Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁰⁵ NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

¹⁰⁶ I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.

¹⁰⁷ I am afflicted very much; O Jehovah, quicken me according to thy word.

¹⁰⁸ Accept, I beseech thee, Jehovah, the voluntary-offerings of my mouth, and teach me thy judgments.

¹⁰⁹ My life is continually in my hand; but I do not forget thy law.

¹¹⁰ The wicked have laid a snare for me; but I have not wandered from thy precepts.

¹¹¹ Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

¹¹² I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes for ever, unto the end.

23 And the king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

² And the king went up into the house of Jehovah, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and 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 had been found in the house of Jehovah.

³ And the king stood on the dais, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all [his] heart, and with all [his] soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

⁴ And the king commanded Hilkijah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.

⁵ And he abolished the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and the environs of Jerusalem; and them that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

⁶ And he brought out the Asherah from the house of Jehovah, outside Jerusalem, to the torrent of Kidron, and burned it at the torrent of Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁷ And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were in the house of Jehovah, where the women wove tents for the Asherah.

⁸ And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba even to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates, those at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, [and] those on the left hand of any [going in] at the gate of the city.

²¹ And the king commanded all the people saying, Hold the passover to Jehovah your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.

²² For there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

²³ but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover holden to Jehovah in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Moreover the necromancers and the soothsayers, and the teraphim and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah.

²⁵ And before him there had been no king like him that turned to Jehovah with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there his like.

4 Therefore, having this ministry, as we have had mercy shewn us, we faint not.

² But we have rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor falsifying the word of God, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God.

³ But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost;

⁴ in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is [the] image of God, should not shine forth [for them].

⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus' sake.

⁶ Because [it is] the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us:

⁸ every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up;

⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰ always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body;

¹¹ for we who live are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh;

¹² so that death works in us, but life in you.