⁹ But there was a man named Simon, who had formerly practiced magic arts in the city to the utter amazement of the Samaritan nation, claiming that he himself was an extraordinary and distinguished person.

¹⁰ They all paid earnest attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is that exhibition of the power of God which is called great (intense).

¹¹ And they were attentive and made much of him, because for a long time he had amazed and bewildered and dazzled them with his skill in magic arts.

¹² But when they believed the good news (the Gospel) about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) as Philip preached it, they were baptized, both men and women.

¹³ Even Simon himself believed [he adhered to, trusted in, and relied on the teaching of Philip], and after being baptized, devoted himself constantly to him. And seeing signs and miracles of great power which were being performed, he was utterly amazed.

¹⁴ Now when the apostles (special messengers) at Jerusalem heard that [the country of] Samaria had accepted and welcomed the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them,

¹⁵ And they came down and prayed for them that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit;

¹⁶ For He had not yet fallen upon any of them, but they had only been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁷ Then [the apostles] laid their hands on them one by one, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ However, when Simon saw that the [Holy] Spirit was imparted through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he brought money and offered it to them,

¹⁹ Saying, Grant me also this power and authority, in order that anyone on whom I place my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

²⁰ But Peter said to him, Destruction overtake your money and you, because you imagined you could obtain the [free] gift of God with money!

²¹ You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is all wrong in God’s sight [it is not straightforward or right or true before God].^(A)

²² So repent of this depravity and wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that, if possible, this ^[a]contriving thought and purpose of your heart may be removed and disregarded and forgiven you.

²³ For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in ^[b]a bond forged by iniquity [to fetter souls].^(B)

²⁴ And Simon answered, Pray for me [beseech the Lord, both of you], that nothing of what you have said may befall me!

²⁵ Now when [the apostles] had borne their testimony and preached the message of the Lord, they went back to Jerusalem, proclaiming the glad tidings (Gospel) to many villages of the Samaritans [on the way].

²⁶ But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Rise and proceed southward or at midday on the road that runs from Jerusalem down to Gaza. This is the desert [^[c]route].

²⁷ So he got up and went. And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship.

²⁸ And he was [now] returning, and sitting in his chariot he was reading the book of the prophet Isaiah.

²⁹ Then the [Holy] Spirit said to Philip, Go forward and join yourself to this chariot.

³⁰ Accordingly Philip, running up to him, heard [the man] reading the prophet Isaiah and asked, Do you really understand what you are reading?

³¹ And he said, How is it possible for me to do so unless someone explains it to me and guides me [in the right way]? And he earnestly requested Philip to come up and sit beside him.

³² Now this was the passage of Scripture which he was reading: Like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so He opens not His mouth.

³³ In His humiliation ^[d] He was taken away by distressing and oppressive judgment and justice was denied Him [caused to cease]. Who can describe or relate in full ^[e]the wickedness of His contemporaries (generation)? For His life is taken from the earth and ^[f]a bloody death inflicted upon Him.^(C)

³⁴ And the eunuch said to Philip, I beg of you, tell me about whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?

³⁵ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this portion of Scripture he announced to him the glad tidings (Gospel) of Jesus and about Him.

³⁶ And as they continued along on the way, they came to some water, and the eunuch exclaimed, See, [here is] water! What is to hinder my being baptized?

^37 [g]And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart [if you have ^[h]a conviction, full of joyful trust, that Jesus is the Messiah and accept Him as the Author of your salvation in the kingdom of God, giving Him your obedience, then] you may. And he replied, I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

³⁸ And he ordered that the chariot be stopped; and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and [Philip] baptized him.

³⁹ And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord [^[i]suddenly] caught away Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing.

⁴⁰ But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing on he preached the good news (Gospel) to all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

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33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

² But he did evil in the Lord’s sight, like the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.

³ For he built again the [idolatrous] high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared altars for the Baals and made the Asherim and worshiped all the hosts of the heavens and served them.

⁴ Also he built [heathen] altars in the Lord’s house, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall My Name be forever.

