Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 130

A Song of ^[a]Ascents.

¹ Out of the depths have I cried to You, O Lord.

² Lord, hear my voice; let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

³ If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand?^(A)

⁴ But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.^(B)

⁵ I wait for the Lord, I expectantly wait, and in His word do I hope.

⁶ I am looking and waiting for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, I say, more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is mercy and loving-kindness, and with Him is plenteous redemption.

⁸ And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

29 Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

² And he did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father [forefather] had done.

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord [which his father had closed] and repaired them.

⁴ He brought together the priests and Levites in the square on the east

⁵ And said to them, Levites, hear me! Now sanctify (purify and make free from sin) yourselves and the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place.

⁶ For our fathers have trespassed and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and they have forsaken Him and have turned away their faces from the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs.

⁷ Also they have closed the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and they have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the place holy to the God of Israel.^(A)

⁸ Therefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has delivered them to be a terror and a cause of trembling, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your own eyes.

⁹ For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity for this.

¹⁰ Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, that His fierce anger may turn away from us.

¹¹ My sons, do not now be negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in His presence, to serve Him, to be His ministers, and to burn incense to Him.

¹² Then the Levites arose: Mahath son of Amasai, Joel son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; of the sons of Merari: Kish son of Abdi, Azariah son of Jehallelel; of the Gershonites: Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah;

¹³ Of the sons of Elizaphan: Shimri and Jeiel; of the sons of Asaph: Zechariah, and Mattaniah;

¹⁴ Of the sons of Heman: Jehiel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun: Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵ They gathered their brethren and sanctified themselves and went in, as the king had commanded by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord.

¹⁶ The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the Lord’s house. And the Levites carried it out to the brook Kidron.

¹⁷ They began on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day they came to the porch of the Lord. Then for eight days they sanctified the house of the Lord, and on the sixteenth day they finished.

¹⁸ Then they went to King Hezekiah and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the showbread table with all its utensils.

¹⁹ Moreover, all the utensils which King Ahaz in his reign cast away when he was transgressing [faithless] we have made ready and sanctified; and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.

3 O you poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified?

² Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying the Law and doing its works, or was it by hearing [the message of the Gospel] and believing [it]? [Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith?]

³ Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?

⁴ Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing (to no purpose)—if it really is to no purpose and in vain?

⁵ Then does He Who supplies you with His marvelous [Holy] Spirit and works powerfully and miraculously among you do so on [the grounds of your doing] what the Law demands, or because of your believing in and adhering to and trusting in and relying on the message that you heard?

⁶ Thus Abraham believed in and adhered to and trusted in and relied on God, and it was reckoned and placed to his account and credited as righteousness (as conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action).^(A)

⁷ Know and understand that it is [really] the people [who live] by faith who are [the true] sons of Abraham.

⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify (declare righteous, put in right standing with Himself) the Gentiles in consequence of faith, proclaimed the Gospel [foretelling the glad tidings of a Savior long beforehand] to Abraham in the promise, saying, In you shall all the nations [of the earth] be blessed.^(B)

⁹ So then, those who are people of faith are blessed and made happy and favored by God [as partners in fellowship] with the believing and trusting Abraham.