Beginning

Ahaz rules Judah as king

28 Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king. He ruled Judah as king in Jerusalem for 16 years. He did not do the things that the Lord said were good. So he was not like his ancestor, King David.^[a]

² He lived in the same bad way that the kings of Israel did. He also used metal to make images of the god Baal. ³ He offered sacrifices in Ben-Hinnom Valley. He even caused his sons to walk through fire.^[b] In this way he copied the terrible sins of the other nations in Canaan. Those were the nations that the Lord had chased out so that the Israelites could live there. ⁴ Ahaz offered sacrifices and he burned incense on altars on the hills, as well as under all the big trees.

God punishes King Ahaz

⁵ Because of this, the Lord his God put Ahaz under the power of the king of Syria. Syria's army won a battle against Ahaz's men. The king of Syria took many of Ahaz's people to Damascus as his prisoners.^[c]

The Lord also allowed the king of Israel to attack Ahaz. Israel's soldiers completely won the battle against Ahaz. ⁶ In one day, King Pekah of Israel, Remaliah's son, killed 120,000 of Judah's best soldiers. God punished the people of Judah because they had turned away from the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

⁷ Zikri, a brave soldier from Ephraim's tribe, killed Maaseiah, King Ahaz's son. He also killed Azrikam, the officer with authority over the king's palace, and Elkanah, the king's most important officer. ⁸ The Israelites took hold of 200,000 wives, sons and daughters of Judah's soldiers. They took them as their prisoners, even though they were their relatives. They also carried away to Samaria a lot of valuable things.

⁹ Oded, a prophet of the Lord, lived there. He went to meet Israel's soldiers when they arrived back in Samaria. He said to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah's people. So he let you have power over them to punish them. But you have killed them in a very cruel way. God in heaven has seen what you have done. ¹⁰ Now you want to use the men and women from Judah and Jerusalem as your slaves. So you yourselves are guilty of sins against the Lord your God. ¹¹ Now listen to me! The Lord is very angry with you. So you must send back the prisoners that you have brought here from Judah. Remember that they are your relatives.’

¹² Then some family leaders of Ephraim warned the soldiers who were returning from the battle against Judah. The leaders' names were: Jehohanan's son Azariah, Meshillemoth's son Berekiah, Shallum's son Jehizkiah and Hadlai's son Amasa. ¹³ They said to the soldiers, ‘You must not bring your prisoners here! If you do, we will be guilty of even more sins against the Lord. The Lord is already angry with us people of Israel because we are guilty. Do not make it worse.’

¹⁴ So the soldiers let their prisoners go free. They gave the people and the things that they had brought from Judah to the leaders and the other people. ¹⁵ The leaders found clothes for each of the prisoners who had no clothes. They gave the prisoners clothes, shoes, food and drink, as well as oil to put on their skin. They took all these things from the things that the soldiers had brought from Judah. They put the prisoners who were too weak to walk on donkeys. Then they took them back to their relatives in Jericho, the city with many palm trees. After that, the Israelite leaders returned to Samaria.

Ahaz asks the king of Assyria for help

¹⁶ At that time, King Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help. ¹⁷ Soldiers from Edom had attacked Judah again. They had taken people away as their prisoners. ¹⁸ Philistine soldiers had also attacked towns in the low hills in the west of Judah and in the Negev in the south. They took these towns for themselves and they lived in them:

¹⁹ The Lord caused a lot of trouble for Judah's people because of their king, Ahaz. He turned away from the Lord and he allowed his people to do wicked things.

²⁰ King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria came to Ahaz. But he did not help Ahaz. Instead, he caused trouble. ²¹ Ahaz took valuable things from the Lord's temple, from the king's palace and from his officers. He gave those things to the king of Assyria. But the king of Assyria still did not help him.

King Ahaz's sins

²² During this time of trouble, King Ahaz did even more bad things against the Lord. ²³ He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus. He thought that those gods had helped the kings of Syria to win the wars against him. He thought, ‘If I offer sacrifices to them, perhaps they will help me too.’ But that sin caused a lot of trouble for King Ahaz and for his nation.

²⁴ Ahaz took away all the things that were in God's temple. He broke them into pieces. He shut the doors of the temple so that nobody could go in. He built altars for himself at the corner of every street in Jerusalem. ²⁵ He built altars in every town in Judah to offer sacrifices to other gods. In that way he made the Lord, the God of his ancestors, very angry.

Ahaz dies

²⁶ All the other things that happened while Ahaz was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of the kings of Judah and Israel’. It tells about all the things that Ahaz did. ²⁷ Ahaz died and his people buried him in the City of David. But they did not bury him near the graves of Israel's kings.

