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Passover is Josiah’s first opportunity to demonstrate his renewed devotion to God. Therefore, each detail perfectly follows His mandates for the event, from the day the offerings are slaughtered to the Levites’ specific duties. Although there is devotion in the land, apostasy will return once Josiah dies. The punishment of Israel is not averted, just delayed.
35 On the 14th day of the first month after Josiah had rededicated the nation to God, the king instituted the Eternal’s Passover feast in Jerusalem by slaughtering the Passover animals. 2 Josiah appointed the priests and encouraged them in performing their duties for the Eternal’s temple. 3 Then he commissioned the Levites, Israel’s teachers and the Eternal’s most holy servants, in their various duties for the feast.
Josiah: You no longer need to carry the holy covenant chest on your shoulders. Bring it to the temple which Solomon, son of King David, built and leave it there. From now on, your primary responsibility is serving the Eternal God and His people, Israel. 4 Cleanse yourselves, as King David and his son Solomon described for you in writing, according to your lineage and duties. 5 Then stand with your kinsmen inside the temple, dividing yourselves by the tribes and your fathers’ households under whom you serve. 6 Once you are organized, slaughter the Passover animals, cleanse yourselves, and prepare your people to participate in the ceremonies as the Eternal’s law by Moses describes.
7 Josiah donated 30,000 lambs and young goats and 3,000 bulls from his own herds and flocks for the people to sacrifice as the Passover offerings. 8 Then his officers in the True God’s temple voluntarily gave offerings for the people, priests, and Levites: Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel donated 2,600 sheep and 300 bulls for the Passover; 9 Conaniah, Shemaiah, Nethanel and his brothers, Hashabiah, Jeiel, and Jozabad, all officers of the Levites, donated 5,000 sheep and 500 bulls to the Levites for the Passover.
10 Once the service was prepared, the priests were ready to perform their duties, and the Levites stood in their division as the king commanded. 11-13 They offered the Passover animals. The Levites skinned all the animals, the priests sprinkled the animals’ blood, and then they roasted the animals on the altar. Once the animals were roasted, they took down the carcasses and distributed them to each tribe for offerings to the Eternal, just as the book of Moses prescribed. The Levites then boiled the other holy offerings in containers and took them to the people. 14 Once the people of the nation were enjoying the feast, the Levites prepared meals for themselves and for the priests (the Aaronites, who were busy with the burnt and fat offerings until late in the evening), 15 the singers (the sons of Asaph), Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun (the king’s seer), and the gatekeepers so that none of them needed to leave their prescribed duties to enjoy the feast.
16 On that day, all the Eternal’s servants completed preparations for the Passover, giving burnt offerings on the Eternal’s altar as Josiah commanded, 17 and all the Israelites who were present in Jerusalem celebrated the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for a full week. 18 This was the first Passover feast since Samuel was judging Israel. No other king’s festival was ever as precise or as well-attended by the priests, Levites, and all the Israelites. 19 It took place during Josiah’s 18th year as king.
20 After the incredible success of the Passover and Josiah’s organization of the temple operations, the Egyptian king, Neco, passed through Israel on his way to attack Carchemish (a Babylonian possession on the Euphrates) because of his alliance with the Assyrians. When Josiah marched out to meet Neco, 21 the Egyptian king sent his messengers.
Neco’s Message: Why are you getting involved in this dispute, king of Judah? I am simply passing through your region on my way to attack another nation, as God has asked me to do. I am not attacking you. Stop your forces from interfering with my army, or God who is with me will destroy you.
Josiah may assume that Neco is referring to his pagan gods, but what he misunderstands is that Neco is being sent into battle by the same God whom Josiah served. There aren’t Egyptian gods behind this encounter. The Lord is about to use Neco to judge Josiah.
22 But Josiah ignored Neco’s message and his warning that were from the mouth of God. Josiah disguised himself and attacked Neco’s army on Megiddo Plain. 23 Neco’s archers quickly wounded King Josiah.
Josiah (to his servants): Get me off of this battlefield. I am badly injured.
