Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 84
How Loved Is Your Dwelling Place
Heading
For the choir director. According to gittith.[a] By the Sons of Korah.[b]
A psalm.
How Loved Is Your Dwelling Place
1 How I love your dwelling place, O Lord of Armies.
2 My soul grows weak and even wastes away,
as I long for the courtyards of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow has found a nest for herself,
where she may place her young near your altars,
O Lord of Armies, my King and my God.
The Blessings of Being There
4 How blessed are those who live in your house. Interlude
They are always praising you.
5 How blessed is everyone whose strength is found in you.
The highways to Jerusalem[c] are in their hearts.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,[d]
it becomes full of springs.[e]
The autumn rain also covers it with pools.[f]
7 They go from strength to strength.
Each one will appear before God in Zion.
Prayer
8 O Lord, God of Armies, hear my prayer. Interlude
Give ear, O God of Jacob.
9 Look upon our Shield, O God.
Look with favor on the face of your Anointed One.[g]
The Blessings of Being There
10 Yes, one day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather wait at the doorway of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
11 For the Lord is a sun and shield.
God gives grace and glory.
The Lord does not withhold any good thing
from those who walk with integrity.
12 O Lord of Armies, how blessed is everyone who trusts in you.
Hezekiah King of Judah
29 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.
Restoration of the Temple
3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. 4 He brought the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the eastern square. 5 He said to them:
Listen to me, you Levites! Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the House of the Lord, the God of your fathers. Remove the filth from the holy place, 6 for our fathers have been unfaithful. They have done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God. They have forsaken him. They have turned their faces away from the dwelling of the Lord. They have turned their backs. 7 They also have shut the doors of the porch of the temple and have extinguished the lamps. They have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.
8 So the wrath of the Lord is on Judah and Jerusalem. He has made them into an object of terror, horror, and hissing, as you see with your own eyes. 9 Look! Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity because of this. 10 Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. 11 Now, you my sons, do not be negligent, for you are the ones the Lord has chosen to stand in his presence, to minister to him, to serve him, and to burn incense to him.
16 The priests entered the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it. They brought every unclean thing that they found in the Lord’s temple out into the courtyard of the House of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.
17 On the first day of the first month, they began to consecrate the temple. By the eighth day of the month they had gotten as far as the porch of the Lord. They continued to purify the House of the Lord for eight more days. On the sixteenth day of the first month, they completed the work.
18 They went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the entire House of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the presentation of bread and all its utensils. 19 We have prepared and consecrated all the utensils which King Ahaz discarded during his reign, when he was unfaithful. Look! They are right there in front of the altar of the Lord.”
One Perfect Sacrifice
23 Therefore, it was necessary that the copies of the things in heaven be cleansed by these sacrifices, but it was necessary that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with sacrifices better than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a handmade sanctuary, a representation of the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered into heaven itself, now to appear before God on our behalf. 25 And he did not enter to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise he would have needed to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once and for all, at the climax of the ages, in order to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And, just as it is appointed for people to die only once and after this comes the judgment, 28 so also Christ was offered only once to take away the sins of many, and he will appear a second time—without sin—to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.