Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.^(A)

¹⁰⁶ I have sworn [an oath] and have confirmed it, that I will keep Your righteous ordinances [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].^(B)

¹⁰⁷ I am sorely afflicted; renew and quicken me [give me life], O Lord, according to Your word!

¹⁰⁸ Accept, I beseech You, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me Your ordinances.^(C)

¹⁰⁹ My life is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget Your law.

¹¹⁰ The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I do not stray from Your precepts.

¹¹¹ Your testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.^(D)

¹¹² I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes forever, even to the end.

23 King Josiah sent and gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

² The king went up to the house of the Lord, and with him all the men of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their ears all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which was found in the Lord’s house.

³ The king stood [on the platform] by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord—to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to join in the covenant.

⁴ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second rank and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for [the goddess] Asherah, and for all the hosts of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel [where Israel’s idolatry began].^(A)

⁵ He put away the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in Judah’s cities and round about Jerusalem—also those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations [or twelve signs of the zodiac], and to all the hosts of the heavens.

⁶ And Josiah brought the Asherah from the house of the Lord to outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron and burned it there, and beat it to dust and cast its dust upon the graves of the common people [who had sacrificed to it].

⁷ And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes, which were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove [tent] hangings for the Asherah [shrines].

⁸ And [Josiah] brought all the [idolatrous] priests out of the city of Judah and defiled the high places, where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba [north to south], and broke down the high places both at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city and that which was on one’s left at the city’s gate.

²¹ The king commanded all the people, Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.

²² Surely such a Passover was not held from the days of Israel’s judges, even in all the days of the kings of Israel or Judah.

²³ But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, the wizards, the teraphim (household gods), the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law written in the book found by Hilkiah the priest in the house of the Lord.

²⁵ There was no king like him before or after [Josiah] who turned to the Lord with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, according to all the Law of Moses.

4 Therefore, since we do hold and engage in this ministry by the mercy of God [granting us favor, benefits, opportunities, and especially salvation], we do not get discouraged (spiritless and despondent with fear) or become faint with weariness and exhaustion.

² We have renounced disgraceful ways (secret thoughts, feelings, desires and underhandedness, the methods and arts that men hide through shame); we refuse to deal craftily (to practice trickery and cunning) or to adulterate or handle dishonestly the Word of God, but we state the truth openly (clearly and candidly). And so we commend ourselves in the sight and presence of God to every man’s conscience.

³ But even if our Gospel (the glad tidings) also be hidden (obscured and covered up with a veil that hinders the knowledge of God), it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing and obscured [only] to those who are spiritually dying and veiled [only] to those who are lost.

⁴ For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers’ minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God.

⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves [merely] as your servants (slaves) for Jesus’ sake.

⁶ For God Who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts so as [to beam forth] the Light for the illumination of the knowledge of the majesty and glory of God [as it is manifest in the Person and is revealed] in the face of Jesus Christ (the Messiah).^(A)

⁷ However, we possess this precious treasure [the divine Light of the Gospel] in [frail, human] vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves.

⁸ We are hedged in (pressed) on every side [troubled and oppressed in every way], but not cramped or crushed; we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not driven to despair;

⁹ We are pursued (persecuted and hard driven), but not deserted [to stand alone]; we are struck down to the ground, but never struck out and destroyed;

¹⁰ Always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the [^[a]resurrection] life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies.

¹¹ For we who live are constantly [experiencing] being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the [^[b]resurrection] life of Jesus also may be evidenced through our flesh which is liable to death.

¹² Thus death is actively at work in us, but [it is in order that ^[c]our] life [may be actively at work] in you.