Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
90 LORD, You have been our habitation from generation to generation.
2 Before the mountains were made (and You had formed the Earth and the world), even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
3 You turn man to contrition. Again, You say, “Return, you sons of Adam.”
4 For a thousand years in Your sight are as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
5 You have overflowed them. They are asleep. In the morning, they grow like the grass.
6 In the morning it flourishes and grows. In the evening, it is cut down and withers.
7 For we are consumed by Your anger; and by Your wrath are we troubled.
8 You have set our iniquities before You, and our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
9 For all our days have passed away in Your anger. We have spent our years as a thought.
10 The time of our life is threescore years and ten (and if they be of strength, fourscore years). Yet, their strength is but labor and sorrow; for it is cut off quickly and we flee away.
11 Who knows the power of Your wrath? For according to Your fear is Your anger.
12 Teach us to number our days, so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
13 Return (O LORD, how long?) and be pacified toward Your servants.
14 Fill us with Your mercy in the morning. So shall we rejoice and be glad all our days!
15 Comfort us according to the days that You have afflicted us, according to the years that we have seen evil.
16 Let Your work be seen toward Your servants, and Your Glory upon their children.
17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us and direct the work of our hands upon us, even direct the work of our hands.
17 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel and take a branch from every one of them, after the House of their fathers, from all their princes, according to the family of their fathers (twelve branches). You shall write every man’s name upon his branch.
3 “And write Aaron’s name upon the branch of Levi. For every branch shall be for the head of the House of their fathers.
4 “And you shall put them in the Tabernacle of the Congregation, before the Ark of the Testimony, where I will declare Myself to you.
5 “And the man’s branch whom I choose shall blossom. And I will make the complaints of the children of Israel cease from Me, which they bring against you.”
6 Then Moses spoke to the children of Israel. And all their Princes gave him a branch, one branch for every Prince, according to the Houses of their fathers, twelve branches. And the branch of Aaron was among their branches.
7 And Moses laid the branches before the LORD in the Tabernacle of the Testimony.
8 And when Moses went into the Tabernacle of the Testimony the next day, behold, the branch of Aaron (for the House of Levi) had budded and brought forth buds, and brought forth blossoms and bare ripe almonds.
9 Then Moses brought out all the branches from before the LORD to all the children of Israel. And they looked at them. And every man took his branch.
10 Afterward, the LORD said to Moses, “Bring Aaron’s branch before the Testimony again, to be kept as a token to the rebellious children. And you shall cause their murmurings to cease from Me, so that they do not die.”
11 So Moses did as the LORD had commanded him. So did he.
3 This second letter I now write to you, beloved (with which I stir up and warn your pure minds),
2 to remind you of the words which were foretold by the holy Prophets; and of the Commandment by us, the Apostles of the Lord and Savior.
3 First, understand this: that in the last days there shall come mockers, who will walk after their lusts
4 and say, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the Fathers died, all things continue just as from the beginning of the creation.”
5 For of this they are willingly ignorant: that the heavens were of old; and the Earth—which was of the water and by the water—by the Word of God;
6 through which water the world that then existed perished, being flooded.
7 But the heavens and Earth which exist now are stored up by the same Word, and reserved for fire until the Day of Condemnation, and of the destruction of ungodly men.
8 Dearly beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing: that one day is as a thousand years with the Lord, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord of that promise is not slow as some think of slowness; but is patient toward us, and would have no one perish, but have all come to repentance.
10 But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, on which the heavens shall pass away with a great rushing noise and the elements shall melt with heat. And the Earth, with the works in it, shall be burnt up.
11 Therefore, seeing that all these things must be dissolved, what kind of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness
12 (expecting and earnestly desiring the coming of that Day of God by which the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with heat)?
13 But we look for new heavens and a new Earth (according to His promise), in which dwells righteousness.
14 Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.
15 And consider that the patience of our Lord is salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him.
16 As in all his letters, he speaks of these things; among which, some things are hard to understand (which the unlearned and unstable twist, as they do other Scriptures to their own destruction).
17 Therefore you, beloved - seeing you know these things beforehand - beware, lest you are also plucked away with the error of the wicked and fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, both now and forevermore. Amen.
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