His son Hezekiah became king after him.

Hezekiah rules Judah as king

29 Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king. He ruled Judah as king in Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother's name was Abijah. She was the daughter of Zechariah.^{[d] 2} Hezekiah did things that the Lord said were good, as his ancestor King David had done.

The Levites make the temple a holy place again

³ In the first month of the year that Hezekiah became king, he opened the doors of the Lord's temple. He repaired the doors. ⁴ He brought together the priests and the Levites in the yard at the east side of the temple. ⁵ He said to them, ‘Listen to me, you Levites. Make yourselves clean to serve the Lord. Then you can make the temple a holy place again. It is the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Take out of that holy place anything that is unclean.

⁶ Our ancestors did not serve the Lord faithfully. They did things that the Lord our God saw were evil. They turned away from him. They stopped worshipping him in his temple, where he lives. They completely turned against him. ⁷ They shut the doors at the entrance of the temple. They stopped burning oil in the lamps. They did not offer to Israel's God any incense or burnt offerings in his holy place. ⁸ So the Lord became angry with Judah and Jerusalem. He made them disgusting places which other people insult. You can see this with your own eyes. ⁹ You know that cruel enemies killed our fathers. They took away our sons, our daughters and our wives as their prisoners. That was God's punishment. ¹⁰ Now I want to make a covenant with the Lord, Israel's God. Then he will stop being angry with us.

¹¹ My sons, the Lord has chosen you to serve him in his temple and to offer sacrifices. So do your work well.’

¹² Then these Levites started to work in the temple:

¹⁵ Those men brought all the Levites together. They all made themselves clean to serve the Lord. Then they went into the temple to make it a holy place again, as the king had commanded them. They obeyed the Lord's command. ¹⁶ Then the priests went into the inside room of the Lord's temple to make it holy. They found some things in the temple that were unclean. They carried all those things out to the temple yard. Then the Levites took the unclean things out of the city to the Kidron Valley.

¹⁷ They began this work on the first day of the first month. On the 8th day of the month they reached the entrance room of the temple. They worked to make the temple a holy place for eight more days. On the 16th day of the first month they had finished the work.

¹⁸ Then they went to King Hezekiah and they said, ‘We have made the whole temple clean and holy. That includes the altar for burnt offerings and all its tools. It also includes the table for the special bread and all its tools. ¹⁹ When Ahaz was king, he removed many things from the temple when he turned away from the Lord. We have made all those things clean again. We have put them in front of the Lord's altar so that the priests can use them again.’

People worship God again in his temple

²⁰ King Hezekiah got up early the next morning. He brought the city's officers together. They all went up to the Lord's temple. ²¹ They took with them seven bulls, seven male sheep, seven lambs and seven male goats. They offered these animals as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the holy place and for the people of Judah. The king told the priests, Aaron's descendants, to offer sacrifices on the Lord's altar. ²² So they killed the bulls. The priests took the blood and they splashed it on the altar. Then they killed the male sheep. The priests splashed their blood on the altar too. Then they killed the lambs. The priests also splashed their blood on the altar. ²³ Finally, the priests brought the male goats in front of King Hezekiah and the people who were there. The king and the people put their hands on the goats. ²⁴ Then the priests killed the goats as a sin offering. They offered their blood on the altar as a sacrifice. Then all the people of Israel would no longer be guilty for their sins. This was because the king had said that the burnt offerings and the sin offerings would be for all Israel.

²⁵ The king told the Levites to stand in the Lord's temple with their cymbals, harps and lyres to make music. They stood at the places where King David, David's prophet Gad and the prophet Nathan had told the Levites to stand. This was the Lord's command that he had given to his prophets.^{[e] 26} The Levites held the musical instruments that King David had provided. The priests held their trumpets.

²⁷ Then Hezekiah told the priests to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When they began to offer the sacrifice, the singers started to sing to praise the Lord. The trumpets and the musical instruments of King David of Israel also started to make music. ²⁸ All the people there were worshipping the Lord. At the same time the singers were singing and the priests were making music with their trumpets. They all continued to do that until the priests finished making the burnt offering.

²⁹ When the priests finished offering the sacrifices, the king and everyone with him bent down low to worship God. ³⁰ King Hezekiah and his officers told the Levites to sing songs to praise the Lord. They told them to sing the songs that King David and the prophet Asaph had written. So the Levites praised God in that way. They were very happy and they bent down low to worship God.

