Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

For the Chief Musician. On an instrument of Gath. A Psalm by the sons of Korah.

29 Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. ² He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done. ³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of Yahweh’s house and repaired them. ⁴ He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together into the wide place on the east, ⁵ and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place. ⁶ For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs. ⁷ Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore Yahweh’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment and a hissing, as you see with your eyes. ⁹ For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. ¹⁰ Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, don’t be negligent now; for Yahweh has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers and burn incense.”

¹⁶ The priests went into the inner part of Yahweh’s house to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in Yahweh’s temple into the court of Yahweh’s house. The Levites took it from there to carry it out to the brook Kidron. ¹⁷ Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month they came to Yahweh’s porch. They sanctified Yahweh’s house in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished. ¹⁸ Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace and said, “We have cleansed all Yahweh’s house, including the altar of burnt offering with all its vessels, and the table of show bread with all its vessels. ¹⁹ Moreover, we have prepared and sanctified all the vessels which King Ahaz threw away in his reign when he was unfaithful. Behold, they are before Yahweh’s altar.”

²³ It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For Christ hasn’t entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; ²⁵ nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own, ²⁶ or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷ Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment, ²⁸ so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.