Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 84

To the Chief Musician; set to a Philistine lute, or [possibly] a particular Gittite tune. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.

¹ How lovely are Your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!

² My soul yearns, yes, even pines and is homesick for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out and sing for joy to the living God.

³ Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—even Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

⁴ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are those who dwell in Your house and Your presence; they will be singing Your praises all the day long. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁵ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

⁶ Passing through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), they make it a place of springs; the early rain also fills [the pools] with blessings.

⁷ They go from strength to strength [increasing in victorious power]; each of them appears before God in Zion.

⁸ O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁹ Behold our shield [the king as Your agent], O God, and look upon the face of Your anointed!

¹⁰ For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else]; I would rather be a doorkeeper and stand at the threshold in the house of my God than to dwell [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.

¹¹ For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.

¹² O Lord of hosts, blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts in You [leaning and believing on You, committing all and confidently looking to You, and that without fear or misgiving]!

29 Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

² And he did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father [forefather] had done.

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord [which his father had closed] and repaired them.

⁴ He brought together the priests and Levites in the square on the east

⁵ And said to them, Levites, hear me! Now sanctify (purify and make free from sin) yourselves and the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place.

⁶ For our fathers have trespassed and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and they have forsaken Him and have turned away their faces from the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs.

⁷ Also they have closed the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and they have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the place holy to the God of Israel.^(A)

⁸ Therefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has delivered them to be a terror and a cause of trembling, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your own eyes.

⁹ For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity for this.

¹⁰ Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, that His fierce anger may turn away from us.

¹¹ My sons, do not now be negligent, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in His presence, to serve Him, to be His ministers, and to burn incense to Him.

¹⁶ The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the Lord’s house. And the Levites carried it out to the brook Kidron.

¹⁷ They began on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day they came to the porch of the Lord. Then for eight days they sanctified the house of the Lord, and on the sixteenth day they finished.

¹⁸ Then they went to King Hezekiah and said, We have cleansed all the house of the Lord and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the showbread table with all its utensils.

¹⁹ Moreover, all the utensils which King Ahaz in his reign cast away when he was transgressing [faithless] we have made ready and sanctified; and behold, they are before the altar of the Lord.

²³ By such means, therefore, it was necessary for the [earthly] copies of the heavenly things to be purified, but the actual heavenly things themselves [required far] better and nobler sacrifices than these.

²⁴ For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with [human] hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but [He has entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the [very] presence of God on our behalf.

²⁵ Nor did He [enter into the heavenly sanctuary to] offer Himself regularly again and again, as the high priest enters the [Holy of] Holies every year with blood not his own.

²⁶ For then would He often have had to suffer [over and over again] since the foundation of the world. But as it now is, He has once for all at the consummation and close of the ages appeared to put away and abolish sin by His sacrifice [of Himself].

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for [all] men once to die, and after that the [certain] judgment,

²⁸ Even so it is that Christ, having been offered to take upon Himself and bear as a burden the sins of many once and ^[a]once for all, will appear a second time, not to carry any burden of sin nor to deal with sin, but to bring to full salvation those who are [eagerly, constantly, and patiently] waiting for and expecting Him.