¹⁵ Then these Levites gathered their brothers together and made themselves ready for holy service in the Temple. They obeyed the king’s command that came from the Lord. They went into the Lord’s Temple to clean it. ¹⁶ The priests went into the inside part of the Lord’s Temple to clean it. They took out all the unclean things they found there. They brought the unclean things out to the courtyard of the Lord’s Temple. Then the Levites took these things out to the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷ On the first day of the first month, the Levites began to make the Temple ready for holy service. By the eighth day, they had finished cleaning all the area up to the porch of the Lord’s Temple. For eight more days they cleaned the Lord’s Temple itself to make it ready for holy use. They finished on the 16th day of the first month.