Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

God Is Forever—Man’s Short Life

90 Lord, You have been the place of comfort for all people of all time. ² Before the mountains were born, before You gave birth to the earth and the world, forever and ever, You are God.

³ You change man into dust again, and say, “Return, O children of men.” ⁴ For a thousand years in Your eyes are like yesterday when it passes by, or like the hours of the night. ⁵ You carry men away as with a flood. They fall asleep. In the morning they are like the new grass that grows. ⁶ It grows well in the morning, but dries up and dies by evening.

⁷ For we are burned up by Your anger. By Your anger we are troubled and afraid. ⁸ You have set our wrong-doing before You, our secret sins in the light of Your face. ⁹ For all our days pass away in Your anger. We finish our years with a quiet cry. ¹⁰ The days of our life are seventy years, or eighty if we have the strength. Yet the best of them are only hard work and sorrow. For they are soon gone and we fly away. ¹¹ Who understands the power of Your anger? Your anger is as great as the fear that we should have for You. ¹² Teach us to understand how many days we have. Then we will have a heart of wisdom to give You.

¹³ Return, O Lord. How long will it be? Have pity upon those who work for You. ¹⁴ Fill us in the morning with Your loving-kindness. Let us sing for joy and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as You have made us suffer, and for the years we have seen trouble. ¹⁶ Let Your work be shown to Your servants. And let Your wonderful greatness be shown to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us. And make the work of our hands stand strong. Yes, make the work of our hands stand strong.

Aaron’s Stick Began to Grow

17 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Speak to the people of Israel. Get walking sticks from them, one for each father’s house. Get twelve walking sticks, from all their leaders by their fathers’ houses. Write each man’s name on his stick. ³ Write Aaron’s name on the walking stick of Levi. For there will be one walking stick for the head of each father’s house. ⁴ Then put them in the meeting tent before the Law, where I meet with you. ⁵ And the walking stick of the man I choose will begin to grow. In this way I will stop the complaining of the people of Israel, who are complaining against you.” ⁶ So Moses spoke to the people of Israel. All their leaders each gave him a walking stick, one for each leader by their fathers’ houses, twelve walking sticks. And the walking stick of Aaron was among their walking sticks. ⁷ Moses put the walking sticks before the Lord in the meeting tent of the Law.

⁸ The next day Moses went into the meeting tent of the Law. And he saw that the walking stick of Aaron for the house of Levi had begun to grow buds and flowers and almonds. ⁹ Moses brought out all the walking sticks from before the Lord to all the people of Israel. They looked, and each man took his stick. ¹⁰ But the Lord said to Moses, “Put the walking stick of Aaron in front of the Law again. It will be something special to see against those who go against My Word. Then you may put an end to their complaining against Me, so they will not die.” ¹¹ So Moses did this. He did just as the Lord had told him.

The World Will Be Destroyed

3 Dear friends, this is the second letter I have written to you. In both of them I have tried to get you to remember some things. ² You should remember the words that were spoken before by the holy early preachers. Do not forget the teaching of the Lord, the One Who saves. This was given to you by your missionaries.

³ First of all, I want you to know that in the last days men will laugh at the truth. They will follow their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “He promised to come again. Where is He? Since our early fathers died, everything is the same from the beginning of the world.” ⁵ But they want to forget that God spoke and the heavens were made long ago. The earth was made out of water and water was all around it. ⁶ Long ago the earth was covered with water and it was destroyed. ⁷ But the heaven we see now and the earth we live on now have been kept by His word. They will be kept until they are to be destroyed by fire. They will be kept until the day men stand before God and sinners will be destroyed.

⁸ Dear friends, remember this one thing, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years are as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow about keeping His promise as some people think. He is waiting for you. The Lord does not want any person to be punished forever. He wants all people to be sorry for their sins and turn from them. ¹⁰ The day of the Lord will come as a robber comes. The heavens will pass away with a loud noise. The sun and moon and stars will burn up. The earth and all that is in it will be burned up.

¹¹ Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, you should think about the kind of life you are living. It should be holy and God-like. ¹² You should look for the day of God to come. You should do what you can to make it come soon. At that time the heavens will be destroyed by fire. And the sun and moon and stars will melt away with much heat. ¹³ We are looking for what God has promised, which are new heavens and a new earth. Only what is right and good will be there.

¹⁴ Dear friends, since you are waiting for these things to happen, do all you can to be found by Him in peace. Be clean and free from sin. ¹⁵ You can be sure the long waiting of our Lord is part of His plan to save men from the punishment of sin. God gave our dear brother Paul the wisdom to write about this also. ¹⁶ He wrote about these things in all of his writings. Some of these things are hard to understand. People who do not have much understanding and some who are not strong in the faith change the meaning of his letters. They do this to the other parts of the Holy Writings also. They are destroying themselves as they do this.

¹⁷ And so, dear friends, now that you know this, watch so you will not be led away by the mistakes of these sinful people. Do not be moved by them. ¹⁸ Grow in the loving-favor that Christ gives you. Learn to know our Lord Jesus Christ better. He is the One Who saves. May He have all the shining-greatness now and forever. Let it be so.