Psalm 135

Praise for God’s Goodness and Might

Abominations in the Temple

8 In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there.^{(A) 2} I looked, and there was a figure that looked like a man;^[a] below what appeared to be its loins the figure was fire, and above the loins it was like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming amber.^{(B) 3} It stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, to the seat of the image of jealousy that provokes to jealousy.^{(C) 4} And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.^(D)

⁵ Then God^[b] said to me, “O mortal, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.^{(E) 6} He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see still greater abominations.”^(F)

⁷ And he brought me to the entrance of the court; I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. ⁸ Then he said to me, “Mortal, dig through the wall,” and when I dug through the wall, there was an entrance. ⁹ He said to me, “Go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all around, were all kinds of creeping things and loathsome animals and all the idols of the house of Israel.^{(G) 11} Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the fragrant cloud of incense was ascending.^{(H) 12} Then he said to me, “Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’ ” ¹³ He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.”^(I)

¹⁴ Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.^{(J) 15} Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶ And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord; there, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves to the sun toward the east.^{(K) 17} Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence and provoke my anger still further? See, they are putting the branch to their nose!^{(L) 18} Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”^(M)

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

²⁶ Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south^[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.)^{(A) 27} So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship^{(B) 28} and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹ Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.”^{(C) 30} So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” ³¹ He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. ³² Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.^{(E) 36} As they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”^{[b](F) 38} He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip^[c] baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.^{(G) 40} But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.