⁶ And slaughter the Passover lamb, and ^(A)consecrate yourselves, and prepare for your brothers, to do according to the word of the Lord by^[a] Moses.”

⁵ and said to them, “Hear me, Levites! Now ^(A)consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth^[a] from the Holy Place.

¹⁵ They gathered their brothers and ^(A)consecrated themselves and went in as the king had commanded, ^(B)by the words of the Lord, ^(C)to cleanse the house of the Lord.

¹³ For if ^(A)the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with ^(B)the ashes of a heifer, sanctify^[a] for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴ how much more will ^(C)the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit ^(D)offered himself without blemish to God, ^(E)purify our^[b] conscience ^(F)from dead works ^(G)to serve the living God.

⁵ And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and ^(A)consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and ^(B)offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and ^(C)cursed^[a] God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

^20 (A)For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were clean. ^(B)So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. ²¹ It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and ^(C)also by every one who had joined them and separated himself ^(D)from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.

^15 (A)And they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. ^(B)And the priests and the Levites were ashamed, ^(C)so that they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the house of the Lord. ^16 (D)They took their accustomed posts according to the Law of Moses ^(E)the man of God. The priests threw the blood that they received from the hand of the Levites. ¹⁷ For there were many in the assembly who had not consecrated themselves. Therefore the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to consecrate it to the Lord. ¹⁸ For a majority of the people, ^(F)many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise ^(G)than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, “May the good Lord pardon everyone ^19 (H)who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness.”^[a]