Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

84 To victory, on the pressers. The psalm of the sons of Korah. Lord of virtues, thy tabernacles be greatly loved; (To victory, for those at the winepresses. The song for the sons of Korah. Lord of hosts, how greatly loved be thy tabernacles/how beautiful is thy dwelling place;)

² my soul coveteth, and faileth into the porches of the Lord. Mine heart, and my flesh; full out joyed into quick God. (my soul desireth, and longeth for, the courtyards of the Lord’s Temple. My heart, and my flesh, rejoiced in the living God.)

³ For why a sparrow findeth an house to itself; and a turtle(dove) findeth a nest to itself, where it shall keep his birds. Lord of virtues, thine altars; my king, and my God. (For there a sparrow findeth a house for itself; and a turtledove findeth a nest for itself, where it shall keep its young. Yea, beside thy altars, Lord of hosts; my King, and my God.)

⁴ Lord, blessed be they that dwell in thine house; they shall praise thee into the worlds of worlds. (Lord, happy be those who live in thy House; they shall praise thee forever.)

⁵ Blessed is the man, whose help is of thee; he hath ordained (thy) goings in his heart, (Happy be those whose help is in thee/whose strength is in thee; they have ordained thy ways in their hearts.)

⁶ in the valley of tears, in the place which he hath set. For the giver of the law shall give blessing, (And as they pass through the dry Baca Valley, they shall find water from a spring. For the Giver of the Law shall give them a blessing.)

⁷ they shall go from virtue into virtue; God of gods shall be seen in Zion. (They shall go from strength to strength; and the God of gods shall be seen in Zion.)

⁸ Lord God of virtues, hear thou my prayer; God of Jacob, perceive thou with ears. (Lord God of hosts, hear thou my prayer; God of Jacob, please listen thou to me.)

⁹ God, our defender, behold thou; and behold into the face of thy christ (and look upon the face of thy anointed king).

¹⁰ For why one day in thine halls is better; than a thousand (elsewhere). I choose to be abject, either an outcast, in the house of my God; more than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners. (For one day in thy courtyards, is better than a thousand days elsewhere. I would rather choose to be a doorkeeper in the House of my God; than to live in the tents, or in the homes, of the sinners.)

¹¹ For God loveth mercy and truth; the Lord shall give grace and glory. He shall not deprive them from goods, that go in innocence; (For God loveth mercy and faithfulness; and the Lord giveth favour and glory. He will not hold back any good thing, from those who go in innocence/from those who do what is right.)

¹² Lord of virtues, blessed is the man, that hopeth in thee. (Lord of hosts, happy is the person, who trusteth in thee.)

29 And Hezekiah began to reign, when he was of five and twenty years, and he reigned in Jerusalem nine and twenty years (And Hezekiah began to reign, when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years); the name of his mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.

² And Hezekiah did that, that was pleasing in the sight of the Lord, by all things that David, his father, had done. (And Hezekiah did what was pleasing before the Lord, by all the things that his forefather David had done.)

³ In that year, and in the first month of his realm, he opened the gates of the house of the Lord, and restored, or repaired, those gates;

⁴ and he brought (in) the priests, and deacons (and the Levites), and he gathered them together into the east street,

⁵ and said to them, Sons of Levi, hear ye me, and be ye hallowed; cleanse ye the house of the Lord God of your fathers; and do ye away all uncleanness from the saintuary. (and said to them, Sons of Levi/Levites, listen ye to me, and be ye consecrated, or purified, now; and cleanse ye the House of the Lord God of your fathers; and do ye away all uncleanness from the sanctuary.)

⁶ Our fathers have sinned, and done evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and forsook him; they turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord our God, and gave their back (and they turned their backs on him).

⁷ They closed the doors that were in the porch (They closed the doors of the vestibule), and quenched the lanterns; and they burnt not incense, and they offered not burnt sacrifices in the saintuary of (the) God of Israel.

⁸ Therefore the strong vengeance of the Lord was raised upon Judah and Jerusalem; and he gave them into stirring/into moving, or unstableness, and into perishing, and into hissing, either scorning, as ye see with your eyes.

⁹ Lo! our fathers have fallen down by swords; our sons, and our daughters, and our wives be led (away as) prisoners for this great trespass.

¹⁰ Now therefore it pleaseth me, that we make a bond of peace with the Lord God of Israel, and that he turn from us the strong vengeance of his wrath. (And so now it pleaseth me, that we make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, so that he turn away the strong vengeance of his anger from us.)

¹¹ My sons, do not ye herein be reckless; the Lord hath chosen you, that ye stand before him, and serve him, that ye praise him, and burn incense to him.

¹⁶ Also [the] priests entered into the temple of the Lord, for to hallow it, and they bare out all the uncleanness, that they found therein in(to) the porch, either large place, of the house of the Lord; which uncleanness the deacons took, and they bare it out to the strand of Kidron withoutforth. (And the priests entered into the Temple of the Lord to cleanse it, and they brought out all the unclean things, that they found there, into the courtyard of the House of the Lord; and then the Levites took away these unclean things, and they carried them to the Kidron Stream/to the Kidron Gorge.)

¹⁷ Soothly they began to cleanse in the first day of the first month, and in the eighth day of the same month they entered into the porch of the house of the Lord, and they cleansed the temple eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the same month they [ful]filled that, that they had begun. (And they began to cleanse it on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the same month they reached the vestibule of the House of the Lord, and then they cleansed the Temple for eight days; and on the sixteenth day of the same month, they finished what they had begun.)

¹⁸ And they entered to Hezekiah, the king, and said to him, We have hallowed, or cleansed, all the house of the Lord, and the altar of burnt sacrifice thereof, and the vessels thereof, also and the board of setting forth with all his vessels, (And they came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, We have cleansed all the House of the Lord, and also the table for the loaves of proposition, or the loaves of setting forth, with all its vessels,)

¹⁹ and all the purtenance of the temple, that king Ahaz had defouled in his realm (that King Ahaz had defiled during his reign), after that he brake the law; and lo! all things be set forth before the altar of the Lord.

²³ Therefore it is need, that the exemplars [that the samplers] of heavenly things be cleansed with these things; but those heavenly things with better sacrifices than these.

²⁴ For Jesus entered not into holy things made by hands, that be [the] exemplars of very things, but into heaven itself, that he appear now to the face of God for us;^[a]

²⁵ neither [nor] that he offer himself oft, as the bishop entered into holy things by all years in alien blood,

²⁶ else it behooved him to suffer oft [else it behooved him oft to suffer] from the beginning of the world; but now once in the ending of the worlds, to the destruction of sin by his sacrifice he appeared.

²⁷ And as it is ordained to men, once to die, but after this is the doom,

²⁸ so Christ was offered once, to void the sins of many men [for to void, or do away, the sins of many men]; the second time he shall appear without sin to men that abide him into health.