Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Lord, you have been our refuge
    from generation to generation.
² Before the mountains were brought forth
    or the earth and the world came into existence,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
³ You turn men back to dust,
    saying, “Return,^[d] you children of men.”
⁴ For to you a thousand years
    are like a yesterday that has passed
    or one of the watches of the night.^[e]
5 You snatch them away like a dream;
    they are like the grass of the field,^[f]
6 which at dawn flourishes and is green
    but by nightfall is withered and dry.

¹³ Return,^[a] O Lord. How long must we wait?
    Show compassion to your servants.
¹⁴ Fill us with your kindness in the morning^[b]
    so that we may exult and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Grant us joy for as many days as you have afflicted us
    and for as many years as we have known misfortune.
¹⁶ Manifest your works to your servants
    and your glory to their children.
¹⁷ May the favor^[c] of the Lord, our God, rest upon us.
    And may the work of our hands prosper—
    indeed, may the work of our hands prosper.

^{1     [a]}Give ear, O heavens, while I speak;
    Listen, O earth, to the words of my mouth.
² Let my teaching fall down like rain,
    and my words descend like the dew.
Like rain upon the sprouts,
    and like showers upon the grass.
³ I will proclaim the name of the Lord,
    Oh, praise the greatness of our God.
⁴ He is a rock, his deeds are perfect,
    and all of his ways are just.
He is a God of truth who does no wrong;
    he is just and upright.
⁵ They have corrupted themselves,
    on account of their defect they are no longer his children,
    they are a perverse and crooked generation.
⁶ Is this the way to repay the Lord,
    O foolish and stupid people?
Is he not your father, who created you?
    Has he not made you and established you?
⁷ Remember the days of old,
    consider the years of past generations,
Ask your fathers, they will tell you,
    your elders, they will inform you.
⁸ When the Most High divided the inheritance among the nations,
    when he separated the sons of men,
he established the boundaries of the nations
    according to the number of the sons of God.
⁹ The Lord’s own portion was his people,
    Jacob his allotted inheritance.
¹⁰ He found him in a desert land,
    a waste and howling wilderness.
He shielded him, he instructed him;
    He guarded him as the apple of his eye.
¹¹ Like an eagle that awakens its nest,
    and hovers over its young,
he spread his wings and snatched him,
    bearing him up on his pinions.
¹² The Lord alone led him,
    there was no foreign god with him.
¹³ He made him ride on the heights of the earth,
    he ate from the produce of the fields;
he had him suck honey from the rock,
    and oil from the flinty rock,
¹⁴ curds from the herds and milk from the flocks,
    fat lambs and rams,
herds of bulls of Bashan and goats,
    the finest of the wheat,
from the blood of the grapes you drank wine.

¹⁸ You deserted the rock who formed you;
    you forgot God, who fathered you.