Counting the Days

¹ Lord, you have been our help, generation after generation. ² Before the mountains were born, before you birthed the earth and the inhabited world from forever in the past to forever in the future, you are God. ³ You return people to dust, saying, “Go back, humans,” ⁴ because in your perspective a thousand years are like yesterday past, like a short period during the night watch. ⁵ You sweep humans away like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning. ⁶ True, in the morning it thrives, renewed, but come evening it withers, all dried up. ⁷ Yes, we are wasting away because of your wrath; we are paralyzed with fear on account of your rage. ⁸ You put our sins right in front of you, set our hidden faults in the light from your face. ⁹ Yes, all our days slip away because of your fury; we finish up our years with a whimper. ¹⁰ We live at best to be seventy years old, maybe eighty, if we’re strong. But their duration brings hard work and trouble because they go by so quickly. And then we fly off. ¹¹ Who can comprehend the power of your anger? The honor that is due you corresponds to your wrath. ¹² Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart.