July 5

Psalms 90:1 — 94:23

BOOK FOUR

(Psalms 90 – 106)

A prayer of Moses, the man of the [true] God.

90 O Jehovah, you yourself have proved to be a real dwelling for us

      During generation after generation.

 2 Before the mountains themselves were born,

      Or you proceeded to bring forth as with labor pains the earth and the productive land,

      Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God.

 3 You make mortal man go back to crushed matter,

      And you say: “GO back, YOU sons of men.”

 4 For a thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past,

      And as a watch during the night.

 5 You have swept them away; they become a mere sleep;

      In the morning [they are] just like green grass that changes.

 6 In the morning it puts forth blossoms and must change;

      At evening it withers and certainly dries up.

 7 For we have come to an end in your anger,

      And by your rage we have been disturbed.

 8 You have set our errors right in front of you,

      Our hidden things before your bright face.

 9 For all our days have come to their decline in your fury;

      We have finished our years just like a whisper.

10 In themselves the days of our years are seventy years;

       And if because of special mightiness they are eighty years,

       Yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things;

       For it must quickly pass by, and away we fly.

11 Who is there knowing the strength of your anger

       And your fury according to the fear of you?

12 Show [us] just how to count our days in such a way

       That we may bring a heart of wisdom in.

13 Do return, O Jehovah! How long will it be?

       And feel regret over your servants.

14 Satisfy us in the morning with your loving-kindness,

       That we may cry out joyfully and may rejoice during all our days.

15 Make us rejoice correspondingly to the days that you have afflicted us,

       The years that we have seen calamity.

16 May your activity appear to your own servants

       And your splendor upon their sons.

17 And let the pleasantness of Jehovah our God prove to be upon us,

       And the work of our hands do you firmly establish upon us.

       Yes, the work of our hands, do you firmly establish it.

 

91 Anyone dwelling in the secret place of the Most High

       Will procure himself lodging under the very shadow of the Almighty One.

 2 I will say to Jehovah: “[You are] my refuge and my stronghold,

      My God, in whom I will trust.”

 3 For he himself will deliver you from the trap of the birdcatcher,

      From the pestilence causing adversities.

 4 With his pinions he will block approach to you,

      And under his wings you will take refuge.

      His trueness will be a large shield and bulwark.

 5 You will not be afraid of anything dreadful by night,

      Nor of the arrow that flies by day,

 6 Nor of the pestilence that walks in the gloom,

      Nor of the destruction that despoils at midday.

 7 A thousand will fall at your very side

      And ten thousand at your right hand;

      To you it will not come near.

 8 Only with your eyes will you look on

      And see the retribution itself of the wicked ones.

 9 Because you [said]: “Jehovah is my refuge,”

      You have made the Most High himself your dwelling;

10 No calamity will befall you,

       And not even a plague will draw near to your tent.

11 For he will give his own angels a command concerning you,

       To guard you in all your ways.

12 Upon their hands they will carry you,

       That you may not strike your foot against any stone.

13 Upon the young lion and the cobra you will tread;

       You will trample down the maned young lion and the big snake.

14 Because on me he has set his affection,

       I shall also provide him with escape.

       I shall protect him because he has come to know my name.

15 He will call upon me, and I shall answer him.

       I shall be with him in distress.

       I shall rescue him and glorify him.

16 With length of days I shall satisfy him,

       And I shall cause him to see salvation by me.

A melody, a song, for the sabbath day.

92 It is good to give thanks to Jehovah

      And to make melody to your name, O Most High;

 2 To tell in the morning about your loving-kindness

      And about your faithfulness during the nights,

 3 Upon a ten-stringed instrument and upon the lute,

      By resounding music on the harp.

 4 For you have made me rejoice, O Jehovah, because of your activity;

      Because of the works of your hands I cry out joyfully.

 5 How great your works are, O Jehovah!

      Very deep your thoughts are.

 6 No unreasoning man himself can know [them],

      And no one stupid can understand this.

 7 When the wicked ones sprout as the vegetation

      And all the practicers of what is hurtful blossom forth,

      It is that they may be annihilated forever.

 8 But you are on high to time indefinite, O Jehovah.

 9 For, look! your enemies, O Jehovah,

      For, look! your own enemies will perish;

      All the practicers of what is hurtful will be separated from one another.

10 But you will exalt my horn like that of a wild bull;

       I shall moisten [myself] with fresh oil.

11 And my eye will look on my foes;

       My ears will hear about the very ones who rise up against me, the evildoers.

12 The righteous himself will blossom forth as a palm tree does;

       As a cedar in Lebanon does, he will grow big.

13 Those who are planted in the house of Jehovah,

       In the courtyards of our God, they will blossom forth.

14 They will still keep on thriving during gray-headedness,

       Fat and fresh they will continue to be,

15 To tell that Jehovah is upright.

       [He is] my Rock, in whom there is no unrighteousness.

 

93 Jehovah himself has become king!

      With eminence he is clothed;

      Jehovah is clothed—with strength he has girded himself.

      The productive land also becomes firmly established so that it cannot be made to totter.

 2 Your throne is firmly established from long ago;

      You are from time indefinite.

 3 The rivers have raised, O Jehovah,

      The rivers have raised their sound;

      The rivers keep raising their pounding.

 4 Above the sounds of vast waters, the majestic breaking waves of the sea,

      Jehovah is majestic in the height.

 5 Your own reminders have proved very trustworthy.

      Holiness is befitting to your own house, O Jehovah, for length of days.

 

94 O God of acts of vengeance, Jehovah,

      O God of acts of vengeance, beam forth!

 2 Raise yourself up, O Judge of the earth.

      Bring back a retribution upon the haughty ones.

 3 How long are the wicked, O Jehovah,

      How long are the wicked themselves going to exult?

 4 They keep bubbling forth, they keep speaking unrestrained;

      All the practicers of what is hurtful keep bragging about themselves.

 5 Your people, O Jehovah, they keep crushing,

      And your inheritance they keep afflicting.

 6 The widow and the alien resident they kill,

      And the fatherless boys they murder.

 7 And they keep saying: “Jah does not see;

      And the God of Jacob does not understand [it].”

 8 Understand, YOU who are unreasoning among the people;

      And as for YOU stupid ones, when will YOU have any insight?

 9 The One planting the ear, can he not hear?

      Or the One forming the eye, can he not look?

10 The One correcting the nations, can he not reprove,

       Even the One teaching men knowledge?

11 Jehovah is knowing the thoughts of men, that they are as an exhalation.

12 Happy is the able-bodied man whom you correct, O Jah,

       And whom you teach out of your own law,

13 To give him quietness from days of calamity,

       Until for the wicked one a pit is excavated.

14 For Jehovah will not forsake his people,

       Nor will he leave his own inheritance.

15 For judicial decision will return even to righteousness,

       And all the upright in heart will follow it.

16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?

       Who will take his stand for me against the practicers of hurtfulness?

17 Unless Jehovah had been of assistance to me,

       In a little while my soul would have resided in silence.

18 When I said: “My foot will certainly move unsteadily,”

       Your own loving-kindness, O Jehovah, kept sustaining me.

19 When my disquieting thoughts became many inside of me,

       Your own consolations began to fondle my soul.

20 Will the throne causing adversities be allied with you

       While it is framing trouble by decree?

21 They make sharp attacks on the soul of the righteous one

       And pronounce wicked even the blood of the innocent one.

22 But Jehovah will become a secure height for me,

       And my God the rock of my refuge.

23 And he will turn back upon them their hurtfulness

       And will silence them with their own calamity.

       Jehovah our God will silence them.