Book IV: Psalms 90–106

¹A prayer of Moshe the man of God:

Adonai , you have been our dwelling place

in every generation.

²Before the mountains were born,

before you had formed the earth and the world,

from eternity past to eternity future

you are God.

³You bring frail mortals to the point of being crushed,

then say, “People, repent!”

⁴For from your viewpoint a thousand years

are merely like yesterday or a night watch.

⁵When you sweep them away, they become like sleep;

by morning they are like growing grass,

⁶growing and flowering in the morning,

but by evening cut down and dried up.

⁷For we are destroyed by your anger,

overwhelmed by your wrath.

⁸You have placed our faults before you,

our secret sins in the full light of your presence.

⁹All our days ebb away under your wrath;

our years die away like a sigh.

¹⁰The 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.

¹¹Who grasps the power of your anger and wrath

to the degree that the fear due you should inspire?

¹²So teach us to count our days,

so that we will become wise.

¹³Return, Adonai ! How long must it go on?

Take pity on your servants!

¹⁴Fill us at daybreak with your love,

so that we can sing for joy as long as we live.

¹⁵Let our joy last as long as the time you made us suffer,

for as many years as we experienced trouble.

¹⁶Show your deeds to your servants

and your glory to their children.

¹⁷May 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.