Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Nun

God’s Word a Light

Josiah’s Covenant

23 At this, the king sent for and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ² The king went up to the Lord’s Temple, accompanied by all the men of Judah, everyone who lived in Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone—including those who were unimportant and those who were important—and he read to them everything written in the Book of the Covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s Temple. ³ The king stood beside a pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord: to follow after the Lord, to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all of his heart and soul, and to carry out what was written in the covenant contained in the book. All the people consented to enter into the covenant.

Josiah Abolishes Idolatry

⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the secondary order, and the doorkeepers to take out of the Lord’s Temple all of the implements that had been crafted for Baal, for Asherah, and for every star in the heavens. Then he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ The king unseated the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places throughout the cities of Judah and in the environs surrounding Jerusalem, including those who had been burning incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to every star in the heavens. ⁶ He brought the Asherah from the Lord’s Temple to the Kidron Brook outside Jerusalem, burned it at the Kidron brook, pulverized the ashes^[a] to dust, and scattered it^[b] over the graves of the common people.

⁷ He also demolished the temples of the cultic male prostitutes that had been operating^[c] in the Lord’s Temple, where the women had been doing weaving for the Asherah. ⁸ Then he gathered together all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places from Geba to Beer-sheba, where the priests had burned incense. He also demolished the high places of the gates that had been erected to the left as one enters the city gate—that is, near the entrance operated by Joshua, the governor of the city.

Josiah Reinstates the Passover

²¹ After this, the king commanded all of the people, “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, just as it’s prescribed in this Book of the Covenant.” ²² From the days of the judges who ruled in Israel, no Passover had been celebrated like this, not even in all the reigns of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. ²³ In the eighteenth year of the reign of^[a] King Josiah, this Passover was observed in Jerusalem to honor the Lord. ²⁴ Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums, the necromancers, the household gods,^[b] the idols, and every despicable thing that could be seen in the territory of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might confirm the words of the Law that had been written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s Temple. ²⁵ There had been no king like him before him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, in obeying everything in the Law of Moses. No king arose like Josiah after him.

Treasure in Clay Jars

4 Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy shown to us, we do not get discouraged. ² Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use trickery or pervert God’s word. By clear statements of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.

³ So if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are dying.^{[a] 4} In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe to keep them from seeing the light of the glorious gospel of the Messiah,^[b] who is the image of God.

⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but rather Jesus the Messiah^[c] as Lord, and ourselves as merely your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”^[d] has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus^[e] the Messiah.^[f]

⁷ But we have this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power comes from God and not from us. ⁸ In every way we’re troubled but not crushed, frustrated but not in despair, ⁹ persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We are always carrying around the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may be clearly shown in our bodies. ¹¹ While we are alive, we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be clearly shown in our mortal bodies. ¹² And so death is at work in us, but life is at work^[g] in you.