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A prayer of Moses, God's servant.

God lives for ever![a]

90 Lord, from long ago,
    you have always been a safe home for us.[b]
From before the mountains began,
    and before you made the world,
you were already there, as God.
    You have no beginning and no end.
People return to dust in the ground when they die.
    You say, ‘Become dust again, you people.’[c]
For you, a thousand years is only a short time.
They pass as quickly as a day for you,
    or just a few hours in the night.
You cause people's lives to end,
    as a dream finishes when you wake up.
People are like grass that appears in the morning.
During the morning, it grows well.
By the evening,
    it becomes dry and it dies.
Your anger destroys us,
    and we become very afraid.
All our sins are there for you to see.
    You even see the sins that we have tried to hide.
Your anger gives us trouble all through our lives.
    Then our lives end in a short groan.
10 The number of our days make 70 years,
    or maybe 80 years if we are strong enough.
But even in the best years of our lives,
    we have trouble and pain.
Our lives quickly pass,
    and we hurry towards death.
11 Lord, nobody knows all the power of your anger.
    It is your anger that causes people to be afraid of you.
12 Teach us to count carefully the days of our short lives.
    Then we will be wise in how we live.
13 Lord, return to help us!
    How long will you be angry with us?
Please be kind to us, your servants!
14 Show your faithful love to us every morning.
Then we will sing with joy,
    and we will be happy for as long as we live.
15 For many years you have sent trouble to us.
Now, please make us happy
    for as many years as you have given us pain.
16 Do great things again,
    so that we, your servants, see them!
Let our children see that you rule as King!
17 Yes, may the Lord our God bless us.
May everything that we do go well!
    Yes, may everything go well!

Footnotes

  1. 90:1 These are words that Moses prayed. This psalm makes us think of Genesis 3 and Deuteronomy 32. We learn about God (verses 1-2) and about people (verses 3-6). We learn that God is angry when we do wrong things (verses 7-11), so we should be careful in how we live our short lives (verses 12-17).
  2. 90:1 See John 14:2.
  3. 90:3 See Genesis 2:7.