Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

84 To the Overseer. -- `On the Gittith By sons of Korah.' -- A Psalm. How beloved Thy tabernacles, Jehovah of Hosts!

² My soul desired, yea, it hath also been consumed, For the courts of Jehovah, My heart and my flesh cry aloud unto the living God,

³ (Even a sparrow hath found a house, And a swallow a nest for herself, Where she hath placed her brood,) Thine altars, O Jehovah of Hosts, My king and my God.

⁴ O the happiness of those inhabiting Thy house, Yet do they praise Thee. Selah.

⁵ O the happiness of a man whose strength is in Thee, Highways [are] in their heart.

⁶ Those passing through a valley of weeping, A fountain do make it, Blessings also cover the director.

⁷ They go from strength unto strength, He appeareth unto God in Zion.

⁸ O Jehovah, God of Hosts, hear my prayer, Give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

⁹ Our shield, see, O God, And behold the face of Thine anointed,

¹⁰ For good [is] a day in Thy courts, O Teacher! I have chosen rather to be at the threshold, In the house of my God, Than to dwell in tents of wickedness.

¹¹ For a sun and a shield [is] Jehovah God, Grace and honour doth Jehovah give. He withholdeth not good To those walking in uprightness.

¹² Jehovah of Hosts! O the happiness of a man trusting in Thee.

29 Hezekiah hath reigned -- a son of twenty and five years, and twenty and nine years he hath reigned in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother [is] Abijah daughter of Zechariah;

² and he doth that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father did.

³ He, in the first year of his reign, in the first month, hath opened the doors of the house of Jehovah, and strengtheneth them,

⁴ and bringeth in the priests and the Levites, and gathereth them to the broad place to the east.

⁵ And he saith to them, `Hear me, O Levites, now, sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Jehovah, God of your fathers, and bring out the impurity from the sanctuary,

⁶ for our fathers have trespassed, and done that which is evil in the eyes of Jehovah our God, and forsake him, and turn round their faces from the tabernacle of Jehovah, and give the neck.

⁷ `Also -- they have shut the doors of the porch, and quench the lamps, and perfume they have not made, and burnt-offering have not caused to ascend in the sanctuary to the God of Israel,

⁸ and the wrath of Jehovah is on Judah and Jerusalem, and He giveth them for a trembling, for an astonishment, and for a hissing, as ye are seeing with your eyes.

⁹ And lo, fallen have our fathers by the sword, and our sons, and our daughters, and our wives [are] in captivity for this.

¹⁰ `Now -- with my heart -- to make a covenant before Jehovah, God of Israel, and the fierceness of His anger doth turn back from us.

¹¹ My sons, be not now at rest, for on you hath Jehovah fixed to stand before Him, to serve Him, and to be to Him ministering and making perfume.'

¹⁶ and the priests come in to the inner part of the house of Jehovah to cleanse [it], and bring out all the uncleanness that they have found in the temple of Jehovah to the court of the house of Jehovah, and the Levites receive [it], to take [it] out to the brook Kidron without.

¹⁷ And they begin on the first of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month they have come to the porch of Jehovah, and they sanctify the house of Jehovah in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they have finished.

¹⁸ And they come in within unto Hezekiah the king, and say, `We have cleansed all the house of Jehovah, and the altar of the burnt-offering, and all its vessels, and the table of the arrangement, and all its vessels,

¹⁹ and all the vessels that king Ahaz cast away in his reign -- in his trespass -- we have prepared and sanctified, and lo, they [are] before the altar of Jehovah.'

²³ [It is] necessary, therefore, the pattern indeed of the things in the heavens to be purified with these, and the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these;

²⁴ for not into holy places made with hands did the Christ enter -- figures of the true -- but into the heaven itself, now to be manifested in the presence of God for us;

²⁵ nor that he may many times offer himself, even as the chief priest doth enter into the holy places every year with blood of others;

²⁶ since it had behoved him many times to suffer from the foundation of the world, but now once, at the full end of the ages, for putting away of sin through his sacrifice, he hath been manifested;

²⁷ and as it is laid up to men once to die, and after this -- judgment,

²⁸ so also the Christ, once having been offered to bear the sins of many, a second time, apart from a sin-offering, shall appear, to those waiting for him -- to salvation!