- Thou Lord hast been our sure defense,
- our place of ease and rest:
- In all times past, yea, so long since,
- as cannot be expressed.
-
- 2 Ere there was made mountain or hill,
- the earth and all abroad:
- From age to age, and always still,
- forever thou art God.
-
- 3 Thou grindest man through grief and pain,
- to dust, or clay, and then,
- And then thou saist again, return
- again, ye sons of men,
-
- 4 The lasting of a thousand year
- What is it in thy sight?
- As yesterday it doth appear
- or as a watch by night.
-
- 5 So soon as thou dost scatter them,
- then is their life and tread,
- All as a sleep, and like the grass,
- whose beauty soon doth fade.
-
- 6 Which in the morning shines full bright,
- but fadeth by and by:
- And is cut down ere it be night,
- all withered, dead and dry.
-
- 7 For through thine anger we consume
- our might is much decayed:
- And of thy servant wrath and fume
- we are full sore afraid.
-
- 8 The wicked works that we have wrought
- thou setst before thine eye:
- Our privy faults, yea, eke our thoughts
- thy countenance doth spy.
-
- 9 For through thy wrath our days do waste,
- thereof doth naught remain:
- Our years consumes as words or blasts,
- and are not called again.
-
- 10 Our time is threescore years and ten,
- that we do live on mold:
- If one see fourscore, surely then
- we count him wondrous old.
