Beginning

Chapter 20

End of Hezekiah’s Reign. ^1 (A)In those days, when Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him: “Thus says the Lord: Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you shall not recover.” ² He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord: ³ “Ah, Lord, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedly I conducted myself in your presence, doing what was good in your sight!” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ Before Isaiah had left the central courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him: ⁵ Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: “Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father:

⁷ Then Isaiah said, “Bring a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil for his recovery.” ⁸ Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” ⁹ Isaiah replied, “This will be the sign for you from the Lord that he will carry out the word he has spoken: Shall the shadow go forward or back ten steps?” ¹⁰ “It is easy for the shadow to advance ten steps,” Hezekiah answered. “Rather, let it go back ten steps.” ¹¹ So Isaiah the prophet invoked the Lord. He made the shadow go back the ten steps it had descended on the staircase to the terrace of Ahaz.

¹² At that time, Berodach-baladan,^[a] son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and gifts to Hezekiah when he heard that he had been ill. ¹³ Hezekiah listened to the envoys and then showed off his whole treasury: his silver, gold, spices and perfumed oil, his armory, and everything in his storerooms; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. ¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him: “What did these men say to you? Where did they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They came from a distant land, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He asked, “What did they see in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything in my house. There is nothing in my storerooms that I did not show them.” ¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah: “Hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ The time is coming when all that is in your house, everything that your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried off to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord. ¹⁸ Some of your own descendants, your offspring, your progeny, shall be taken and made attendants in the palace of the king of Babylon.” ¹⁹ Hezekiah replied to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and stability in my lifetime.”

²⁰ The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, with all his valor, and how he constructed the pool and conduit^[b] and brought water into the city, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah.^{(B) 21} Hezekiah rested with his ancestors, and his son Manasseh succeeded him as king.

Chapter 21

Reign of Manasseh. ¹ Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.

² He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, following the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He set up altars to Baal and also made an asherah, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. He bowed down to the whole host of heaven and served them.^{(C) 4} He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said: In Jerusalem I will set my name. ⁵ And he built altars for the whole host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ He immolated his child by fire. He practiced soothsaying and divination, and reintroduced the consulting of ghosts and spirits.

He did much evil in the Lord’s sight and provoked him to anger.^{(D) 7} The Asherah idol he had made, he placed in the Lord’s house, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon: In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I shall set my name forever.^{(E) 8} I will no longer make Israel step out of the land I gave their ancestors, provided that they are careful to observe all I have commanded them and the entire law which Moses my servant enjoined upon them. ⁹ But they did not listen.

Manasseh misled them into doing even greater evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed at the coming of the Israelites. ¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke through his servants the prophets: ¹¹ “Because Manasseh, king of Judah, has practiced these abominations, and has done greater evil than all that was done by the Amorites before him, and has led Judah into sin by his idols,^{(F) 12} therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I am about to bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that, when any hear of it, their ears shall ring: ¹³ I will measure Jerusalem with the same cord as I did Samaria, and with the plummet I used for the house of Ahab. I will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a dish, wiping it inside and out.^{(G) 14} I will cast off the survivors of my inheritance. I will deliver them into enemy hands, to become prey and booty for all their enemies, ¹⁵ because they have done what is evil in my sight and provoked me from the day their ancestors came forth from Egypt until this very day.” ¹⁶ Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that it filled the length and breadth of Jerusalem, in addition to the sin he caused Judah to commit by doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight.

¹⁷ The rest of the acts of Manasseh, with all that he did and the sin he committed, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ¹⁸ Manasseh rested with his ancestors; he was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza, and his son Amon succeeded him as king.

Reign of Amon. ¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz, from Jotbah.

²⁰ He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He walked in all the ways of his father; he served the idols his father had served, and bowed down to them. ²² He abandoned the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in the way of the Lord.

²³ Officials of Amon plotted against him and killed the king in his palace, ²⁴ but the people of the land^[c] then slew all who had plotted against King Amon, and the people of the land made his son Josiah king in his stead. ²⁵ The rest of the acts of Amon, which he did, are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. ²⁶ He was buried in his own grave in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah succeeded him as king.

Chapter 22

Reign of Josiah. ¹ Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah, daughter of Adaiah, from Bozkath.

² He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, walking in the way of David his father, not turning right or left.

The Book of the Law. ^3 (H)In his eighteenth year, King Josiah sent the scribe Shaphan,^[d] son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the house of the Lord with these orders: ⁴ “Go to the high priest Hilkiah and have him calculate the valuables that have been brought to the house of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. ⁵ Then have him turn them over to the master workers in the house of the Lord, and have them give them to the ordinary workers who are in the house of the Lord to repair its breaches: ⁶ to the carpenters, the builders, and the masons, and to purchase wood and hewn stone. ⁷ No reckoning shall be asked of them regarding the funds provided to them, because they hold positions of trust.”

⁸ The high priest Hilkiah informed the scribe Shaphan, “I have found the book of the law^[e] in the temple of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. ⁹ Then the scribe Shaphan went to the king and reported, “Your servants have smelted down the silver deposited in the temple and have turned it over to the master workers in the house of the Lord.” ¹⁰ The scribe Shaphan also informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and then Shaphan read it in the presence of the king. ¹¹ When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his garments.

¹² The king then issued this command to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, son of Shaphan, Achbor, son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant: ¹³ “Go, consult the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, about the words of this book that has been found, for the rage of the Lord has been set furiously ablaze against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, nor do what is written for us.” ¹⁴ So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophet, wife of Shallum, son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter. When they had spoken to her, ¹⁵ she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Say to the man who sent you to me, ¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: I am about to bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ Because they have abandoned me and have burned incense to other gods, provoking me by all the works of their hands, my rage is ablaze against this place and it cannot be extinguished.

¹⁸ “But to the king of Judah who sent you to consult the Lord, give this response: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: As for the words you have heard, ¹⁹ because you were heartsick and have humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken concerning this place and its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse; and because you tore your garments and wept before me, I in turn have heard, oracle of the Lord. ²⁰ I will therefore gather you to your ancestors; you shall go to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil I am about to bring upon this place.” This they reported to the king.