Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 132

A pilgrimage song.

23 ¹ the king sent a message, and all of Judah’s and Jerusalem’s elders gathered before him. ² Then the king went up to the Lord’s temple, together with all the people of Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people, young and old alike. There the king read out loud all the words of the covenant scroll that had been found in the Lord’s temple. ³ The king stood beside the pillar and made a covenant with the Lord that he would follow the Lord by keeping his commandments, his laws, and his regulations with all his heart and all his being in order to fulfill the words of this covenant that were written in this scroll. All of the people accepted the covenant.

⁴ The king then commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the second-order priests, and the doorkeepers to remove from the Lord’s temple all the religious objects made for Baal, Asherah, and all the heavenly bodies. The king burned them outside Jerusalem in the Kidron fields and took the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He got rid of the pagan priests that the Judean kings had appointed to burn incense at the shrines in Judah’s cities and the areas around Jerusalem. He did the same to those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the heavenly bodies. ⁶ He removed the Asherah image^[a] from the Lord’s temple, taking it to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem. There he burned it, ground it to dust, and threw the dust on the public graveyard. ⁷ The king tore down the shrines for the consecrated workers^[b] that were in the Lord’s temple, where women made woven coverings^[c] for Asherah.

⁸ Then Josiah brought all the priests out of Judah’s cities. From Geba to Beer-sheba, he defiled the shrines where the priests had been burning incense. He also tore down the shrines at the gates at the entrance to the gate of Joshua the city’s governor, which were on the left as one entered the city gate. ⁹ Although the priests of these shrines didn’t go up on the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem, they did eat unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

¹⁰ Josiah defiled the Topheth in the Ben-hinnom Valley so no one could burn their child alive in honor of the god Molech. ¹¹ He did away with the horses that Judah’s kings had dedicated to the sun. They were kept at the entrance to the Lord’s temple near a room in the annex^[d] that belonged to an official named Nathan-melech. Josiah set fire to the chariots that were dedicated to the sun. ¹² The king also tore down the altars that were on the roof of Ahaz’s upper story, which had been made by the Judean kings, and he did the same with the altars that Manasseh had built in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He broke them up there^[e] and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley. ¹³ The king then defiled the shrines facing Jerusalem, south of the Mountain of Destruction. Solomon the king of Israel had built these for Ashtoreth, the monstrous Sidonian god, for Chemosh, the monstrous Moabite god, and for Milcom, the detestable Ammonite god. ¹⁴ He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred poles,^[f] filling the places where they had been with human bones.

³¹ The one who comes from above is above all things. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all things. ³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. ³³ Whoever accepts his testimony confirms that God is true. ³⁴ The one whom God sent speaks God’s words because God gives the Spirit generously. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and gives everything into his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever doesn’t believe in the Son won’t see life, but the angry judgment of God remains on them.”