Saturday in Season after Pentecost

1Verse 1. Then the king summoned all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2Verse 2. And he went up to the house of the LORD with all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets— all the people small and great— and in their hearing he read all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. 3Verse 3. So the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to follow the LORD and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of the covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant. 4Verse 4. Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5Verse 5. Josiah also did away with the idolatrous priests ordained by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem — those who had burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. 6Verse 6. He brought the Asherah pole from the house of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and there he burned it, ground it to powder, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people. 7Verse 7. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah. 8Verse 8. Then Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which was to the left of the city gate. 9Verse 9. Although the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests. 10Verse 10. He also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire to Molech. 11Verse 11. And he removed from the entrance to the house of the LORD the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the chamber of an official named Nathan-melech. And Josiah burned up the chariots of the sun. 12Verse 12. He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley. 13Verse 13. The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Corruption, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14Verse 14. He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.

1Verse 1. In the first year of the reign of Belshazzar over Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he lay on his bed. He wrote down the dream, and this is the summary of his account. 2Verse 2. Daniel declared: “In my vision in the night I looked, and suddenly the four winds of heaven were churning up the great sea. 3Verse 3. Then four great beasts came up out of the sea, each one different from the others: 4Verse 4. The first beast was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man and given the mind of a man. 5Verse 5. Suddenly another beast appeared, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. So it was told, ‘Get up and gorge yourself on flesh!’ 6Verse 6. Next, as I watched, suddenly another beast appeared. It was like a leopard, and on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. 7Verse 7. After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying — dreadful and extremely strong — with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns. 8Verse 8. While I was contemplating the horns, suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like those of a man and a mouth that spoke words of arrogance. 15Verse 15. I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit, and the visions in my mind alarmed me. 16Verse 16. I approached one of those who were standing there, and I asked him the true meaning of all this. So he told me the interpretation of these things: 17Verse 17. ‘These four great beasts are four kings who will arise from the earth. 18Verse 18. But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess it forever — yes, forever and ever.’