Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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

¹ ¶ O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee; my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water;

² in this manner I beheld thee in holiness when I beheld thy power and thy glory.

³ ¶ Because thy mercy is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

⁴ Thus will I bless thee in my life; in thy name shall I lift up my hands.

⁵ My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips

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

⁷ ¶ Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

⁸ My soul has followed hard after thee; thy right hand has upheld me.

⁹ But those that sought my soul, to destroy it, descended into the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁰ They shall be slain by the sword; they shall be a portion for foxes.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that swears by him shall be praised; for the mouth of those that speak lies shall be stopped.

¹⁵ Likewise, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which 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 and stamped it small to powder and burned the grove.

¹⁶ And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres and burned them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who had proclaimed these words.

¹⁷ Then he said, What title is this that 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 that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

¹⁸ And he said, Let him alone; let no one move his bones. So his bones were saved along with the bones of the prophet that had come 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 the LORD to anger, Josiah took away and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

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

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Make the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.

²² Such a passover had not been made since 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 In the year eighteen of King Josiah, this passover was made unto the LORD in Jerusalem.

²⁴ In the same manner Josiah burned the spiritists, the diviners, the teraphim, the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.

²⁵ ¶ There was no king before him that converted like this to the LORD with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither did any like him arise after him.

11 ¶ And there was given me a reed like unto a rod, and he said unto me, Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those that worship therein.

² But leave out the court which is within the temple and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty-two months.

³ ¶ And I will give 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 lampstands standing before the God of the earth.

⁵ And if anyone desires to hurt them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies; and if anyone desires to hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

⁶ These have power to shut the heaven, that it not rain in the days of their prophecy and have power over the waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

⁷ And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them.

⁸ And their dead bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

⁹ And those of the peoples and kindreds and tongues and Gentiles shall see their dead bodies three days and a half and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

¹⁰ And those that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry and shall send gifts one to another because these two prophets tormented those that dwelt on the earth.

¹¹ And after three days and a half, the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon those who saw them.

¹² And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up here. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

¹³ And in the same hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain the names of seven thousand men; and the others were frightened and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴ ¶ The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe comes quickly.