Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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

63 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh languisheth for thee, in a dry and weary land without water:

² To see thy power and thy glory, as I have beheld thee in the sanctuary;

³ For thy loving-kindness is better than life: my lips shall praise thee.

⁴ So will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name.

⁵ My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise [thee] with joyful lips.

⁶ When I remember thee upon my bed, I meditate on thee in the night-watches:

⁷ For thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings will I sing for joy.

⁸ My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

⁹ But those that seek my soul, to destroy [it], shall go into the lower parts of the earth;

¹⁰ They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be the portion of foxes.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: for the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

¹⁵ Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and burned the high place, stamped it small to powder, and burned the Asherah.

¹⁶ And Josiah turned himself, and saw the sepulchres that were there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned [them] upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Jehovah, that the man of God had proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

¹⁷ Then he said, What tombstone is that which I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

¹⁸ And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. And they saved his bones, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

¹⁹ And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke [Jehovah] to anger, Josiah removed, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

²⁰ And he sacrificed upon the altars all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned men's bones upon them. And he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ And the king commanded all the people saying, Hold the passover to Jehovah your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.

²² For there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

²³ but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover holden to Jehovah in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Moreover the necromancers and the soothsayers, and the teraphim and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah.

²⁵ And before him there had been no king like him that turned to Jehovah with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there his like.

11 And there was given to me a reed like a staff, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship in it.

² And the court which [is] without the temple cast out, and measure it not; because it has been given [up] to the nations, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty-two months.

³ And I will give [power] to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred [and] sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.

⁴ These are the two olive trees and the two lamps which stand before the Lord of the earth;

⁵ and if any one wills to injure them, fire goes out of their mouth, and devours their enemies. And if any one wills to injure them, thus must he be killed.

⁶ These have power to shut the heaven that no rain may fall during the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth as often as they will with every plague.

⁷ And when they shall have completed their testimony, the beast who comes up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and shall conquer them, and shall kill them:

⁸ and their body [shall be] on the street of the great city, which is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

⁹ And [men] of the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations see their body three days and a half, and they do not suffer their bodies to be put into a sepulchre.

¹⁰ And they that dwell upon the earth rejoice over them, and are full of delight, and shall send gifts one to another, because these, the two prophets, tormented them that dwell upon the earth.

¹¹ And after the three days and a half [the] spirit of life from God came into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon those beholding them.

¹² And I heard a great voice out of the heaven saying to them, Come up here; and they went up to the heaven in the cloud, and their enemies beheld them.

¹³ And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand names of men were slain in the earthquake. And the remnant were filled with fear, and gave glory to the God of the heaven.

¹⁴ The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe comes quickly.