Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The Blessedness of Dwelling in the House of God

To the Chief Musician. ^(A)On^[a] an instrument of Gath. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.

Hezekiah Reigns in Judah^(A)

29 Hezekiah ^(B)became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was ^[a]Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. ² And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done.

Hezekiah Cleanses the Temple

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he ^(C)opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. ⁴ Then he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them in the East Square, ⁵ and said to them: “Hear me, Levites! Now ^[b]sanctify yourselves, ^(D)sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. ⁶ For our fathers have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God; they have forsaken Him, have ^(E)turned their faces away from the ^[c]dwelling place of the Lord, and turned their backs on Him. ^7 (F)They have also shut up the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore the ^(G)wrath of the Lord fell upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has ^(H)given them up to trouble, to desolation, and to ^(I)jeering, as you see with your ^(J)eyes. ⁹ For indeed, because of this ^(K)our fathers have fallen by the sword; and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity.

¹⁰ “Now it is in my heart to make ^(L)a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has ^(M)chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense.”

¹⁶ Then the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord to the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it out and carried it to the Brook ^(A)Kidron.

¹⁷ Now they began to ^[a]sanctify on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the vestibule of the Lord. So they sanctified the house of the Lord in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished.

¹⁸ Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed all the house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offerings with all its articles, and the table of the showbread with all its articles. ¹⁹ Moreover all the articles which King Ahaz in his reign had ^(B)cast aside in his transgression we have prepared and ^[b]sanctified; and there they are, before the altar of the Lord.”

Greatness of Christ’s Sacrifice

²³ Therefore it was necessary that ^(A)the copies of the things in the heavens should be ^[a]purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For ^(B)Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are ^[b]copies of ^(C)the true, but into heaven itself, now ^(D)to appear in the presence of God for us; ²⁵ not that He should offer Himself often, as ^(E)the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— ²⁶ He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ^27 (F)And as it is appointed for men to die once, ^(G)but after this the judgment, ²⁸ so ^(H)Christ was ^(I)offered once to bear the sins ^(J)of many. To those who ^(K)eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.