Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁵ He smashed the altar that was at Beit-El and the high place made by Yarov‘am the son of N’vat, who caused Isra’el to sin. Yes, he smashed that altar and the high place; he burned the high place, stamped the ashes to powder, and burned up the asherah. ¹⁶ Then, as Yoshiyahu was turning around, he noticed the burial caves that were there on the mountain; so he sent and had the bones taken out of the burial caves and burned them on the altar, thus desecrating it, in keeping with the word of Adonai which the man of God had proclaimed, foretelling that these things would happen. ¹⁷ Then he asked, “This monument here that I’m looking at, what is it?” The men of the city told him, “It marks the burial cave of the man of God who came from Y’hudah and foretold the very things you have done to the altar of Beit-El.” ¹⁸ He replied, “Let him be; no one is to move his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Shomron.

¹⁹ Yoshiyahu also removed all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Shomron, which the kings of Isra’el had made in order to provoke [Adonai] to anger, and treated them the same as in Beit-El. ²⁰ He put to death all the priests of those high places on the altars there, then burned human bones on them. Finally he returned to Yerushalayim.

²¹ The king issued this order to all the people: “Observe Pesach to Adonai your God, as written in this scroll of the covenant.” ²² For Pesach had not been so observed since the days when the judges ruled Isra’el — not during the times of any of the kings of Isra’el or of the kings of Y’hudah. ²³ But in the eighteenth year of King Yoshiyahu this Pesach was observed to Adonai in Yerushalayim.

²⁴ Yoshiyahu got rid of the mediums and the people using spirit guides, as well as the household gods, the idols and all the disgusting things spotted anywhere in Y’hudah and Yerushalayim. He did this in order to establish the words of the Torah written in the scroll Hilkiyahu the cohen had found in the house of Adonai.

²⁵ No previous king was like him; because he turned to Adonai with all his heart, with all his being and with all his power, in accordance with all the Torah of Moshe; nor did any king like him arise afterwards.

11 I was given a measuring rod like a stick and told, “Get up, and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count how many people are worshipping there! ² But the court outside the Temple, leave that out; don’t measure it; because it has been given to the Goyim, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.

³ “Also I will give power to my two witnesses; and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.” ⁴ These are the two olive trees and the two menorahs standing before the Lord of the earth. ⁵ If anyone tries to do them harm, fire comes out of their mouth and consumes their enemies — yes, if anyone tries to harm them, that is how he must die. ⁶ They have the authority to shut up the sky, so that no rain falls during the period of their prophesying; also they have the authority to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

⁷ When they finish their witnessing, the beast coming up out of the Abyss will fight against them, overcome them and kill them; ⁸ and their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city whose name, to reflect its spiritual condition, is “S’dom” and “Egypt” — the city where their Lord was executed on a stake. ⁹ Some from the nations, tribes, languages and peoples see their bodies for three-and-a-half days and do not permit the corpses to be placed in a tomb. ¹⁰ The people living in the Land rejoice over them, they celebrate and send each other gifts, because these two prophets tormented them so.

¹¹ But after the three-and-a-half days a breath of life from God entered them, they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. ¹² Then the two heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up into heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them. ¹³ In that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were awestruck and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴ The second woe has passed; see, the third woe is coming quickly