³ In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired^(A) them. ⁴ He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side ⁵ and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate^(B) yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. ⁶ Our parents^(C) were unfaithful;^(D) 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^(E) 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^(F) and scorn,^(G) 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.^(H)

³¹ Then Hezekiah said, “You have now dedicated yourselves to the Lord. Come and bring sacrifices^(A) and thank offerings to the temple of the Lord.” So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all whose hearts were willing^(B) brought burnt offerings.

31 When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down^(A) the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property.

²¹ In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.^(A)

²² So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from the hand of all others. He took care of them^[a] on every side.