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Psalm 90

1  Lord, you have been our refuge ♦︎
   from one generation to another.
2  Before the mountains were brought forth,
      or the earth and the world were formed, ♦︎
   from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3  You turn us back to dust and say: ♦︎
   ‘Turn back, O children of earth.’
4  For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday, ♦︎
   which passes like a watch in the night.
5  You sweep them away like a dream; ♦︎
   they fade away suddenly like the grass.
6  In the morning it is green and flourishes; ♦︎
   in the evening it is dried up and withered.
7  For we consume away in your displeasure; ♦︎
   we are afraid at your wrathful indignation.
8  You have set our misdeeds before you ♦︎
   and our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
9  When you are angry, all our days are gone; ♦︎
   our years come to an end like a sigh.
10  The days of our life are three score years and ten,
      or if our strength endures, even four score; ♦︎
   yet the sum of them is but labour and sorrow,
      for they soon pass away and we are gone.
11  Who regards the power of your wrath ♦︎
   and your indignation like those who fear you?
12  So teach us to number our days ♦︎
   that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
13  Turn again, O Lord; how long will you delay? ♦︎
   Have compassion on your servants.
14  Satisfy us with your loving-kindness in the morning, ♦︎
   that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15  Give us gladness for the days you have afflicted us, ♦︎
   and for the years in which we have seen adversity.
16  Show your servants your works, ♦︎
   and let your glory be over their children.
17  May the gracious favour of the Lord our God be upon us; ♦︎
   prosper our handiwork; O prosper the work of our hands.

¹² Listen to me, O Jacob,
   and Israel, whom I called:
I am He; I am the first,
   and I am the last.
¹³ My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
   and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them,
   they stand at attention.

¹⁴ Assemble, all of you, and hear!
   Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord loves him;
   he shall perform his purpose on Babylon,
   and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken and called him,
   I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.
¹⁶ Draw near to me, hear this!
   From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
   from the time it came to be I have been there.
And now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit.

¹⁷ Thus says the Lord,
   your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
   who teaches you for your own good,
   who leads you in the way you should go.
¹⁸ O that you had paid attention to my commandments!
   Then your prosperity would have been like a river,
   and your success like the waves of the sea;
¹⁹ your offspring would have been like the sand,
   and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
   or destroyed from before me.

²⁰ Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea,
   declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it,
send it forth to the end of the earth;
   say, ‘The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!’
²¹ They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;
   he made water flow for them from the rock;
   he split open the rock and the water gushed out.

²² ‘There is no peace’, says the Lord, ‘for the wicked.’

A Life Pleasing to God

4Finally, brothers and sisters,^* we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. ²For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; ⁴that each one of you knows how to control your own body^* in holiness and honour, ⁵not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶that no one wrongs or exploits a brother or sister^* in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. ⁷For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. ⁸Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.

9 Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters,^* you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; ¹⁰and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters^* throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved,^* to do so more and more, ¹¹to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, ¹²so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one.