Temple Worship is Restored

²⁰ Early the next morning, King Hezekiah got up and assembled the city officials and went up to the Lord’s Temple, ²¹ where they brought seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering on behalf of the kingdom, the Holy Place, and Judah. He ordered that the priests, as descendants of Aaron, place the offerings^[a] on the Lord’s altar. ²² So they slaughtered the bulls and the priests sprinkled the blood on the altar. They also slaughtered the rams and sprinkled the blood on the altar, and they also slaughtered the lambs and sprinkled the blood on the altar. ²³ They brought the male goats for the sin offering to the king within the assembled gathering, laid their hands on them, ²⁴ and then the priests slaughtered them and purged the altar with their blood as a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king ordered that the burnt offering and the sin offering be made for all Israel.

²⁵ Hezekiah^[b] stationed descendants of Levi in the Lord’s Temple to play cymbals and stringed instruments, just as David, Gad the seer,^[c] and Nathan the prophet^[d] had directed, because the command to do so was from the Lord through those prophets. ²⁶ The descendants of Levi played instruments that had been crafted by David and the priests sounded trumpets.

²⁷ Hezekiah gave a command to offer burnt offerings on the altar, and when the burnt offerings began, a song to the Lord also began with trumpets sounding and with the instruments that King David of Israel had crafted. ²⁸ Everybody in the assembly worshipped, the singers sang, and the trumpets sounded. They continued doing this until the burnt offering sacrifice was completed. ²⁹ When the sacrifices had been offered, the king and everyone else who was present with him bowed down and worshipped. ³⁰ King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the descendants of Levi to sing praises to the Lord based on psalms that had been written by David and Asaph the seer.^[e] So they all joyfully sang praises, bowed low, and worshipped.

³¹ After this, Hezekiah announced, “Now that you’ve consecrated yourselves to the Lord, come near and bring your sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings to the Lord’s Temple.” So the assembly brought sacrifices and thanksgiving offerings, and everyone who was willing to do so brought burnt offerings. ³² The number of burnt offerings brought by the assembly was 70 bulls, 100 rams, and 200 lambs. All of these were burnt offerings to the Lord. ³³ The consecrated offerings numbered 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep. ³⁴ Because there weren’t enough priests, they were unable to prepare all the burnt offerings until other priests came forward after having consecrated themselves, so their descendant of Levi relatives assisted them until the services were complete. (The descendants of Levi had been more conscientious in consecrating themselves than had been the priests.) ³⁵ Furthermore, there were also many burnt offerings, fat from peace offerings, and drink offerings. And that’s how the service of the Lord’s Temple was restored. ³⁶ Hezekiah and all of the people were ecstatic with joy because of what God had done for the people, since everything had come about so suddenly.