24 His servants took him out of his battle chariot and carried him to another chariot that they could drive to Jerusalem. There Josiah died and was laid to rest with his fathers. All of Judah and Jerusalem mourned his death. 25 The prophet Jeremiah even composed a lament for Josiah, which all singers remember when they sing their lamentations today, during our exile from Israel. This lament became a state anthem and is recorded in the book of Laments.
26-27 The other actions of Josiah and his loyal deeds, from his birth to his death, are recorded in the Eternal’s law and the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.
The grand tradition of Israel has such a disappointing ending. Certainly God reveals to Josiah that exile is inevitable, but no one can predict the barrage of incompetent kings who usher in that foreign exile.
36 The Israelites chose Josiah’s son Joahaz, also named Jehoahaz,[a] as his father’s successor in Jerusalem. 2 He was 23 years old when he ascended to the throne, but his reign in Jerusalem only lasted 3 months. 3-5 Neco conquered Israel, deposed Joahaz as the king, exiled him to Egypt, and made Israel a vassal state required to pay 3,750 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold annually to Egypt.
The Egyptian king appointed 25-year-old Eliakim, Joahaz’s brother, as acting king of Judah and Jerusalem, changing his name to Jehoiakim. He reigned 11 years in Jerusalem, and he was evil before the Eternal God. 6 Then Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, attacked Israel, carried Jehoiakim bound in bronze chains into exile in Babylon, 7 plundered the Eternal’s temple, and put the temple possessions in his own Babylonian temple. 8-9 The rest of Jehoiakim’s rebellions are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.
Jehoiachin was only 8 years old when he succeeded his father as king in Jerusalem. He, too, did what the Eternal considered as evil and reigned only 3 months and 10 days. 10 Just after the new year, King Nebuchadnezzar had Jehoiachin exiled to Babylon as well. He also took more valuables from the Eternal’s temple.
Nebuchadnezzar then appointed Zedekiah the Babylonian as acting king of Judah and Jerusalem 11 when he was only 21 years old. He reigned 11 years from Jerusalem 12 and he also did what the Eternal One saw as evil. He refused to listen to the guidance of Jeremiah, who advised the king to humble himself before the Eternal. 13 Furthermore, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he had sworn allegiance in the name of God, 14 then led the rest of the nation to abandon the Eternal One, God of Israel. All the leaders and priests mimicked the other nations, following pagan gods and desecrating the Eternal’s house, which He had sanctified in Jerusalem. 15 Again and again, the Eternal God of their ancestors, because of His compassion for His people and His temple, sent messengers to His people, convicting them of the wrong doings and telling them to return to His ways, 16 but the people mocked the True God’s messengers, hated His messages, and laughed at His prophets. Their actions further infuriated the Eternal, until there was no way to contain His anger.
17 The Eternal empowered the king of the Chaldeans (who were part of the Babylonian Empire) to attack Israel. This army was merciless, sacrificing Israel’s children in their temples and slaughtering everyone else without regard to gender, age, or health. 18-19 They plundered every treasure in the Eternal God’s temple and burned God’s temple to the ground. They stole the king’s and the officers’ possessions, tore down the wall of Jerusalem, burned the fortified buildings, and destroyed anything of value in Jerusalem. 20 Anyone who managed to survive the invasion was exiled to Babylon, where they remained servants of the Babylonian court until it was conquered by the Persian Empire. 21 This exile fulfilled the Eternal’s message through Jeremiah that Israel would lie quietly at rest and be desolate for 70 years to make up for the generations where they did not observe Sabbath.
In spite of the generations of sin and hatred, God does not exile His people permanently. He leaves them with the hope of return to their homeland when He gives Jeremiah that prophecy. And their return is not too far away. In less than two generations, the Jews (as the Israelites become known during the exile) return to the land and rebuild His temple.
22 As soon as Cyrus, the king of Persia, took over the former Babylonian Empire, the Eternal fulfilled His own words (which were relayed by Jeremiah) by compelling Cyrus to send a written proclamation throughout his empire.
Cyrus’ Proclamation: 23 The Eternal, the God of heaven, has decided to give me all the kingdoms of the world to rule as my own. In return for this, He has told me to build Him a new house in Jerusalem of Judah. Any of His people living in my empire may return to Jerusalem of Judah with the help of the Eternal One and True God.
