Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 84
For the Music Director. According to The Gittith. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
1 How lovely is Your dwelling place,
O Lord of Hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, even faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my body cry out
for the living God.
3 Yes, the sparrow has found a home
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
even at Your altars,
O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house;
they continually praise You. Selah
5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
in whose heart are the paths to Zion.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they makes it a spring;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
every one of them appears in Zion before God.
8 O Lord God of Hosts, hear my prayer,
and give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah
9 Behold, O God our shield,
and look upon the face of Your anointed.
10 For a day in Your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord will give favor and glory,
for no good thing will He withhold
from the one who walks uprightly.
12 O Lord of Hosts,
blessed is the man who trusts in You.
Hezekiah, King of Judah(A)
29 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he was king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. The name of his mother was Abijah[a] the daughter of Zechariah. 2 And he did what was correct in the eyes of the Lord just as his father David had done.
Hezekiah Cleanses the Temple
3 And in the first year and first month of his reign he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and restored them. 4 He then brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the square on the eastern side 5 and said to them, “Listen to me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves and consecrate the house of the Lord God of your fathers. And bring out the detestable things from the holy sanctuary. 6 For our fathers have acted unfaithfully and have done what is evil in the eyes of the Lord our God, and they have abandoned Him. They have turned their face from the sanctuary of the Lord and have turned their back. 7 They also shut the doors of the vestibule and have extinguished the lamps, nor have they burned incense or burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem for a terror, horror, and scorn as you all can see with your own eyes. 9 Observe, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and now our sons, daughters, and wives are in captivity for all this. 10 Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel so that His burning anger might turn away from us. 11 My people, do not now be negligent for the Lord has chosen you all to stand in His presence, to serve Him, and to be ministers and make sacrifices for Him.”
16 Then the priests came into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they removed everything that they found that was unclean in the main hall of the temple of the Lord to the court. And the Levites took those things and brought them out to the Kidron Valley. 17 They began to consecrate themselves on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the vestibule of the Lord. They consecrated the house of the Lord for eight days. Then on the sixteenth day of the first month they completed the task.
18 Then they came toward Hezekiah the king and said, “We have cleaned the entire house of the Lord, the altar of burnt offerings and all its utensils, and the table for showbread and all its utensils. 19 All the vessels that King Ahaz discarded from use during his reign in his treachery we have prepared and consecrated. They are before the altar of the Lord.”
Christ’s Sacrifice Takes Away Sin
23 It was therefore necessary that the replicas of heavenly things be cleansed with these sacrifices, but that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter holy places made with hands, which are patterned after the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. 25 Nor did He enter to offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 For then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the world was created, but now He has appeared once at the end of the ages to put away sin by sacrificing Himself. 27 As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this comes the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to save those who eagerly wait for Him.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.