He burned the bones of the pagan priests ¹  on their altars; he purified Judah and Jerusalem.

Through loyal love and truth ¹  iniquity is appeased; ²  through fearing the Lord ³  one avoids ⁴  evil. ⁵ 

At that time ¹  the sovereign master ²  will wash the excrement ³  from Zion’s women, he will rinse the bloodstains from Jerusalem’s midst, ⁴  as he comes to judge and to bring devastation. ⁵ 

In the eighteenth year of his reign, he continued his policy of purifying the land and the temple. ¹  He sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the city official, and Joah son of Joahaz the secretary to repair the temple of the Lord his God.

You mix uncleanness with obscene conduct. ¹  I tried to cleanse you, ²  but you are not clean. You will not be cleansed from your uncleanness ³  until I have exhausted my anger on you.

Therefore I swore an oath to the house of Eli, ‘The sin of the house of Eli can never be forgiven by sacrifice or by grain offering.’”

He touched my mouth with it and said, “Look, this coal has touched your lips. Your evil is removed; your sin is forgiven.” ¹ 

The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely. But there is too much dross to be removed. ¹  The process of refining them has proved useless. ²  The wicked have not been purged.

The Lord who commands armies told me this: ¹  “Certainly this sin will not be forgiven as long as you live,” ²  says the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies.

So I purified them of everything foreign, and I assigned specific ¹  duties to the priests and the Levites.

Each morning I will destroy all the wicked people in the land, and remove all evildoers from the city of the Lord.

Indeed according to the law almost everything was purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have ¹  no further consciousness of sin?

But ¹  concerning the one who lacks such things ²  – he is blind. That is to say, he is ³  nearsighted, since he has forgotten about the cleansing of his past sins.

So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, ¹  and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: ²  They will make all the stones of the altars ³  like crushed limestone, and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. ⁴ 

The speaker went on to say, “This is a curse ¹  traveling across the whole earth. For example, according to the curse whoever steals ²  will be removed from the community; or on the other hand (according to the curse) whoever swears falsely will suffer the same fate.”

The Son is ¹  the radiance of his glory and the representation of his essence, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, ²  and so when he had accomplished cleansing for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. ³ 

Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge out ¹  wickedness from among you, and all Israel ²  will hear about it and be afraid.

Then the priests slaughtered them. They offered their blood as a sin offering on the altar to make atonement for all Israel, because the king had decreed ¹  that the burnt sacrifice and sin offering were for all Israel.

Many will be purified, made clean, and refined, but the wicked will go on being wicked. None of the wicked will understand, though the wise will understand.