Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

NUN.

¹⁰⁵ ¶ Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my way.

¹⁰⁶ ¶ I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep the judgments of thy righteousness.

¹⁰⁷ ¶ I am afflicted very much; cause me to live, O LORD, according to thy word.

¹⁰⁸ ¶ Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me thy judgments.

¹⁰⁹ ¶ My soul is continually in my hand; yet I do not forget thy law.

¹¹⁰ The wicked have laid a snare for me; yet did not I err from thy precepts.

¹¹¹ ¶ I have taken thy testimonies as a heritage for ever; for they are the rejoicing of my heart.

¹¹² I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes always, even unto the end.

23 ¶ And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

² And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, from the smallest to the greatest; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the LORD.

³ And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, that they would walk after the LORD and keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in that book. And all the people confirmed the covenant.

⁴ ¶ And the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest, and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that had been made for Baal and for the grove and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and caused their dust to be carried unto Bethel.

⁵ And he put down the religious persons whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places round about Jerusalem; likewise, those that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

⁶ And he brought out the graven image of the grove from the house of the LORD outside Jerusalem unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and stamped it small to powder and cast the powder of it upon the graves of the sons of the people.

⁷ He likewise broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes that were by the house of the LORD where the women wove hangings for the grove.

⁸ And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and broke down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Make the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.

²² Such a passover had not been made since the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.

²³ In the year eighteen of King Josiah, this passover was made unto the LORD in Jerusalem.

²⁴ In the same manner Josiah burned the spiritists, the diviners, the teraphim, the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.

²⁵ ¶ There was no king before him that converted like this to the LORD with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither did any like him arise after him.

4 ¶ Therefore seeing we have this ministry, according to the mercy we have received, we fault not,

² but remove from ourselves every hidden shameful thing, not walking in craftiness, nor adulterating the word of God, but in the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

³ But if our gospel is hid, it is hid to those that are lost,

⁴ In whom the god of this age has blinded the understanding of those who do not believe, that the light of the gospel of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine in them.

⁵ For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your slaves for Jesus’ sake.

⁶ For the God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to bring forth the light of the knowledge of the clarity of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in clay vessels that the excellency of the virtue may be of God, and not of us.

⁸ ¶ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are unsure of our lives, but not in despair;

⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰ always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

¹¹ For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

¹² So then death works in us, but life in you.