Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

For the choir director; on the gittith; a psalm by Korah’s descendants.

King Hezekiah Rededicates the Temple^(A)

29 Hezekiah began to rule as king when he was 25 years old. He ruled for 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah, daughter of Zechariah. ² He did what the Lord considered right, as his ancestor David had done.

³ In the first month of his first year as king, he opened the doors of the Lord’s temple and repaired them. ⁴ He brought the priests and Levites together in the square on the east side ⌞of the temple⌟.

⁵ He said to them, “Listen to me, Levites. Perform the ceremonies to make the temple of the Lord God of your ancestors holy. Remove anything that has been corrupted from the holy place. ⁶ Our ancestors were unfaithful and did what the Lord our God considered evil. They deserted him. They turned away from the Lord’s tent ^[a] and turned their backs on him. ⁷ They also shut the doors of the ⌞temple’s⌟ entrance hall, extinguished the lamps, and didn’t burn incense or sacrifice burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. ⁸ So the Lord was angry with Judah and Jerusalem. He made them something that shocks and terrifies people and that people ridicule, as you can see with your own eyes. ⁹ Our fathers were killed in battle, and our sons, daughters, and wives are prisoners because of this. ¹⁰ Now I intend to make a pledge to the Lord God of Israel so that he may turn his burning anger away from us. ¹¹ Don’t be negligent, my sons. The Lord has chosen you to stand in front of him, serve him, be his servants, and burn sacrifices.”

¹⁶ The priests entered the Lord’s temple to make it clean. They carried into the courtyard every unclean thing that they found in the Lord’s temple. Then the Levites took the unclean items outside the city to the Kidron Brook. ¹⁷ They started on the first day of the first month. On the eighth day they went into the Lord’s entrance hall, and for eight days they performed the ceremonies to make the Lord’s temple holy. They finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.

¹⁸ Then they went to King Hezekiah. They said ⌞to him⌟, “We have made all of the Lord’s temple clean. This includes the altar for burnt offerings, all its utensils, the table for the rows of bread and all its utensils, ¹⁹ and all the utensils King Ahaz refused to use during his reign when he was unfaithful. We have restored them and made them holy. They are in front of the Lord’s altar.”

²³ The copies of the things in heaven had to be cleansed by these sacrifices. But the heavenly things themselves had to be cleansed by better sacrifices. ²⁴ Christ didn’t go into a holy place made by human hands. He didn’t go into a model of the real thing. Instead, he went into heaven to appear in God’s presence on our behalf. ²⁵ Every year the chief priest went into the holy place to make a sacrifice with blood that isn’t his own. However, Christ didn’t go into heaven to sacrifice himself again and again. ²⁶ Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the world was created. But now, at the end of the ages, he has appeared once to remove sin by his sacrifice. ²⁷ People die once, and after that they are judged. ²⁸ Likewise, Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of humanity, and after that he will appear a second time. This time he will not deal with sin, but he will save those who eagerly wait for him.