Beginning

Chapter 20

Hezekiah’s Illness. ¹ In those days Hezekiah fell ill, and his death was approaching. Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the prophet, came to him and said, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you are to die, you will not survive.”

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed, saying, ³ “Please remember, O Lord, how I walked before you in fidelity and with a perfect heart. I have done what was good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ The word of the Lord came to Isaiah before he left the middle courtyard, saying, ⁵ “Return and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: Thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father: I have heard, I have seen your tears. I will heal you today, and the day after tomorrow you will go up to the temple of the Lord. ⁶ I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hands of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own sake and that of David, my servant.”

⁷ Isaiah said, “Prepare a fig poultice.” They took it and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

⁸ Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and on the day after tomorrow I will go up into the temple of the Lord?” ⁹ Isaiah answered, “This is the sign that you will receive from the Lord that the Lord is going to do what he said: shall the shade climb up ten stairs, or go down ten stairs?”

¹⁰ Hezekiah answered, “It is too easy for the shade to go down ten stairs. No, let the shade go back up ten stairs.”

¹¹ Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and he brought the shade back up the ten stairs that it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

¹² At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah for he had heard that Hezekiah was ill. ¹³ Hezekiah listened to them and showed them his entire treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious ointments as well as the armory in the treasury. There was nothing in his palace or his dominion that Hezekiah failed to show them.

¹⁴ Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say to you? Where did they come from?” Hezekiah answered, “They came from a distant land, from Babylon.” ¹⁵ He said, “What have they seen in your palace?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace; they did not miss any of my treasures.”

¹⁶ Isaiah the prophet said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the word of the Lord: ¹⁷ Behold, the days are coming when everything in your palace, everything that your ancestors collected up to the present, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, nothing, says the Lord. ¹⁸ Some of your sons who come forth from you, whom you begot, will be taken away. They will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

¹⁹ Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,” for he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my days?”

²⁰ Now the rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, his achievements, and how he built a pool and a conduit^[a] that brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²¹ Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh, his son, reigned in his stead.

Chapter 21

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

² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, practicing the abominations of the nations whom the Lord cast out before the Israelites. ³ He rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed. He raised up altars to Baal, and he made an Asherah, just as Ahab, the king of Israel, had done. He also worshiped the hosts of heaven^[b] and served them. ⁴ He built altars in the temple of the Lord of which the Lord had stated, “I will place my name in Jerusalem.” ⁵ He built altars for the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. ⁶ He burned his son in flames, practiced witchcraft, used divination, and cooperated with mediums and wizards. He did horrible things in the sight of the Lord, provoking the Lord to anger. ⁷ He set up a carved image of the Asherah in the temple about which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon, his son, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from out of the tribes of Israel, I will place my name forever, ⁸ nor will I make the feet of Israel wander from the land that I have given to their fathers if only they will be careful to do everything that I have commanded them, everything according to the law that Moses, my servant, gave them.”

⁹ But they would not listen, and Manasseh enticed them to do more evil than the nations that the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites had done.

¹⁰ The Lord therefore spoke through his servant, the prophets, saying, ¹¹ “Manasseh, the king of Judah, has committed these abominations, doing worse things than the Amorites who preceded him, causing Judah to sin with his idols. ¹² Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing a terrible disaster upon Jerusalem and Judah that is so bad that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle. ^13 [c]I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line that I used against Samaria and the plumb line I used against the house of Ahab. ¹⁴ I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over. I will abandon the remnant of my inheritance, and I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will be plunder and booty to all of their enemies ¹⁵ for they have done what is evil in my sight, provoking me to anger from the day that their fathers came forth from Egypt even up to the present day.”

¹⁶ Manasseh had shed so much blood that it covered Jerusalem from one end to the other. He caused Judah to sin, doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁷ As for the other deeds of Manasseh, what he did, and the sins that he committed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

¹⁸ Manasseh slept with his fathers, and he was buried in his palace gardens, the Garden of Uzza.

Reign of Amon. Amon, his son, then reigned in his stead. ¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth. She was the daughter of Haruz from Jotbah.

²⁰ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He walked in all of the ways of his father. He served the idols that his father had served, and he worshiped them. ²² He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and he did not walk in the ways of the Lord.

²³ Amon’s servants plotted against him, and they killed him in his own palace. ²⁴ The people of the land then plotted against all of those who killed King Ahab, and the people of the land made Josiah, his son, king in his stead.

²⁵ As for the other deeds of Amon, what he did, are they not written 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 reigned in his stead.

Chapter 22

Reign of Josiah.^{[d] 1} Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah, and she was the daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath.

² He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and he walked in the ways of David, his father. He did not wander off to the right or to the left.

The Book of the Law.^{[e] 3} During the eighteenth year of the reign of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan the scribe, the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple. He said, ⁴ “Go up to Hilkiah, the high priest. Have him count the money that the doorkeepers have collected from the people in the temple of the Lord. ⁵ Have him give it to the supervisors of the workmen in the temple of the Lord. Have them pay those who are working to repair the damage in the temple of the Lord: ⁶ the carpenters, the builders, and the masons. Also have them buy timber and hewn stone to repair the temple. ⁷ They do not need to make an accounting of the money that has been given to them because they have acted honestly.”

⁸ Hilkiah, the high priest, said to Shaphan, the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan who read it.

⁹ Then Shaphan the scribe went to the king and he brought the king a report saying, “Your servants have gathered together the money that has been collected in the temple, and they have handed it over to the supervisors of the workmen in the temple of the Lord.” ¹⁰ Then Shaphan the scribe informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” 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 clothes. ¹² King Josiah gave orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, Achbor, the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah, the king’s servant, saying, ¹³ “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for all of the people and for all of Judah about the words of the book that had been found. The Lord’s anger against us is great for our fathers have not heeded the words of this book. They did not do everything that is written in it concerning us.”

¹⁴ Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophetess Huldah, the wife of Shallum, the guardian of the wardrobe, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas. She lived in the second district of Jerusalem. They spoke with her. ¹⁵ She said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, go tell the man who sent you to me: ¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon all of those who live in it, everything that is in the book that the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ They have forsaken me, and they have burned incense to other gods, provoking me to anger with all the deeds of their hands. My wrath will blaze out against this place and it will not be quenched.

¹⁸ “But as for the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord, this is what you will say to him: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: As for the words that you have heard, ¹⁹ because your heart was penitent and you have humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and you wept before me, I have also heard you, says the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace, so that you will not have to look upon all of the evil that I will bring upon this place with your own eyes.” They brought the report back to the king.