Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 63

A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.

¹ O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.

² So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.

³ Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.

⁴ So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.

⁵ My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips

⁶ When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.

⁷ For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.

⁸ My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek and demand my life to ruin and destroy it shall [themselves be destroyed and] go into the lower parts of the earth [into the underworld of the dead].

¹⁰ They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a prey for foxes and jackals.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone who swears by Him [that is, who binds himself by God’s authority, acknowledging His supremacy, and devoting himself to His glory and service alone; every such one] shall glory, for the mouths of those who speak lies shall be stopped.

¹⁵ Moreover, the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place Josiah tore down and broke in pieces its stones, beating them to dust, and burned the Asherah.

¹⁶ And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs across on the mount, and he sent and brought the bones out of the tombs and burned them upon the altar and defiled it, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord which the man of God prophesied, who predicted these things [about this altar, naming Josiah before he was born].^(A)

¹⁷ Josiah said, What is that monument I see? The men of the city told him, It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and foretold these things that you have just done against the altar of Bethel.

¹⁸ He said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.^(B)

¹⁹ Also Josiah took away all the houses of the high places in the cities of Samaria which the kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lord to anger, and he did to them all that he had done in Bethel.

²⁰ He slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars and burned men’s bones upon them [to defile the places forever]. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king commanded all the people, Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.

²² Surely such a Passover was not held from the days of Israel’s judges, even in all the days of the kings of Israel or Judah.

²³ But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums, the wizards, the teraphim (household gods), the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law written in the book found by Hilkiah the priest in the house of the Lord.

²⁵ There was no king like him before or after [Josiah] who turned to the Lord with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, according to all the Law of Moses.

11 A reed [as a measuring rod] was then given to me, [shaped] like a staff, and I was told: Rise up and measure the sanctuary of God and the altar [of incense], and [number] those who worship there.^(A)

² But leave out of your measuring the court outside the sanctuary of God; omit that, for it is given over to the Gentiles (the nations), and they will trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months (three and one-half years).^(B)

³ And I will grant the power of prophecy to My two witnesses for 1,260 (42 months; three and one-half years), dressed in sackcloth.

⁴ These [witnesses] are the two olive trees and the two lampstands which stand before the Lord of the earth.^(C)

⁵ And if anyone attempts to injure them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their enemies; if anyone should attempt to harm them, thus he is doomed to be slain.^(D)

⁶ These [two witnesses] have power to shut up the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying (their ^[a]prediction of events relating to Christ’s kingdom and its speedy triumph); and they also have power to turn the waters into blood and to smite and scourge the earth with all manner of plagues as often as they choose.^(E)

⁷ But when they have finished their testimony and their evidence is all in, the beast (monster) that comes up out of the Abyss (bottomless pit) will wage war on them, and conquer them and kill them.^(F)

⁸ And their dead bodies [will lie exposed] in the open street (^[b]a public square) of the great city which is in a spiritual sense called [by the mystical and allegorical names of] Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.^(G)

⁹ For three and a half days men from the races and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and will not allow them to be put in a tomb.

¹⁰ And those who dwell on the earth will gloat and exult over them and rejoice exceedingly, taking their ease and sending presents [in congratulation] to one another, because these two prophets had been such a vexation and trouble and torment to all the dwellers on the earth.

¹¹ But after three and a half days, by God’s gift the breath of life again entered into them, and they rose up on their feet, and great dread and terror fell on those who watched them.^(H)

¹² Then [the two witnesses] heard a strong voice from heaven calling to them, Come up here! And before the very eyes of their enemies they ascended into heaven in a cloud.^(I)

¹³ And at that [very] hour there was a tremendous earthquake and one tenth of the city was destroyed (fell); seven thousand people perished in the earthquake, and those who remained were filled with dread and terror and were awe-struck, and they glorified the God of heaven.

¹⁴ The second woe (calamity) has passed; now the third woe is speedily to come.