Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 84

Longing for God’s House

For the choir director: on the Gittith.^(A) A psalm of the sons of Korah.

Judah’s King Hezekiah

29 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old^(A) when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah^[a] daughter of Zechariah. ² He did what was right in the Lord’s sight^(B) just as his ancestor David had done.

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the Lord’s temple and repaired them.^{(C) 4} Then he brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the eastern public square.^{(D) 5} He said to them, “Hear me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves^(E) now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove everything impure from the holy place. ⁶ For our ancestors were unfaithful and did what is evil in the sight of the Lord our God. They abandoned him, turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place, and turned their backs on him.^{[b](F) 7} They also closed the doors of the portico, extinguished the lamps, did not burn incense, and did not offer burnt offerings in the holy place of the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore, the wrath of the Lord was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he made them an object of terror, horror, and mockery,^[c](G) as you see with your own eyes. ⁹ Our fathers fell by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity because of this.^{(H) 10} It is in my heart now to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel^(I) so that his burning anger may turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, don’t be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to serve him, and to be his ministers and burners of incense.”^(J)

¹⁶ The priests went to the entrance of the Lord’s temple to cleanse it. They took all the unclean things they found in the Lord’s sanctuary to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. Then the Levites received them and took them outside to the Kidron Valley.^{(A) 17} They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the portico of the Lord’s temple. They consecrated the Lord’s temple for eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished.

¹⁸ Then they went inside to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the whole temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the rows of the Bread of the Presence and all its utensils. ¹⁹ We have set up and consecrated all the utensils that King Ahaz rejected during his reign^(B) when he became unfaithful. They are in front of the altar of the Lord.”

²³ Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these.^{(A) 24} For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model^[a] of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us.^{(B) 25} He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another.^{(C) 26} Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages,^(D) for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself.^{(E) 27} And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment^(F)— ²⁸ so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,^(G) will appear a second time,^(H) not to bear sin, but^[b] to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.^(I)