2 Chronicles 35

• 1. Josiah celebrated the Passover to the LORD in Jerusalem, and the Passover lamb was slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the first month.
• 2. He appointed the priests to their duties and encouraged them in the service of the LORD's temple.
• 3. He said to the Levites, who instructed all Israel and who had been consecrated to the LORD: "Put the sacred ark in the temple that Solomon son of David king of Israel built. It is not to be carried about on your shoulders. Now serve the LORD your God and his people Israel.
• 4. Prepare yourselves by families in your divisions, according to the directions written by David king of Israel and by his son Solomon.
• 5. "Stand in the holy place with a group of Levites for each subdivision of the families of your fellow countrymen, the lay people.
• 6. Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves and prepare the lambs for your fellow countrymen, doing what the LORD commanded through Moses."
• 7. Josiah provided for all the lay people who were there a total of thirty thousand sheep and goats for the Passover offerings, and also three thousand cattle-all from the king's own possessions.
• 8. His officials also contributed voluntarily to the people and the priests and Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah and Jehiel, the administrators of God's temple, gave the priests twenty-six hundred Passover offerings and three hundred cattle.
• 9. Also Conaniah along with Shemaiah and Nethanel, his brothers, and Hashabiah, Jeiel and Jozabad, the leaders of the Levites, provided five thousand Passover offerings and five hundred head of cattle for the Levites.
• 10. The service was arranged and the priests stood in their places with the Levites in their divisions as the king had ordered.
• 11. The Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests sprinkled the blood handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals.
• 12. They set aside the burnt offerings to give them to the subdivisions of the families of the people to offer to the LORD, as is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle.
• 13. They roasted the Passover animals over the fire as prescribed, and boiled the holy offerings in pots, caldrons and pans and served them quickly to all the people.
• 14. After this, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were sacrificing the burnt offerings and the fat portions until nightfall. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the Aaronic priests.
• 15. The musicians, the descendants of Asaph, were in the places prescribed by David, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun the king's seer. The gatekeepers at each gate did not need to leave their posts, because their fellow Levites made the preparations for them.
• 16. So at that time the entire service of the LORD was carried out for the celebration of the Passover and the offering of burnt offerings on the altar of the LORD, as King Josiah had ordered.
• 17. The Israelites who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days.
• 18. The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem.
• 19. This Passover was celebrated in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign.
• 20. After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle.
• 21. But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, "What quarrel is there between you and me, O king of Judah? It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you."
• 22. Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Neco had said at God's command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo.
• 23. Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, "Take me away; I am badly wounded."
• 24. So they took him out of his chariot, put him in the other chariot he had and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died. He was buried in the tombs of his fathers, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him.
• 25. Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, and to this day all the men and women singers commemorate Josiah in the laments. These became a tradition in Israel and are written in the Laments.
• 26. The other events of Josiah's reign and his acts of devotion, according to what is written in the Law of the LORD -
• 27. all the events, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

Revelation 21

• 1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
• 2. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
• 3. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
• 4. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
• 5. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
• 6. He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
• 7. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
• 8. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
• 9. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
• 10. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
• 11. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
• 12. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
• 13. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.
• 14. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
• 15. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.
• 16. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long.
• 17. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man's measurement, which the angel was using.
• 18. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
• 19. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald,
• 20. the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.
• 21. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.
• 22. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
• 23. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
• 24. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
• 25. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.
• 26. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
• 27. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Malachi 3

• 1. "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.
• 2. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.
• 3. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,
• 4. and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
• 5. "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.
• 6. "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
• 7. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
• 8. "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?'"In tithes and offerings.
• 9. You are under a curse-the whole nation of you-because you are robbing me.
• 10. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
• 11. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty.
• 12. "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.
• 13. "You have said harsh things against me," says the LORD. "Yet you ask, 'What have we said against you?'
• 14. "You have said, 'It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty?
• 15. But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.'"
• 16. Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.
• 17. "They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.
• 18. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

New International Version

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