The Daily Audio Bible

Hezekiah’s Illness^(A)

20 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was about to die. The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Give final instructions to your household, because you’re about to die. You won’t get well.”

² Hezekiah turned to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ³ “Please, Lord, remember how I’ve lived faithfully and sincerely in your presence. I’ve done what you consider right.” And he cried bitterly.

⁴ Isaiah hadn’t gone as far as the middle courtyard when the Lord spoke his word to him: ⁵ “Go back and say to Hezekiah, leader of my people, ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I’ve heard your prayer. I’ve seen your tears. Now I’m going to heal you. The day after tomorrow you will go to the Lord’s temple. ⁶ I’ll give you 15 more years to live. I’ll rescue you and defend this city from the control of the king of Assyria for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’ ”

⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Get a fig cake, and put it on the boil so that the king will get well.”

⁸ Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I’ll go to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?”

⁹ Isaiah said, “This is your sign from the Lord that he will do what he promises. Do you want the shadow to go forward ten steps or come back ten steps?”

¹⁰ Hezekiah replied, “It’s easy for the shadow to extend ten ⌞more⌟ steps forward. No, let it come back ten steps.”

¹¹ Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow that had gone down on Ahaz’s stairway go back up ten steps.

Hezekiah Shows the Babylonians His Treasures^(B)

¹² At that time Baladan’s son, King Merodach Baladan of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah because he heard that Hezekiah had been sick. ¹³ Hezekiah was so happy with them that he showed the messengers his warehouse: the silver, gold, balsam, fine olive oil, his entire armory, and everything in his treasury. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and every corner of his kingdom.

¹⁴ Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did these men say? And where did they come from?”

Hezekiah answered, “They came to me from the distant country of Babylon.”

¹⁵ Isaiah asked, “What did they see in your palace?”

Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything in my palace, and I showed them everything in my treasury.”

¹⁶ Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the Lord’s word! ¹⁷ The Lord says, ‘The days are going to come when everything in your palace, everything your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be taken away to Babylon. Nothing will be left. ¹⁸ Some of your own descendants will be taken away. They will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’ ”

¹⁹ Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s word that you have spoken is good.” He added, “Isn’t it enough if there is peace and security as long as I live?”

²⁰ Isn’t everything else about Hezekiah, all his heroic acts and how he made the pool and tunnel to bring water into the city, written in the official records of the kings of Judah? ²¹ Hezekiah lay down in death with his ancestors. His son Manasseh succeeded him as king.

King Manasseh of Judah^(C)

21 Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

² He did what the Lord considered evil by copying the disgusting things done by the nations that the Lord had forced out of the Israelites’ way. ³ He rebuilt the illegal places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He set up altars dedicated to Baal and made a pole dedicated to the goddess Asherah as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh, like Ahab, worshiped and served the entire army of heaven. ⁴ He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.” ⁵ In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple, he built altars for the entire army of heaven. ⁶ He burned his son as a sacrifice, consulted fortunetellers, cast evil spells, and appointed ⌞royal⌟ mediums and psychics. He did many things that made the Lord furious. ⁷ Manasseh had an idol of Asherah made. Then he set it up in the temple, where the Lord had said to David and his son Solomon, “I have chosen this temple and Jerusalem from all the tribes of Israel. I will put my name here forever. ⁸ I will never again make Israel’s feet wander from the land that I gave to their ancestors if they will obey all the commands and all the Teachings that my servant Moses gave them.” ⁹ (But they wouldn’t obey.) Manasseh misled Israel so that they did more evil things than the nations that the Lord had destroyed when the Israelites arrived in the land.

¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke through his servants the prophets: ¹¹ “King Manasseh of Judah has done disgusting things, things more evil than what the Amorites who ⌞were here⌟ before him had done. Manasseh has also made Judah sin by ⌞worshiping⌟ his idols. ¹² So this is what I, the Lord God of Israel, said: I’m going to bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears about it will ring. ¹³ I will measure Jerusalem with the measuring line used for Samaria and the plumb line used for Ahab’s dynasty. I will wipe out Jerusalem in the same way that a dish is wiped out and turned upside down. ¹⁴ I will abandon the rest of my people. I will put them under the control of their enemies, and they will become property that their enemies capture. ¹⁵ I will do this because they have done what I consider evil and have been making me furious from the time their ancestors left Egypt until this day.”

