Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

NUN

¹⁰⁵ Your Word is a lantern to my feet, and a light to my paths.

¹⁰⁶ I have sworn and will perform it, that I will keep Your righteous Judgments.

¹⁰⁷ I am very afflicted, O LORD. Quicken me according to Your Word.

¹⁰⁸ O LORD, I beg you, accept the free offering of my mouth and teach me Your Judgments.

¹⁰⁹ My life is continually in my hand. Yet, I do not forget Your Law.

¹¹⁰ The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not swerve from Your Precepts.

¹¹¹ I have inherited Your Testimonies forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

¹¹² I have extended my heart to fulfill Your Statutes always, even to the end.

23 Then the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem to him.

² And the king went up into the House of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and 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 the LORD.

³ And the king stood by the pillar and made a Covenant before the LORD, that they would walk after the LORD, and keep His Commandments, and His Testimonies, and His Statutes, with all their heart and with all their soul, so that they might carry out the Words of this Covenant written in this Book. And all the people established the Covenant.

⁴ Then the king commanded Hilkiah the High Priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the Door, to bring all the vessels that were made for Baal (and for the grove and for all the host of heaven) out of the Temple of the LORD. And he burnt them outside Jerusalem, in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes into Bethel.

⁵ And he took down the Chemarim, whom the kings of Judah had made to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, and also those that burnt incense to Baal (to the Sun and to the Moon and to the planets and to all the host of heaven).

⁶ And he brought out the grove from the Temple of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the valley of Kidron, and burnt it in the valley Kidron and stamped it to powder and cast its dust upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁷ And he broke down the houses of the Sodomites who were in the House of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

⁸ Also, he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and destroyed the high places of the gates that were in the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which was on the left side of the gate of the city.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the Book of this Covenant.”

²² And there was no Passover like that held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Judah.

²³ And in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Josiah also took away the mediums and the soothsayers and the images and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, to perform the Words of the Law which were written in the Book that Hilkiah the Priest found in the House of the LORD.

²⁵ There was no king like him before, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses. Nor did there ever arise any like him after.

4 Therefore, seeing that we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not faint.

² But we have cast from us the cloaks of shame, and do not walk in craftiness, nor handle the Word of God deceitfully. But in declaration of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

³ If the Gospel is then hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost,

⁴ in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving; that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, should not shine unto them.

⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for Jesus’ sake.

⁶ For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the excellency of that power might be of God, and not of us.

⁸ We are afflicted on every side, yet we are not in distress. We are in doubt, but yet we do not despair;

⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but we do not perish.

¹⁰ Everywhere we carry about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might also be made manifest in our bodies.

¹¹ For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus might also be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

¹² So then, death works in us, and life in you.