Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 120

A pilgrimage song.^[a]

Zedekiah rules Judah

¹⁸ Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal; she was Jeremiah’s daughter and was from Libnah. ¹⁹ He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, just as Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰ It was precisely because the Lord was angry with Jerusalem and Judah that he thrust them out of his presence.

The southern kingdom falls

Now Zedekiah rebelled against the Babylonian king. 25 ¹ So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. He camped beside the city and built a siege wall all around it. ² The city was under attack until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ³ On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city got so bad that no food remained for the common people. ⁴ Then the enemy broke into the city. All the soldiers fled^[a] by night using the gate between the two walls near the King’s Garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, so the soldiers ran toward the desert plain. ⁵ But the Chaldean army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the Jericho plains. His entire army deserted him. ⁶ So the Chaldeans captured the king and brought him back to the Babylonian king, who was at Riblah. There his punishment was determined. ⁷ Zedekiah’s sons were slaughtered right before his eyes. Then he was blinded, put in bronze chains, and taken off to Babylon.

⁸ On the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem. He was the commander of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king. ⁹ He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all of Jerusalem’s houses. He burned down every important building. ¹⁰ The whole Chaldean army under the commander of the guard tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem. ¹¹ Then Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard exiled the people who were left in the city, those who had already surrendered to Babylon’s king, and the rest of the population. ¹² The commander of the guard left some of the land’s poor people behind to work the vineyards and be farmers. ¹³ The Chaldeans shattered the bronze columns, the stands, and the bronze Sea that were in the Lord’s temple. They carried the bronze off to Babylon. ¹⁴ They also took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze items that had been used in the temple. ¹⁵ The commander of the guard took the fire pans and the sprinkling bowls, which were made of pure gold and pure silver. ¹⁶ The bronze in all these objects—the two pillars, the Sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple—was too heavy to weigh. ¹⁷ Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of the first pillar was four and a half feet high. Decorative lattices and pomegranates, all made from bronze, were around the capital. And the second pillar was decorated with lattices just like the first.

¹⁸ The commander of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers. ¹⁹ Of those still left in the city, Nebuzaradan took away an officer who was in charge of the army and five royal advisors who were discovered in the city. He also took away the secretary of the officer responsible for drafting the land’s people to fight, as well as sixty people who were discovered in the city. ²⁰ Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took all of these people and brought them to the Babylonian king at Riblah. ²¹ The king of Babylon struck them down, killing them in Riblah in the land of Hamath.

So Judah was exiled from its land.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. He’s the first crop of the harvest^[a] of those who have died. ²¹ Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came through one too. ²² In the same way that everyone dies in Adam, so also everyone will be given life in Christ. ²³ Each event will happen in the right order: Christ, the first crop of the harvest,^[b] then those who belong to Christ at his coming, ²⁴ and then the end, when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he brings every form of rule, every authority and power to an end. ²⁵ It is necessary for him to rule until he puts all enemies under his feet.^{[c] 26} Death is the last enemy to be brought to an end, ²⁷ since he has brought everything under control under his feet. When it says that everything has been brought under his control, this clearly means everything except for the one who placed everything under his control. ²⁸ But when all things have been brought under his control, then the Son himself will also be under the control of the one who gave him control over everything so that God may be all in all.

²⁹ Otherwise, what are those who are getting baptized for the dead doing? If the dead aren’t raised, then why are they being baptized for them? ³⁰ And what about us? Why are we in danger all day every day? ³¹ Brothers and sisters, I swear by the pride I have in you in Christ Jesus our Lord, I’m facing death every day. ³² From a human point of view, what good does it do me if I fought wild animals in Ephesus? If the dead aren’t raised, let’s eat and drink because tomorrow we’ll die.^{[d] 33} Don’t be deceived, bad company corrupts good character. ³⁴ Sober up by acting like you should and don’t sin. Some of you are ignorant about God—I say this because you should be ashamed of yourselves!