Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 84^[a]

Longing for God’s Dwelling

¹ For the director.^[b] “Upon the gittith.” A psalm of the sons of Korah.

Chapter 29

Reforms of Hezekiah.^{[a] 1} Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. ² He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done.

³ In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. ⁴ Next he brought in the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the square on the east. ⁵ Then he said to them: “Listen to me, you Levites. Sanctify yourselves first. Then sanctify the house of the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and remove the filth from the sanctuary. ⁶ For our ancestors were unfaithful and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, our God. They abandoned him, turned away their faces from him, and turned their backs on him. ⁷ They also shut the doors of the vestibule and extinguished the lamps, and they ceased to burn incense or present any burnt offerings in the sanctuary to the God of Israel.

⁸ “Therefore, the anger of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he has made them an object of terror, astonishment, and derision, as you can see with your own eyes. ⁹ Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and daughters and our wives have been taken captive as a result. ¹⁰ Now I am determined to make a covenant with the God of Israel, in the hope that his fierce anger may turn away from us. ¹¹ Therefore, my sons, do not be negligent any longer, for the Lord has chosen you to sit in his presence and to serve him, to be his ministers, and to offer incense before him.”

¹⁶ The priests entered the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it, and they brought all the unclean things that they found in the temple of the Lord and deposited them in the court of the house of the Lord, where the Levites collected them and carried them out to the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷ They began the rites of sanctification on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they had arrived at the vestibule of the Lord. Then for eight days they sanctified the Lord’s house, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they had finished.

¹⁸ Their work having been completed, they went in to King Hezekiah and said: “We have cleansed the entire house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table for setting out the consecrated bread with all its utensils. ¹⁹ We have restored and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz had cast aside during his reign because of his infidelity. They are now in place before the altar of the Lord.”

²³ Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves required still greater sacrifices.

²⁴ Once and for All.^[a] For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, so that he now appears in the presence of God on our behalf.

²⁵ Nor was it his purpose to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own. ²⁶ For then he would have had to suffer over and over again since the creation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to abolish sin by sacrificing himself.

²⁷ And just as human beings are destined to die but once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸ so Christ, having been offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.