³¹ Then Hezekiah said, ‘Now you have made yourselves clean to serve the Lord. So come to the Lord's temple and bring sacrifices and offerings to thank the Lord.’ So all the people brought their sacrifices and their offerings to thank the Lord. Everyone who wanted to offer burnt offerings brought animals for that too.

³² For their burnt offerings, the people brought 70 bulls, 100 male sheep and 200 lambs to offer to the Lord. ³³ They also brought 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep to offer to the Lord. ³⁴ But there were not enough priests to prepare all the animals for the sacrifices. So their relatives, the Levites, helped them until they had finished the work. By that time more priests had made themselves clean to serve the Lord. (The Levites had been more careful than the priests to make themselves clean for the Lord.) ³⁵ The people brought a lot of animals for burnt offerings. There was also the fat from the friendship offerings. And there were drink offerings too. The priests offered all those with the burnt offerings.

That is how they started to worship the Lord again in his temple. ³⁶ Hezekiah and all the people were happy because God had helped them. They had been able to do the work on the temple very quickly.

The people prepare for the Passover festival

30 Hezekiah sent a message to all the people of Israel and Judah. He also wrote letters to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. He told them to come to the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. They must come to worship the Lord, Israel's God, at the Passover festival. ² The king, his officers and all the people who lived in Jerusalem decided to have the Passover festival in the second month.^{[f] 3} Not enough priests had made themselves clean to serve the Lord. So they could not have the feast at the usual time. Also, all the people had not yet come to Jerusalem. ⁴ This idea seemed right to the king and to all the people. ⁵ So they sent a message with the king's command to all the people. They sent the message everywhere in Israel, from Beersheba to Dan. The message told the people to come to Jerusalem for the Passover festival to worship the Lord, Israel's God. Before that, they had not brought all the people together for the festival, as God's law taught them to do.

⁶ So men took the letters from the king and his officers to all the people in Israel and Judah. The king's command said this:

‘A message to the people of Israel who have escaped from the power of the kings of Assyria. Turn back now to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Then he will turn back to you. ⁷ Do not be like your parents and your relatives. They turned away from the Lord, the God of their ancestors. That made him so angry that he punished them, as you can see. ⁸ Do not refuse to obey him, as your parents did. Instead, agree to serve him. Come to his temple. He has made it a holy place for ever. Serve the Lord your God so that he will stop being so angry with you. ⁹ If you turn back to serve the Lord again, your enemies will be kind to your relatives and to your children. They will let them return here to their homes. The Lord your God is kind and he is ready to forgive you. So if you turn back to him, he will not send you away.’

¹⁰ The men took this message to every town among the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as the tribe of Zebulun. But in all those places, people insulted them and they laughed at them. ¹¹ But some people from Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun were not too proud to accept the king's message. They agreed to come to Jerusalem. ¹² As for the people of Judah, God caused them to accept the command that the king and his officers had given. They all agreed together to do what the Lord wanted them to do.^[g]

¹³ In the second month of the year, a very large crowd of people came together in Jerusalem. They came there for the Festival of Flat Bread.^{[h] 14} They removed the altars for false gods that were in Jerusalem. They also removed all the altars where people burned incense. They threw them into the Kidron Valley.

¹⁵ On the 14th day of the second month, they killed the lamb for the Passover feast. The priests and the Levites who were not yet clean became ashamed. So they made themselves clean to serve the Lord. Then they could bring burnt offerings to the Lord's temple. ¹⁶ They stood in their proper places. God's servant Moses had written in God's law where they should stand. The Levites gave the blood from the sacrifices to the priests. The priests then splashed the blood on the altar. ¹⁷ Many of the people had not made themselves properly clean. So they could not kill their lambs for the Passover and offer them to the Lord. The Levites had to kill the lambs for those people instead. ¹⁸ Most of the people who came from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not made themselves properly clean. They should not have eaten the Passover meal, because God's law said that was wrong. But they still ate the meal. So Hezekiah prayed for them. He said, ‘Lord you are good. Please forgive everyone ¹⁹ who really wants to obey you, the God of their ancestors. If they have not made themselves properly clean to eat this meal, please forgive them.’ ²⁰ The Lord accepted Hezekiah's prayer. He did not punish those people.

²¹ The Israelites who were in Jerusalem enjoyed the Festival of Flat Bread for seven days. They were very happy. Every day, the Levites and the priests made loud music to praise the Lord.

