⁶ Our parents^(A) were unfaithful;^(B) they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him. ⁷ They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense^(C) or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror^(D) and scorn,^(E) as you can see with your own eyes. ⁹ This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity.^(F)

¹⁶ The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.^(A)

¹⁷ They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the Lord. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the Lord itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.