Book of Common Prayer

A song to sing as we climb.

David wrote this song.

A song to sing as we climb.

The house of God

A song to sing as we climb.

David wrote this song.

A song to sing as we climb.

A song at night

A song to praise God

⁴ Then the king gave a command to Hilkiah, the leader of the priests, and to the other priests and the temple guards. He told them to bring out from the Lord's temple everything that people used there to worship false gods. People used those things to worship Baal, Asherah and all the stars in the sky. King Josiah burned those things outside Jerusalem, in the fields of the Kidron Valley. Then he took all the ashes to Bethel.^[a]

⁵ He removed the priests who served false gods. The kings of Judah had chosen those priests to make offerings at the altars on the hills. They were on the hills in Judah's cities and all around Jerusalem. These priests offered sacrifices to Baal, to the sun, to the moon and to all the stars in the sky. ⁶ He also removed the Asherah pole from the Lord's temple. He took it outside Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley. He burned it there. He made its ashes into dust. He threw the dust over the graves of ordinary people.^[b]

⁷ King Josiah also destroyed the rooms in the Lord's temple where the male prostitutes lived. Women also made clothes there for the idol of Asherah. ⁸ He brought from the towns of Judah all the priests who served false gods. He destroyed the altars on the hills where those priests offered sacrifices. He did that everywhere in Judah, from Geba to Beersheba. He destroyed the altar that was on the left side of one of Jerusalem city's gates. It was called the Gate of Joshua. Joshua was an officer who had authority over the city. ⁹ The priests who served at those altars did not have authority to serve at the altar in the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. But they could eat the same flat bread that the other priests ate.

¹⁰ King Josiah destroyed the place called Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom.^[c] After that, nobody could burn his son or his daughter there in the fire as a sacrifice to Molech. ¹¹ He removed the images of horses that the kings of Judah had put beside the entrance to the Lord's temple. He also burned the chariots that were there. The kings had put the horses and chariots there to give honour to the sun god. They were in the temple yard near the room of Nathan Melech, a palace officer.^[d]

¹² King Josiah knocked down the altars that were on the roof of the palace. The kings of Judah had built the altars there, above the high room of King Ahaz. He also knocked down the altars that King Manasseh had built in the two yards of the Lord's temple. Josiah broke the altars into small pieces. He threw the bits into the Kidron Valley.

¹³ King Josiah also destroyed the altars that were on the hills east of Jerusalem. Those altars were on the south side of Mount Trouble.^[e] King Solomon had built them to worship these false gods:

¹⁴ Josiah broke the stone pillars that people worshipped into small pieces. He cut down the Asherah poles. He covered the ground where they had been with human bones.^[f]

¹⁵ Josiah also destroyed the altar at Bethel. It was an altar for false gods that Nebat's son, King Jeroboam had made. King Jeroboam had caused the people of Israel to do bad things. Josiah completely destroyed that altar. He broke its stones into small pieces so that only dust remained. He also burned the Asherah pole.

¹⁶ Then Josiah looked around and he saw graves on the hill. He sent someone to bring the bones from them. He burned them on the altar, so that people could not use it again. The Lord had said that this would happen when King Jeroboam was standing beside the altar. A man of God had spoken God's message to Jeroboam during a festival.

Josiah looked up and he saw the grave of the man of God who had spoken God's message. ¹⁷ He asked, ‘Whose grave stone is that?’ The men from Bethel city said to him, ‘It is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah. You have now done to this altar at Bethel the things that he said would happen.’ ¹⁸ King Josiah said, ‘Do not do anything to his grave. Do not remove his bones.’ So they did not do anything with the bones of the man of God. They also left the bones of the old prophet who had come from Samaria.^[g]

¹⁹ King Josiah removed the altars on the hills in all the towns of Samaria. The kings of Israel had built those altars and that had made the Lord angry. Josiah destroyed all of them, in the same way that he destroyed the altar at Bethel. ²⁰ He punished with death all the priests who served false gods at those altars. He killed them on their own altars. He burned human bones on all the altars. After he had done that, he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, ‘The Book of God's Covenant teaches about the Passover festival. Now you must eat that Passover meal to give honour to the Lord your God.’ ²² Since the time when the judges ruled Israel, the Israelites had not had a Passover festival like that. They had never had it during the time when kings ruled Judah and Israel. ²³ But in the 18th year that Josiah ruled Judah as king, the people once again had a Passover festival to give honour to the Lord.

²⁴ Josiah did other things to obey the rules that were written in the Book of God's Law. That was the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the Lord's temple. Josiah removed the people who spoke to the spirits of dead people and the other magicians. He destroyed the images that people worshipped in their homes. He destroyed all the other idols that people had started to worship in Jerusalem and in all Judah.

²⁵ Josiah turned to the Lord and he served the Lord faithfully with all his strength. He obeyed all the Law of Moses. No other king was like Josiah, either before him or after him.

Gifts from God's Spirit

12 My Christian friends, I want you to understand clearly about spiritual gifts. ² You know how you lived before you came to know God. You let idols lead you in many wrong ways. And those idols cannot even speak! ³ This is what I want you to understand now. God's Spirit will never lead anyone to say, ‘God has cursed Jesus.’ And it is only God's Spirit that will lead someone to say, ‘Jesus is Lord.’

⁴ The Holy Spirit helps us with different kinds of gifts. But it is the same Spirit who gives them. ⁵ We serve the Lord in different ways, but all of us serve the same Lord. ⁶ We do different kinds of work. But it is the same God who helps us all to work in different ways.

⁷ God helps each of us with a gift from his Spirit. He does that so that we can help others.

⁸ The Spirit helps some people to speak wise messages. Other people can speak messages that help people to know what is true. It is the same Spirit that helps them to do that. ⁹ The same Spirit causes other people to trust God strongly. He gives to other people gifts to make sick people well. ¹⁰ The same Spirit gives other people power to do miracles. Other people can speak messages from God. Some people can recognize whether spirits are good or bad. Some people can speak in different kinds of languages. And other people can explain what those languages mean. ¹¹ There is only one Holy Spirit. The same Spirit helps people to do all these different things. He decides which gifts he will give to each person.

Jesus causes a dead girl to become alive again

¹⁸ While Jesus was saying these things to the people, a leader at the Jewish meeting place came to him. The man went down on his knees in front of Jesus and said to him, ‘My daughter has just died. Come to my house. Put your hand on her and then she will live again.’ ¹⁹ So Jesus went with the man. His disciples also went with them.

²⁰ There was a sick woman in the crowd. She had been losing blood for 12 years. She came near to Jesus, behind him. She touched the edge of his coat. ²¹ The woman thought, ‘Even if I only touch his coat, I will become well again.’

²² Jesus turned round and he saw the woman. He said to her, ‘Young woman, do not be afraid. You are now well again because you believed in me.’ And immediately the woman became well again.

²³ Then Jesus arrived at the Jewish leader's house. Some people there were making sad music and the crowd was making a loud noise.^[a]

²⁴ When Jesus saw this, he said to everybody in the house, ‘Go outside. This girl is not dead. She is only sleeping.’ The people laughed at Jesus when he said that. ²⁵ The family sent all the people out of the house. Jesus went inside and he held the girl's hand. Immediately she stood up. ²⁶ People in all that part of the country heard about what had happened.