Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

David wrote this psalm when he was in the Judah wilderness.

A morning song^[a]

¹⁵ Josiah also destroyed the altar at Bethel. It was an altar for false gods that Nebat's son, King Jeroboam had made. King Jeroboam had caused the people of Israel to do bad things. Josiah completely destroyed that altar. He broke its stones into small pieces so that only dust remained. He also burned the Asherah pole.

¹⁶ Then Josiah looked around and he saw graves on the hill. He sent someone to bring the bones from them. He burned them on the altar, so that people could not use it again. The Lord had said that this would happen when King Jeroboam was standing beside the altar. A man of God had spoken God's message to Jeroboam during a festival.

Josiah looked up and he saw the grave of the man of God who had spoken God's message. ¹⁷ He asked, ‘Whose grave stone is that?’ The men from Bethel city said to him, ‘It is the grave of the man of God who came from Judah. You have now done to this altar at Bethel the things that he said would happen.’ ¹⁸ King Josiah said, ‘Do not do anything to his grave. Do not remove his bones.’ So they did not do anything with the bones of the man of God. They also left the bones of the old prophet who had come from Samaria.^[a]

¹⁹ King Josiah removed the altars on the hills in all the towns of Samaria. The kings of Israel had built those altars and that had made the Lord angry. Josiah destroyed all of them, in the same way that he destroyed the altar at Bethel. ²⁰ He punished with death all the priests who served false gods at those altars. He killed them on their own altars. He burned human bones on all the altars. After he had done that, he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, ‘The Book of God's Covenant teaches about the Passover festival. Now you must eat that Passover meal to give honour to the Lord your God.’ ²² Since the time when the judges ruled Israel, the Israelites had not had a Passover festival like that. They had never had it during the time when kings ruled Judah and Israel. ²³ But in the 18th year that Josiah ruled Judah as king, the people once again had a Passover festival to give honour to the Lord.

²⁴ Josiah did other things to obey the rules that were written in the Book of God's Law. That was the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the Lord's temple. Josiah removed the people who spoke to the spirits of dead people and the other magicians. He destroyed the images that people worshipped in their homes. He destroyed all the other idols that people had started to worship in Jerusalem and in all Judah.

²⁵ Josiah turned to the Lord and he served the Lord faithfully with all his strength. He obeyed all the Law of Moses. No other king was like Josiah, either before him or after him.

God's two servants

11 Someone gave me a stick, like the sticks that people use to measure things. He told me, ‘Go and measure the size of the temple and the altar. Also count the number of people who worship God there. ² But do not measure the yard that is outside God's house. Do not measure it, because God has given that yard to Gentiles who do not believe in him. They will stamp all over God's own city for 42 months and they will destroy it.

³ I will give authority to my two servants who speak my message clearly. They will tell people my messages for 1,260 days. They will wear rough clothes made from goats' hair.’^[a]

⁴ These servants are the two olive trees and the two lampstands.^[b] They stand in front of God who is the Lord of the earth. ⁵ If anyone tries to hurt them, fire comes out of the servants' mouths. This fire destroys their enemies. Anyone who wants to hurt the two servants must die in this way. ⁶ These servants of God have authority to shut up the sky. Then there will be no rain during the time that they tell their messages from God. They also have authority to cause the water on earth to become blood. They can cause many different kinds of trouble to happen on the earth. They can do this as often as they want to.

⁷ When these two servants of God have finished speaking God's messages, a wild animal will attack them. This is the animal that lives in the deep hole.^[c] It will come up out of the hole. It will be stronger than the two servants and it will kill them. ⁸ Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city where people killed their Lord on a cross.^[d] This city should be called Sodom or Egypt, because it is as bad as those places.^[e]

⁹ People from everywhere in the world will look at the servants' dead bodies for three and a half days. Those are people from every nation, from every tribe and from every language. They will not agree to bury the bodies. ¹⁰ The people who live on the earth will be very happy because the two servants of God are now dead. They will send gifts to each other because they are so happy. These two prophets of God had caused bad trouble for them, but now they have died.

¹¹ But after three and a half days, God breathed life into those dead bodies. They stood up. The people who saw them were very afraid. ¹² Then God's two servants heard a loud voice that came from heaven. The voice said, ‘Come up here.’ They went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.^[f]

¹³ At the same time the ground shook with a strong earthquake. One in every ten buildings in the city fell down. 7,000 people died because of the earthquake. The people who were still alive became very afraid. They praised the God of heaven and said that he is very powerful.

¹⁴ That is the second great trouble and it has now finished. But the third great trouble will come soon.