1 Paul, called out by God’s will to be an emissary[a] for Jesus the Anointed, along with brother Sosthenes, 2 to God’s church gathering in the city of Corinth. As people who are united with Jesus, the Anointed One, you have been set apart for service. You are all called into community to live as saints with all who invoke the name of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed
3 I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, will shower you with grace and peace.
4 I am continuously thanking my God for you when I think about the grace God has offered you in Jesus the Anointed. 5 In this grace, God is enriching every aspect of your lives by gifting you with the right words to say and everything you need to know. 6 In this way, your life story confirms the life story of the Anointed One, 7 so you are not ill-equipped or slighted on any necessary gifts as you patiently anticipate the day when our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, is revealed. 8 Until that final day, He will preserve you; and on that day, He will consider you faultless. 9 Count on this: God is faithful and in His faithfulness called you out into an intimate relationship with His Son, our Lord Jesus the Anointed.
10 My brothers and sisters, I urge you by the name of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, to come together in agreement. Do not allow anything or anyone to create division among you. Instead, be restored, completely fastened together with one mind and shared judgment. 11 I have heard troubling reports from Chloe’s people that you, my siblings, are consumed by fighting and petty disagreements. 12 What I have heard is that each of you is taking sides, saying, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” or “I am with Cephas,” or “I am with the Anointed One.” 13 Has the Anointed One been split up into many small pieces? Do you think Paul was crucified for you? Were you ceremonially washed through baptism[b] into the name of Paul? Absolutely not!
Paul knows that if the work of Jesus’ gospel degenerates into a cult of personality, it will hardly resemble true Christianity. If the focus is on Paul, Cephas, Apollos, or any famous religious leader, then that distracts from the person and central message of Jesus. Any cult of personality is intoxicating, and it is often easier to claim to follow a person who can be seen and touched. But Christianity is founded upon the belief that Jesus is the head of the church and that all of His followers serve His will as a part of the royal priesthood.
14 Now I am thankful that I baptized[c] only Crispus and Gaius, 15 so none of you can falsely declare you were baptized in my name. 16 Now wait, as I think about it, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; if there are others in your community whom I baptized, I cannot recall at this moment. 17 The mission given to me by the Anointed One is not about baptism, but about preaching good news. The point is not to impress others by spinning an eloquent, intellectual argument; that type of rhetorical showboating would only nullify the cross of the Anointed.
Psalm 27
A song of David.
1 The Eternal is my light amidst my darkness
and my rescue in times of trouble.
So whom shall I fear?
He surrounds me with a fortress of protection.
So nothing should cause me alarm.
The psalms provide us with a way to think about and pray through the various threats we face. Our enemies today may not be the same as in biblical times, but they are no less real. Consider the threats on the horizon. Some may be national. Others may be more personal. Still they come to surround us and destroy us if they could only get the chance. The reality is there are times when our enemies appear to have the upper hand and our cause is lost. But wait and listen to the psalm! All is not lost because, ultimately, God is our light and salvation. The darkness will lift, and our Savior will come. He will settle all scores, and we will live in the beauty of His presence.
2 When my enemies advanced
to devour me alive,
They tripped and fell flat on their faces into the soil.
3 When the armies of the enemy surround me,
I will not be afraid.
When death calls for me in the midst of war,
my soul is confident and unmoved.
4 I am pleading with the Eternal for this one thing,
my soul’s desire:
To live with Him all of my days—
in the shadow of His temple,
To behold His beauty and ponder His ways
in the company of His people.
5 His house is my shelter and secret retreat.
It is there I find peace in the midst of storm and turmoil.
Safety sits with me in the hiding place of God.
He will set me on a rock, high above the fray.
6 God lifts me high above those with thoughts
of death and deceit that call for my life.
I will enter His presence, offering sacrifices and praise.
In His house, I am overcome with joy
As I sing, yes, and play music for the Eternal alone.
20 If someone pronounces a curse on his parents,[a]
the lamp of his life will be snuffed out as complete darkness creeps in.
21 An inheritance acquired hastily at first
will end up not being blessed after all.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.