Hezekiah rededicates the temple

²⁰ Early the next morning Hezekiah gathered the city leaders and went to the Lord’s temple. ²¹ They brought seven bulls, seven rams, and seven lambs, along with seven male goats, for a purification offering on behalf of the kingdom, the sanctuary, and Judah. Hezekiah ordered the priests, Aaron’s sons, to offer them up on the Lord’s altar. ²² When they slaughtered the bulls, the priests took the blood and splashed it against the altar. Next they slaughtered the rams and splashed their blood against the altar, and also slaughtered the lambs, splashing their blood against the altar as well. ²³ Finally, they brought the goats for the purification offering before the king and the assembly. After laying their hands on them, ²⁴ the priests slaughtered them and smeared the blood on the altar as a purification offering to take away the sin of all Israel, because the king had specifically ordered that the entirely burned sacrifice and the purification offering should be on behalf of all Israel. ²⁵ Hezekiah had the Levites stand in the Lord’s temple with cymbals, harps, and zithers, just as the Lord had ordered through David, the king’s seer Gad, and the prophet Nathan. ²⁶ While the Levites took their places holding David’s instruments, and the priests their trumpets, ²⁷ Hezekiah ordered the entirely burned offering to be offered up on the altar. As they began to offer the entirely burned offering, the Lord’s song also began, accompanied by the trumpets and the other instruments of Israel’s King David. ²⁸ The whole congregation worshipped with singing choirs and blaring trumpets until the end of the entirely burned offering. ²⁹ After the entirely burned offering was complete, the king and all who were with him bowed down in worship. ³⁰ Then King Hezekiah and the leaders ordered the Levites to praise the Lord by using the words of David and the seer Asaph. They did so joyously; then they bowed down in worship too.

³¹ “Now that you have dedicated yourselves to the Lord,” King Hezekiah told them, “bring sacrificial thank offerings to the Lord’s temple.” So the assembly brought sacrificial thank offerings, with some people volunteering to provide entirely burned offerings. ³² All in all, the congregation brought seventy bulls, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs as entirely burned offerings for the Lord, ³³ as well as six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep as holy offerings. ³⁴ Unfortunately, there weren’t enough priests to skin all these entirely burned offerings. So their relatives the Levites (who had been more conscientious about preparing themselves than the priests) stepped in and helped them until the work was done or additional priests had made themselves holy. ³⁵ In addition to the wealth of entirely burned offerings, there was the fat of the well-being sacrifices and drink offerings accompanying the entirely burned offerings. In this way, the service of the Lord’s temple was restored, ³⁶ and Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had done for them, since it had happened so quickly.