Beginning

32 After these things and this loyalty, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, invaded Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to take them.

² When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem,

³ He decided with his officers and his mighty men to stop up the waters of the fountains which were outside the city [by enclosing them with masonry and concealing them], and they helped him.

⁴ So many people gathered, and they stopped up all the springs and the brook which flowed through the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?

⁵ Also Hezekiah took courage and built up all the wall that was broken, and raised towers upon it, and he built another wall outside and strengthened the Millo in the City of David and made weapons and shields in abundance.

⁶ And he set captains of war over the people and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city and spoke encouragingly to them, saying,

⁷ Be strong and courageous. Be not afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him, for there is Another with us greater than [all those] with him.

⁸ With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles. And the people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

⁹ And this Sennacherib king of Assyria, while he himself with all his forces was before Lachish, sent his servants to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying,

¹⁰ Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria: On what do you trust, that you remain in the strongholds in Jerusalem?

¹¹ Is not Hezekiah leading you on in order to let you die by famine and thirst, saying, The Lord our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹² Has not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship before one altar and burn incense upon it?

¹³ Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hand?

¹⁴ Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed was able to deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand?

¹⁵ So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive or mislead you in this way, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!

¹⁶ And his servants said still more against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah.

¹⁷ The Assyrian king also wrote letters insulting the Lord, the God of Israel, and speaking against Him, saying, As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver His people out of my hand.

¹⁸ And they shouted it loudly in the Jewish language to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, that they might take the city.

¹⁹ And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of the hands of men.

²⁰ For this cause Hezekiah the king and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed and cried to heaven.

²¹ And the Lord sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty warriors and commanders and officers in the camp of the king of Assyria. So the Assyrian king returned with shamed face to his own land. And when he came into the house of his god, they who were his own offspring slew him there with the sword.^(A)

²² Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all his enemies, and He guided them on every side.

²³ And many brought gifts to Jerusalem to the Lord and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah; so from then on he was magnified in the sight of all nations.

²⁴ In those days Hezekiah was sick to the point of death; and he prayed to the Lord and He answered him and gave him a sign.

²⁵ But Hezekiah did not make return [to the Lord] according to the benefit done to him, for his heart became proud [at such a spectacular response to his prayer]; therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.

²⁶ But Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.

²⁷ And Hezekiah had very great wealth and honor, and he made for himself treasuries for silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and all kinds of attractive vessels,

²⁸ Storehouses also for the increase of grain, vintage fruits, and oil, and stalls for all kinds of cattle, and sheepfolds.

²⁹ Moreover, he provided for himself cities and flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very great possessions.

³⁰ This same Hezekiah also closed the upper springs of Gihon and directed the waters down to the west side of the City of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.

³¹ And so in the matter of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon who were sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God left him to himself to try him, that He might know all that was in his heart.^(B)

³² Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his good deeds, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

³³ And Hezekiah slept with his fathers and was buried in the ascent of the tombs of the descendants of David; and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.

33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

² But he did evil in the Lord’s sight, like the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.

³ For he built again the [idolatrous] high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared altars for the Baals and made the Asherim and worshiped all the hosts of the heavens and served them.

⁴ Also he built [heathen] altars in the Lord’s house, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall My Name be forever.

⁵ He built altars for all the hosts of the heavens in the two courts of the Lord’s house.

⁶ And he burned his children as an offering [to his god] in the Valley of Ben-hinnom [son of Hinnom], and practiced soothsaying, augury, and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

⁷ And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put My Name [and Presence] forever;

⁸ And I will no more remove Israel from the land which I appointed for your fathers, if they will only take heed to do all that I have commanded them, the whole law, the statutes, and the ordinances given through Moses.

⁹ So Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the heathen whom the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they would not hearken.

¹¹ So the Lord brought against them the commanders of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks and in fetters and brought him to Babylon.

¹² When he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

¹³ He prayed to Him, and God, entreated by him, heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

¹⁴ And he built an outer wall to the City of David west of Gihon in the valley, to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and ran it around Ophel, raising it to a very great height; and he put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁵ And he took away the foreign gods and the idol out of the house of the Lord and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of the Lord and in Jerusalem; and he cast them out of the city.

¹⁶ And he restored the Lord’s altar and sacrificed on it offerings of peace and of thanksgiving; and he commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁷ Yet the people still sacrificed in the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel.

¹⁹ His prayer and how God heard him, and all his sins and unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and graven images before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers.

²⁰ So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house [garden]. And Amon his son reigned in his stead.

²¹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began his two-year reign in Jerusalem.

²² But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father; for Amon sacrificed to all the images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them,

²³ And he did not humble himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father [finally] did; but Amon trespassed and became more and more guilty.

²⁴ And his servants conspired against him and killed him in his own house.

²⁵ But the people of the land slew all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made Josiah his son king in his stead.

34 Josiah was eight years old when he began his thirty-one-year reign in Jerusalem.

² He did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father [forefather] and turned aside neither to the right hand nor to the left.

³ For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young [sixteen], he began to seek after and yearn for the God of David his father [forefather]; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and molten images.

⁴ They broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; the sun-images that were high above them he hewed down; the Asherim and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces and made dust of them and strewed it upon the graves of those who sacrificed to them.

⁵ Josiah burned the bones of the [idolatrous] priests upon their altars, and so cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

⁶ So he did in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even to Naphtali, in their ruins round about [with their axes],

⁷ He broke down the altars and the Asherim and beat the graven images into powder and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

⁸ In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when he had purged the land and the [Lord’s] house, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah governor of the city, and Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

⁹ When they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites who kept the doors had collected from Manasseh, Ephraim, all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem.

¹⁰ They delivered it to the workmen who had oversight of the Lord’s house, who gave it to repair and restore the temple:

¹¹ To the carpenters and builders to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings and beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed [by neglect].

¹² The men did the work faithfully. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites. The Levites—all who were skillful with instruments of music—

¹³ Also had oversight of the burden bearers and all who did work in any kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes, officials, and gatekeepers.

¹⁴ When they were bringing out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses.

¹⁵ Hilkiah told Shaphan the scribe, I have found the Book of the Law in the Lord’s house. And [he] gave the book to Shaphan.

¹⁶ Shaphan took the book to King Josiah, but [first] reported to him, All that was committed to your servants they are doing.

¹⁷ They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the Lord and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers and the workmen.

¹⁸ Then Shaphan the scribe said to the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.

¹⁹ When King Josiah had heard the words of the Law, he rent his clothes.

²⁰ And the king commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Abdon son of Micah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king, saying,

²¹ Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah about the words of the book that is found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do according to all that is written in this book.

²² And Hilkiah and they whom the king had appointed went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe. She dwelt in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter. They spoke to her to that effect.

²³ And she answered them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me,

²⁴ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah.

²⁵ Because they have forsaken Me and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands, therefore My wrath shall be poured out upon this place and shall not be quenched.

²⁶ But say to King Josiah of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the words which you have heard:

²⁷ Because your heart was tender and penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and its inhabitants, and humbled yourself before Me and rent your clothes and wept before Me, I have heard you, says the Lord.

²⁸ Behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants. So they brought the king word again.

²⁹ Then King Josiah sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

³⁰ And [he] went up into the house of the Lord, as did all the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the Levites, and all the people, great and small; and he [the king] read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the Lord’s house.

³¹ Then the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord—to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that are written in this book.

³² And he caused all who were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand in confirmation of it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.

³³ Josiah removed all the [idolatrous] abominations from all the territory that belonged to the Israelites, and made all who were in Israel serve the Lord their God. All his days they did not turn from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.