Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

NUN

King Josiah obeys God

23 King Josiah told all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem to come and meet with him.

² He went up to the Lord's temple.^[a] All the people who lived in Jerusalem and in the rest of Judah went with him. They included the priests, the prophets, young people and old people. Everyone went to the temple. They all listened while the king read to them all the words in the Book of God's Covenant. That was the book that Hilkiah had found in the Lord's temple.

³ Then the king stood in his place beside the pillar in the temple. He promised the Lord that he would obey the covenant. He agreed to serve the Lord faithfully and to obey his commands, laws and rules. Josiah agreed to obey what was written in the Book of God's Covenant. All the people also promised to obey the covenant.

⁴ Then the king gave a command to Hilkiah, the leader of the priests, and to the other priests and the temple guards. He told them to bring out from the Lord's temple everything that people used there to worship false gods. People used those things to worship Baal, Asherah and all the stars in the sky. King Josiah burned those things outside Jerusalem, in the fields of the Kidron Valley. Then he took all the ashes to Bethel.^[b]

⁵ He removed the priests who served false gods. The kings of Judah had chosen those priests to make offerings at the altars on the hills. They were on the hills in Judah's cities and all around Jerusalem. These priests offered sacrifices to Baal, to the sun, to the moon and to all the stars in the sky. ⁶ He also removed the Asherah pole from the Lord's temple. He took it outside Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley. He burned it there. He made its ashes into dust. He threw the dust over the graves of ordinary people.^[c]

⁷ King Josiah also destroyed the rooms in the Lord's temple where the male prostitutes lived. Women also made clothes there for the idol of Asherah. ⁸ He brought from the towns of Judah all the priests who served false gods. He destroyed the altars on the hills where those priests offered sacrifices. He did that everywhere in Judah, from Geba to Beersheba. He destroyed the altar that was on the left side of one of Jerusalem city's gates. It was called the Gate of Joshua. Joshua was an officer who had authority over the city.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, ‘The Book of God's Covenant teaches about the Passover festival. Now you must eat that Passover meal to give honour to the Lord your God.’ ²² Since the time when the judges ruled Israel, the Israelites had not had a Passover festival like that. They had never had it during the time when kings ruled Judah and Israel. ²³ But in the 18th year that Josiah ruled Judah as king, the people once again had a Passover festival to give honour to the Lord.

²⁴ Josiah did other things to obey the rules that were written in the Book of God's Law. That was the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the Lord's temple. Josiah removed the people who spoke to the spirits of dead people and the other magicians. He destroyed the images that people worshipped in their homes. He destroyed all the other idols that people had started to worship in Jerusalem and in all Judah.

²⁵ Josiah turned to the Lord and he served the Lord faithfully with all his strength. He obeyed all the Law of Moses. No other king was like Josiah, either before him or after him.

God's good news brings light

4 God has given us this work to speak his message. Because he has been so kind to us, we are not afraid to continue. ² We refuse to do anything secretly that we might be ashamed of. We do not tell lies. We do not change God's message to deceive people. No. We tell God's true message clearly. God himself sees that we teach people in an honest way. Everyone should understand that we only do what is right. ³ Some people may not understand the good news that we speak. They are only the people who are losing their lives with God. ⁴ Those people do not accept God's good news. The god of this world has confused their minds. They cannot see the light that the good news brings. That message teaches about the great power of Christ, who shows us exactly what God is like.

⁵ We do not speak a message about ourselves. We tell people that Jesus Christ is our Lord. Because we belong to Jesus, we have become your servants, not your masters. ⁶ God is the one who said, ‘Let light shine in the dark.’ And he is the one who has caused his light to shine deep inside us. Because of that, we know how great and powerful God is. We see that his power shines brightly in Christ's face.^[a]

⁷ God has given to us the gift to speak his message. But we ourselves are very weak. It is like we are keeping his valuable gift in clay pots. So it is clear that the great power of God's message comes from God himself. It does not come from us. ⁸ We receive trouble all the time, but that does not stop us. We do not always know what to do, but we are not afraid to continue. ⁹ We have many enemies, but we always have friends. People hurt us, but they never destroy us. ¹⁰ As we serve Jesus, we know that we may die as he died. Because of that, our lives show that we live because he is alive. ¹¹ Yes, as we live our lives, death is always very near, because we serve Jesus. As a result, people can see in our weak, human bodies that Jesus is alive. ¹² So death is near to us, even as we live. But as a result, we are bringing God's life to you.