Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁽¹⁾ Adonai, you have been our dwelling place
in every generation.
² Before the mountains were born,
before you had formed the earth and the world,
from eternity past to eternity future
you are God.

³ You bring frail mortals to the point of being crushed,
then say, “People, repent!”
⁴ For from your viewpoint a thousand years
are merely like yesterday or a night watch.
⁵ When you sweep them away, they become like sleep;
by morning they are like growing grass,
⁶ growing and flowering in the morning,
but by evening cut down and dried up.

⁷ For we are destroyed by your anger,
overwhelmed by your wrath.
⁸ You have placed our faults before you,
our secret sins in the full light of your presence.

⁹ All our days ebb away under your wrath;
our years die away like a sigh.
¹⁰ The span of our life is seventy years,
or if we are strong, eighty;
yet at best it is toil and sorrow,
over in a moment, and then we are gone.

¹¹ Who grasps the power of your anger and wrath
to the degree that the fear due you should inspire?
¹² So teach us to count our days,
so that we will become wise.

¹³ Return, Adonai! How long must it go on?
Take pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Fill us at daybreak with your love,
so that we can sing for joy as long as we live.
¹⁵ Let our joy last as long as the time you made us suffer,
for as many years as we experienced trouble.

¹⁶ Show your deeds to your servants
and your glory to their children.
¹⁷ May the favor of Adonai our God be on us,
prosper for us all the work that we do —
yes, prosper the work that we do.

²⁴ “Therefore,” says the Lord, Adonai-Tzva’ot,
the Mighty One of Isra’el,
“I will free myself of my adversaries,
I will take vengeance on my enemies.
²⁵ But I will also turn my hand against you!
I will cleanse your impurities as with lye
and remove all your alloyed base metal.
²⁶ I will restore your judges as at first
and your advisers as at the beginning.
After that, you will be called
the City of Righteousness, Faithful City.
²⁷ Tziyon will be redeemed by justice;
and those in her who repent, by righteousness.

²⁸ “Rebels and sinners together will be broken
and those who abandon Adonai be consumed.
²⁹ You will be ashamed of the sacred oaks you desired,
you will blush at the gardens you chose;
³⁰ for you will be like an oak whose leaf fades,
like a garden without any water.
³¹ The strong will be like tinder
and [the idol’s] maker like a spark;
both will burn together,
and no one will put them out.”