a cloud; and the pillar of the cloud standeth at the opening of the tent.

¹⁶ And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Lo, thou art lying down with thy fathers, and this people hath risen, and gone a-whoring after the gods of the stranger of the land into the midst of which it hath entered, and forsaken Me, and broken My covenant which I made with it;

¹⁷ and Mine anger hath burned against it in that day, and I have forsaken them, and hidden My face from them, and it hath been for consumption, and many evils and distresses have found it, and it hath said in that day, Is it not because that my God is not in my midst -- these evils have found me?

¹⁸ and I certainly hide My face in that day for all the evil which it hath done, for it hath turned unto other gods.

¹⁹ `And now, write for you this song, and teach it the sons of Israel; put it in their mouths, so that this song is to Me for a witness against the sons of Israel,

²⁰ and I bring them in unto the ground which I have sworn to their fathers -- flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten, and been satisfied, and been fat, and have turned unto other gods, and they have served them, and despised Me, and broken My covenant.

²¹ `And it hath been, when many evils and distresses do meet it, that this song hath testified to its face for a witness; for it is not forgotten out of the mouth of its seed, for I have known its imagining which it is doing to-day, before I bring them in unto the land of which I have sworn.'

²² And Moses writeth this song on that day, and doth teach it the sons of Israel,

⁵ For this cause left I thee in Crete, that the things lacking thou mayest arrange, and mayest set down in every city elders, as I did appoint to thee;

⁶ if any one is blameless, of one wife a husband, having children stedfast, not under accusation of riotous living or insubordinate --

⁷ for it behoveth the overseer to be blameless, as God's steward, not self-pleased, nor irascible, not given to wine, not a striker, not given to filthy lucre;

⁸ but a lover of strangers, a lover of good men, sober-minded, righteous, kind, self-controlled,

⁹ holding -- according to the teaching -- to the stedfast word, that he may be able also to exhort in the sound teaching, and the gainsayers to convict;

¹⁰ for there are many both insubordinate, vain-talkers, and mind-deceivers -- especially they of the circumcision --

¹¹ whose mouth it behoveth to stop, who whole households do overturn, teaching what things it behoveth not, for filthy lucre's sake.

¹² A certain one of them, a prophet of their own, said -- `Cretans! always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies!'

¹³ this testimony is true; for which cause convict them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,

¹⁴ not giving heed to Jewish fables and commands of men, turning themselves away from the truth;

¹⁵ all things, indeed, [are] pure to the pure, and to the defiled and unstedfast [is] nothing pure, but of them defiled [are] even the mind and the conscience;

¹⁶ God they profess to know, and in the works they deny [Him], being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work disapproved.