Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

29 Hizkiyahu was twenty-five years old when he began his reign, and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Yerushalayim. His mother’s name was Aviyah the daughter of Z’kharyah. ² He did what was right from Adonai’s perspective, following the example of everything David his ancestor had done.

³ In the first month of the first year of his reign, he reopened the doors of the house of Adonai and repaired them. ⁴ Then he brought in the cohanim and L’vi’im, assembled them in the open space to the east, ⁵ and said to them, “Listen to me, L’vi’im: consecrate yourselves now, consecrate the house of Adonai the God of your ancestors, and remove the filth from the Holy Place. ⁶ For our ancestors acted treacherously, they did what is evil from the perspective of Adonai our God, they abandoned him, they turned their faces away from where Adonai lives and turned their backs on him. ⁷ They sealed the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps and stopped burning incense and offering burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Isra’el.

⁸ “Because of this, Adonai’s anger has settled on Y’hudah and Yerushalayim; and he has made them an object of horror, astonishment and mocking — as you can see with your own eyes. ⁹ Here, our ancestors have fallen by the sword; and on this account our sons, daughters and wives have gone into captivity.

¹⁰ “Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with Adonai the God of Isra’el, so that his furious anger will turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, now is not a time for being negligent; for you are the ones Adonai chose to stand before him and serve him as his ministers, offering him incense.”

¹⁶ The cohanim went in to cleanse the inner part of the house of Adonai; all the unclean things they found in the sanctuary of Adonai they brought out into the courtyard of the house of Adonai, where the L’vi’im took and carried them out to Vadi Kidron. ¹⁷ They began consecrating on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they reached the vestibule of Adonai. Then they consecrated the house of Adonai in eight more days; so that on the sixteenth day of the first month, they had finished. ¹⁸ Then they went to Hizkiyahu the king in [the palace] and said, “We have cleansed all the house of Adonai, including the altar for burnt offerings, with all its equipment, and the table for the showbread, with all its equipment. ¹⁹ Moreover, we have reconditioned and consecrated all the articles that King Achaz threw out during his reign, when he was sinning; and they are there, in front of the altar of Adonai.”

²³ Now this is how the copies of the heavenly things had to be purified, but the heavenly things themselves require better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For the Messiah has entered a Holiest Place which is not man-made and merely a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, in order to appear now on our behalf in the very presence of God.

²⁵ Further, he did not enter heaven to offer himself over and over again, like the cohen hagadol who enters the Holiest Place year after year with blood that is not his own; ²⁶ for then he would have had to suffer death many times — from the founding of the universe on. But as it is, he has appeared once at the end of the ages in order to do away with sin through the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷ Just as human beings have to die once, but after this comes judgment, ²⁸ so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,^[a] will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to deliver those who are eagerly waiting for him.