²² All the Levites understood how they should serve the Lord. So King Hezekiah thanked them. The festival continued for seven days. They offered friendship offerings to the Lord. They thanked the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

²³ Then all the people who were there agreed to continue the feast for another seven days. So they did that happily for seven more days. ²⁴ King Hezekiah of Judah gave 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep to the people. The leaders also gave them 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep. Many more priests also made themselves clean to serve the Lord.

²⁵ Everyone at the festival was very happy. They included all Judah's people, the priests, the Levites and the whole group of people who had come from Israel. There were also foreign people who were living in Israel and in Judah. ²⁶ Everyone enjoyed the festival in Jerusalem. Nothing like this had happened in Jerusalem since the time when David's son Solomon was king of Israel. ²⁷ The priests and the Levites stood up and they asked God to bless the people. Their prayers reached the Lord's home in heaven, and he did what they asked for.

After the Passover

31 The Passover festival finished. Then the Israelites who were there went to all the towns in Judah. They knocked down the stone pillars that people worshipped. They also cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed all the altars and places for worship on the hills. They did that everywhere in Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. After they finished, all the Israelites returned to their homes in their own towns.

Hezekiah helps his people to worship the Lord

² Hezekiah put the priests and the Levites into several groups. Each group had special work to do. Their different jobs were to offer burnt offerings and friendship offerings, and to serve God in other ways. Some of them would thank the Lord and sing songs to praise him at the gates of his temple.

³ The king gave some of his own animals for burnt offerings. The priests offered these sacrifices in the way that the law of the Lord taught. They offered burnt offerings each morning and each evening. They also offered them on Sabbath days, on the days of New Moon festivals and on other special days. ⁴ King Hezekiah told the people who lived in Jerusalem to bring their offerings too. They must provide the proper gifts for the priests and the Levites. Then they would serve the Lord in the way that his law taught them to do.

⁵ As soon as the Israelite people received Hezekiah's message, they brought their gifts to the temple. They brought the first part of their grain, wine, olive oil, honey and all the crops that grew in their fields. They brought one tenth part of all the food that they grew, so there was a lot of it.^{[i] 6} The Israelites and the people of Judah who lived in other towns also brought gifts. They brought one animal from every ten of all their cows, sheep and goats. They also brought one thing from every ten things that they had made holy for the Lord their God. They put these things together in many heaps. ⁷ They started to bring their things in the third month of the year and they finished in the seventh month. ⁸ Hezekiah and his officers went to the temple and they saw all the things. Then they praised the Lord and they asked him to bless his people, the Israelites.

⁹ Hezekiah asked the priests and the Levites about the heaps of gifts from the people. ¹⁰ The leader of the priests, Azariah from Zadok's clan, said, ‘The people have brought a lot of gifts to the Lord's temple. Since they started to do that, we have had enough food to eat. There has been a lot more food than we need. The Lord has blessed his people, so we still have all this extra food.’

¹¹ Hezekiah told them that they must prepare some rooms in the temple to store the things. When they had done that, ¹² they put in there the gifts, the tithes and the holy things. A Levite called Konaniah had to take care of all these things. His brother Shimei helped him. ¹³ Konaniah and Shimei had authority over these people: Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismakiah, Mahath and Benaiah. King Hezekiah chose all these men to do this work. Azariah was the priest who had authority over the temple.

¹⁴ Imnah's son Kore, a Levite, was the guard who watched the East Gate of the temple. He received the gifts that people offered to the Lord. He had authority to share among the priests and the Levites the gifts that people brought and the holy things. ¹⁵ Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah and Shecaniah helped him. They lived in the towns where the priests lived. They faithfully shared the people's gifts among the other Levites and priests, group by group. They included everyone, young and old. ¹⁶ They gave gifts to all those who were in the lists of men who could serve God in the temple. They had to be three years old or older.^[j] Those men would go into the temple on the right days for their group. They would do the work that their group had to do on those days. ¹⁷ The lists of the priests showed the clans that they belonged to. The list of the Levites showed which group they belonged to. Those who were 20 years old or older had to do the work that was given to their group. ¹⁸ The young children, wives, sons and daughters of all the men in the lists also received gifts. That was because the men faithfully kept themselves clean to serve God in their work.

¹⁹ Some of the priests and Levites lived on the land around the cities that belonged to them. So the king's officers chose honest men to take the gifts to them. They gave them their proper share of the gifts. The priests had to be Aaron's descendants, and the Levites' names had to be on the list of Levite families.

²⁰ Those are the things that King Hezekiah did everywhere in Judah. He did what was good and right to please the Lord his God. ²¹ He served God faithfully with all his strength. He helped the work in the temple and he obeyed God's law and his commands. So he was successful in the things that he did.