Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

63 Unto the end, a psalm for David.

² Hear, O God, my prayer, when I make supplication to thee: deliver my soul from the fear of the enemy.

³ Thou hast protected me from the assembly of the malignant; from the multitude of the workers of iniquity.

⁴ For they have whetted their tongues like a sword; they have bent their bow a bitter thing,

⁵ To shoot in secret the undefiled.

⁶ They will shoot at him on a sudden, and will not fear: they are resolute in wickedness. They have talked of hiding snares; they have said: Who shall see them?

⁷ They have searched after iniquities: they have failed in their search. Man shall come to a deep heart:

⁸ And God shall be exalted. The arrows of children are their wounds:

⁹ And their tongues against them are made weak. All that saw them were troubled;

¹⁰ And every man was afraid. And they declared the works of God: and understood his doings.

¹¹ The just shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall hope in him: and all the upright in heart shall be praised.

¹⁵ Moreover the altar also that was at Bethel, and the high place, which Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin, had made: both the altar, and the high place he broke down and burnt, and reduced to powder, and burnt the grove.

¹⁶ And as Josias turned himself, he saw there the sepulchres that were in the mount: and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God spoke, who had foretold these things.

¹⁷ And he said: What is that monument which I see? And the men of that city answered: It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Juda, and foretold these things which thou hast done upon the altar of Bethel.

¹⁸ And he said: Let him alone, let no man move his bones. So his bones were left untouched with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

¹⁹ Moreover all the temples of the high places, which were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord, Josias took away: and he did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

²⁰ And he slew all the priests of the high places, that were there, upon the altars: and he burnt men's bones upon them: and returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ And he commanded all the people, saying: Keep the phase to the Lord your God, according as it is written in the book of this covenant.

²² Now there was no such a phase kept from the days of the judges, who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Juda,

²³ As was this phase that was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem, in the eighteenth year of king Josias.

²⁴ Moreover the diviners by spirits, and soothsayers, and the figures of idols, and the uncleannesses, and the abominations, that had been in the land of Juda, and Jerusalem, Josias took away: that he might perform the words of the law, that were written in the book which Helcias the priest had found in the temple of the Lord.

²⁵ There was no king before him like unto him, that returned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with ail his strength, according to all the law of Moses: neither after him did there arise any like him.

11 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and it was said to me: Arise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that adore therein.

² But the court, which is without the temple, cast out, and measure it not: because it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread under foot two and forty months:

³ And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.

⁴ These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks, that stand before the Lord of the earth.

⁵ And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths, and shall devour their enemies. And if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain.

⁶ These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and they have power over waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues as often as they will.

⁷ And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast, that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

⁸ And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified.

⁹ And they of the tribes, and peoples, and tongues, and nations, shall see their bodies for three days and a half: and they shall not suffer their bodies to be laid in sepulchres.

¹⁰ And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry: and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth.

¹¹ And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them.

¹² And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud: and their enemies saw them.

¹³ And at that hour there was made a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell: and there were slain in the earthquake names of men seven thousand: and the rest were cast into a fear, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴ The second woe is past: and behold the third woe will come quickly.