⁵ He built altars for all the hosts of the heavens in the two courts of the Lord’s house.

⁶ And he burned his children as an offering [to his god] in the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], and practiced soothsaying, augury, and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

⁷ And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put My Name [and Presence] forever;

⁸ And I will no more remove Israel from the land which I appointed for your fathers, if they will only take heed to do all that I have commanded them, the whole law, the statutes, and the ordinances given through Moses.

⁹ So Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken.

¹¹ So the Lord brought against them the commanders of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks and in fetters and brought him to Babylon.

¹² When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

¹³ He prayed to Him, and God, entreated by him, heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

¹⁴ And he built an outer wall to the City of David west of Gihon in the valley, to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and ran it around Ophel, raising it to a very great height; and he put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁵ And he took away the foreign gods and the idol out of the house of the Lord and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city.

¹⁶ And he restored the Lord’s altar and sacrificed on it offerings of peace and of thanksgiving; and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁷ Yet the people still sacrificed in the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

¹⁹ His prayer and how God heard him, and all his sins and unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and graven images before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers.

²⁰ So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house [garden]. And Amon his son reigned in his stead.

²¹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began his two-year reign in Jerusalem.

²² But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father; for Amon sacrificed to all the images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them,

²³ And he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father [finally] did; but Amon trespassed and became more and more guilty.

²⁴ And his servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house.

²⁵ But the people of the land slew all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his stead.

34 Josiah was eight years old when he began his thirty-one-year reign in Jerusalem.

² He did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father [forefather] and turned aside neither to the right hand nor to the left.

³ For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young [sixteen], he began to seek after and yearn for the God of David his father [forefather]; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and molten images.

⁴ They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; the sun-images that were high above them he hewed down; the Asherim and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces and made dust of them and strewed it upon the graves of those who sacrificed to them.

⁵ Josiah burned the bones of the [idolatrous] priests upon their altars, and so cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

⁶ So he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about [with their axes],

⁷ He broke down the altars and the Asherim and beat the graven images into powder and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

⁸ In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when he had purged the land and the [Lord’s] house, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah governor of the city, and Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

⁹ When they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites who kept the doors had collected from Manasseh, Ephraim, all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem.

¹⁰ They delivered it to the workmen who had oversight of the Lord’s house, who gave it to repair and restore the temple:

¹¹ To the carpenters and builders to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings and beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed [by neglect].

¹² The men did the work faithfully. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites. The Levites—all who were skillful with instruments of music—

¹³ Also had oversight of the burden bearers and all who did work in any kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes, officials, and gatekeepers.

¹⁴ When they were bringing out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses.

¹⁵ Hilkiah told Shaphan the scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the Lord’s house. And [he] gave the book to Shaphan.

¹⁶ Shaphan took the book to King Josiah, but [first] reported to him, All that was committed to your servants they are doing.

¹⁷ They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the Lord and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers and the workmen.

¹⁸ Then Shaphan the scribe said to the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.

¹⁹ When King Josiah had heard the words of the Law, he rent his clothes.

²⁰ And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king, saying,

²¹ Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah about the words of the book that is found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do according to all that is written in this book.

²² And Hilkiah and they whom the king had appointed went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe. She dwelt in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter. They spoke to her to that effect.

²³ And she answered them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me,

²⁴ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah.

²⁵ Because they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore My wrath shall be poured out upon this place and shall not be quenched.

²⁶ But say to King Josiah of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard:

²⁷ Because your heart was tender and penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and its inhabitants, and humbled yourself before Me and rent your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you, says the Lord.

²⁸ Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants. So they brought the king word again.

²⁹ Then King Josiah sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

³⁰ And [he] went up into the house of the Lord, as did all the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people, great and small; and he [the king] read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the Lord’s house.

³¹ Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord—to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that are written in this book.

³² And he caused all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand in confirmation of it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.

³³ Josiah removed all the [idolatrous] abominations from all the territory that belonged to the Israelites, and made all who were in Israel serve the Lord their God. All his days they did not turn from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.