¹⁶ In addition to his sin that he led Judah to commit in front of the Lord, Manasseh also killed a lot of innocent people from one end of Jerusalem to the other. ¹⁷ Isn’t everything else about Manasseh—everything he did, the sins he committed—written in the official records of the kings of Judah? ¹⁸ Manasseh lay down in death with his ancestors. He was buried in the garden of his own palace, in the garden of Uzza. His son Amon succeeded him as king.

King Amon of Judah^(D)

¹⁹ Amon was 22 years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for 2 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz from Jotbah. ²⁰ He did what the Lord considered evil, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He lived like his father in every way and worshiped and prayed to the idols his father had worshiped. ²² He abandoned the Lord God of his ancestors and didn’t live the Lord’s way. ²³ Amon’s officials plotted against him and killed him in his palace. ²⁴ Then the people of the land killed everyone who had plotted against King Amon. They made his son Josiah king in his place. ²⁵ Isn’t everything else about Amon—the things he did—written in the official record of the kings of Judah? ²⁶ He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. His son Josiah succeeded him as king.

King Josiah of Judah^(E)

22 Josiah was 8 years old when he began to rule, and he was king for 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath. ² Josiah did what the Lord considered right. He lived in the ways of his ancestor David and never stopped.

¹⁸ The next day Paul went with us to visit James. All the spiritual leaders ^[a] were present. ¹⁹ After greeting them, Paul related everything God had done through his work with non-Jewish people.

²⁰ When the spiritual leaders heard about everything, they praised God. They said to Paul, “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews are now believers, and all of them are deeply committed to Moses’ Teachings. ²¹ But they have been told that you teach all the Jews living among non-Jewish people to abandon Moses. They claim that you tell them not to circumcise their children or follow Jewish customs. ²² What should we do about this? They will certainly hear that you’re in town. ²³ So follow our advice. We have four men who have made a vow to God. ²⁴ Take these men, go through the purification ceremony with them, and pay the expenses to shave their heads. Then everyone will know that what they’ve been told about you isn’t true. Instead, they’ll see that you carefully follow Moses’ Teachings.

²⁵ ⌞To clarify this matter⌟ we have written non-Jewish believers a letter with our decision. We told them that they should not eat food sacrificed to false gods, bloody meat, or the meat of strangled animals. They also should not commit sexual sins.”

²⁶ The next day, Paul took the men and went through the purification ceremony with them. Then he went into the temple courtyard to announce the time when the purification would be over and the sacrifice would be offered for each of them.

²⁷ When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the temple courtyard. They stirred up the whole crowd and grabbed Paul. ²⁸ Then they began shouting, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere to turn against the Jewish people, Moses’ Teachings, and this temple. He has even brought Greeks into the temple courtyard and has made this holy place unclean.” ^{[b] 29} They had seen Trophimus from Ephesus with him in the city earlier and thought Paul had taken him into the temple courtyard.

³⁰ The whole city was in chaos, and a mob formed. The mob grabbed Paul and dragged him out of the temple courtyard. The courtyard doors were immediately shut.

³¹ As the people were trying to kill Paul, the officer in charge of the Roman soldiers received a report that all Jerusalem was rioting. ³² Immediately, he took some soldiers and officers and charged the crowd. When the crowd saw the officer and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³ Then the officer went to Paul, grabbed him, and ordered him to be tied up with two chains.

The officer asked who Paul was and what he had done. ³⁴ Some of the crowd shouted one thing, while others shouted something else. The officer couldn’t get any facts because of the noise and confusion, so he ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. ³⁵ When Paul came to the stairs of the barracks, the crowd was so violent that the soldiers had to carry him. ³⁶ The mob was behind them shouting, “Kill him!”

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