Beginning

Chapter 35

The Passover. ¹ Josiah then celebrated the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem, with the Passover lamb being slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the first month. ² He appointed the priests to their offices and encouraged them to do their duty in the service of the house of the Lord.

³ Josiah said to the Levites who instructed all Israel and who ware consecrated to the Lord: “Put the sacred Ark in the house built by Solomon, son of David, king of Israel. You no longer need to carry it on your shoulders. Serve now the Lord, your God, and his people Israel. ⁴ Prepare yourselves by families in your ancestral houses, following the directions written by King David of Israel and by his son Solomon.

⁵ “Take your positions in the sanctuary according to the family divisions of the ancestral houses of your brethren, the laity, and let there be one division of Levites for each family division. ⁶ Slay the Passover lamb, sanctify yourselves, and on behalf of your brethren make preparations, doing what the Lord commanded through Moses.”

⁷ Then Josiah contributed to the common people, as Passover offerings for all those who were present, a flock of thirty thousand lambs and goats, in addition to three thousand bulls. All these were from the king’s own property. ⁸ His officials also contributed willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offering two thousand six hundred lambs and three hundred bulls. ⁹ Conaniah, along with his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah, Jehiel, and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, contributed on behalf of the Levites for the Passover offerings five thousand lambs and kids in addition to five hundred bulls.

¹⁰ When the service had been arranged, the priests stood in their places and the Levites in their divisions, as the king had commanded. ¹¹ The Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests sprinkled the blood handed to them while the Levites skinned the animals.

¹² The Levites set aside the burnt offerings so that they might distribute them according to the subdivisions of the laity who would then offer them to the Lord, as it is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the bulls. ¹³ Then they roasted the Passover victim over an open fire as prescribed, and they boiled the holy offerings in pots, in cauldrons, and in pans, which they then distributed quickly to all the people.

¹⁴ Afterward they prepared the Passover for themselves and for the priests, since the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were kept occupied until nightfall in offering holocausts and the fatty portions. Therefore, the Levites prepared the Passover for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron. ¹⁵ The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were in their designated places in accordance with the command laid down by David, and also by Asaph, Heman, and the king’s seer, Jeduthun. The gatekeepers were stationed at each gate. They did not need to leave their stations, inasmuch as their brethren, the Levites, made the preparations for them.

¹⁶ Thus the entire service of the Lord was arranged on that day in order to celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. ¹⁷ The people of Israel who were present on that occasion kept the Passover at that time, as well as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for seven days.

¹⁸ No Passover like this one had been observed in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel, nor had any of the kings of Israel ever celebrated a Passover as was kept by Josiah, by the priests and the Levites, by all the people of Judah and Israel who were there, and by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁹ This Passover was celebrated in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah.

²⁰ Josiah’s Reign Ends. After all this had occurred and Josiah had restored the temple, Neco, the king of Egypt, went forth to attack Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to confront him. ²¹ Neco then sent messengers to him to say: “Why should you be concerned about me, king of Judah? I have no intention of attacking you. My quarrel is not with you but just with those with whom I am at war. God has commanded me to proceed without delay. Therefore, do not oppose God, who is supporting me, so that he will not destroy you.”

²² However, Josiah had no intention of yielding to Neco’s request that came from the mouth of God, but rather he engaged in battle on the plain of Megiddo. ²³ The archers then shot King Josiah, and he commanded his servants: “Take me away, for I am severely wounded.”

²⁴ Therefore, his servants removed him from his own chariot and transferred him with another chariot to Jerusalem, where he died. He was buried in the tombs of his ancestors, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him. ²⁵ Jeremiah also composed a lament^[a] for Josiah, which is recited to this day by all the male and female singers in their dirges. These became a tradition in Israel and can be found recorded in the Book of Lamentations.

²⁶ The rest of the history of Josiah and his pious deeds in accordance with what is written in the law of the Lord, ²⁷ and his acts, from first to last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

The End of the Kingdom

Chapter 36^[b]

Jehoahaz. ¹ The people of the land then took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and made him king in Jerusalem as the successor to his father. ² Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he ascended the throne, and he reigned for three months in Jerusalem. ³ Then Neco, the king of Egypt, deposed him in Jerusalem and imposed a levy on Judah of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold. ⁴ Following that, the king of Egypt made his brother Eliakim king over Judah and Jerusalem and changed his name to Jehoiakim, but Neco took his brother Jehoahaz and had him brought to Egypt.

Jehoiakim. ⁵ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord his God. ⁶ Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, then attacked him and bound him with chains to take him to Babylon. ⁷ Nebuchadnezzar also carried away to Babylon some of the vessels of the house of the Lord and placed them in his palace in Babylon.

⁸ The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the detestable things that he did, and what happened to him as a consequence, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him.

Jehoiachin. ⁹ Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. ¹⁰ At the turn of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and had him brought to Babylon, along with the most precious vessels that were in the temple of the Lord, and he appointed his brother Zedekiah as king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹¹ Zedekiah. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹² He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and he did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah, who revealed the word of the Lord.

¹³ Zedekiah also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had compelled him to take an oath in God’s name. He became stubborn and obstinate, and he refused to return to the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ Furthermore, all the leaders of Judah, the priests, and the people became ever more unfaithful, imitating all the shameful practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord which he himself had consecrated in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, unceasingly sent them word through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. ¹⁶ However, they continued to ridicule the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so fierce that there was no remedy.

¹⁷ Therefore, the Lord God brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the sanctuary and spared neither young man nor maiden, neither the aged nor the feeble. God gave them all into his power.

¹⁸ All the vessels of the house of God, both large and small and all the treasures of the Lord’s house and of the king and his princes—all these Nebuchadnezzar brought to Babylon. ¹⁹ They set fire to the house of God, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces to the ground along with its cherished possessions until everything there of value was destroyed.

²⁰ In addition, Nebuchadnezzar deported to Babylon all those who had escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the Persians came to power. ²¹ During the time that the land lay desolate, it enjoyed its Sabbath rests to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah: “Until the land has atoned for its lost Sabbaths, it will lie fallow until seventy years are fulfilled.”

²² Decree of Cyrus.^[c] In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord inspired King Cyrus to issue this edict throughout his kingdom, announced by a herald and also stated in a written edict: ²³ “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has also appointed me to build him a temple in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Therefore, whoever among you belongs to his people, may the Lord, his God be with him. Let him go up!”