Beginning

28 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. But he was an evil king, unlike his ancestor King David. ² For he followed the example of the kings over in Israel and worshiped the idols of Baal. ³ He even went out to the valley of Hinnom, and it was not just to burn incense to the idols, for he even sacrificed his own children in the fire, just like the heathen nations that were thrown out of the land by the Lord to make room for Israel. ⁴ Yes, he sacrificed and burned incense at the idol shrines on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵ That is why the Lord God allowed the king of Syria to defeat him and deport large numbers of his people to Damascus. The armies from Israel also slaughtered great numbers of his troops. ⁶ On a single day Pekah, the son of Remaliah, killed 120,000 of his bravest soldiers because they had turned away from the Lord God of their fathers. ⁷ Then Zichri, a great warrior from Ephraim, killed the king’s son Maaseiah, the king’s administrator Azrikam, and the king’s second-in-command Elkanah. ⁸ The armies from Israel also captured 200,000 Judean women and children and tremendous amounts of booty, which they took to Samaria.

⁹ But Oded, a prophet of the Lord, was there in Samaria, and he went out to meet the returning army.

“Look!” he exclaimed. “The Lord God of your fathers was angry with Judah and let you capture them, but you have butchered them without mercy, and all heaven is disturbed. ¹⁰ And now are you going to make slaves of these people from Judah and Jerusalem? What about your own sins against the Lord your God? ¹¹ Listen to me and return these relatives of yours to their homes, for now the fierce anger of the Lord is upon you.”

¹² Some of the top leaders of Ephraim also added their opposition. These men were Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai.

¹³ “You must not bring the captives here!” they declared. “If you do, the Lord will be angry, and this sin will be added to our many others. We are in enough trouble with God as it is.”

¹⁴ So the army officers turned over the captives and booty to the political leaders to decide what to do. ¹⁵ Then the four men already mentioned distributed captured stores of clothing to the women and children who needed it and gave them shoes, food, and wine, and put those who were sick and old on donkeys, and took them back to their families in Jericho, the City of Palm Trees. Then their escorts returned to Samaria.

¹⁶ About that time King Ahaz of Judah asked the king of Assyria to be his ally in his war against the armies of Edom. For Edom was invading Judah and capturing many people as slaves. ^17-18 Meanwhile, the Philistines had invaded the lowland cities and the Negeb and had already captured Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo with their surrounding villages, and were living there. ¹⁹ For the Lord brought Judah very low on account of the evil deeds of King Ahaz of Israel,^[a] for he had destroyed the spiritual fiber of Judah and had been faithless to the Lord. ²⁰ But when Tilgath-pilneser, king of Assyria, arrived, he caused trouble for King Ahaz instead of helping him. ²¹ So even though Ahaz had given him the Temple gold and the palace treasures, it did no good.

²² In this time of deep trial, King Ahaz collapsed spiritually. ²³ He sacrificed to the gods of the people of Damascus who had defeated him, for he felt that since these gods had helped the kings of Syria, they would help him too if he sacrificed to them. But instead, they were his ruin, and that of all his people. ²⁴ The king took the gold bowls from the Temple and slashed them to pieces, and nailed the door of the Temple shut so that no one could worship there, and made altars to the heathen gods in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵ And he did the same in every city of Judah, thus angering the Lord God of his fathers.

²⁶ The other details of his life and activities are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷ When King Ahaz died, he was buried in Jerusalem but not in the royal tombs, and his son Hezekiah became the new king.

29 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became the king of Judah, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. ² His reign was generally good in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestor David’s had been.

³ In the very first month of the first year of his reign, he reopened the doors of the Temple and repaired them. ^4-5 He summoned the priests and Levites to meet him at the open space east of the Temple and addressed them thus:

“Listen to me, you Levites. Sanctify yourselves and sanctify the Temple of the Lord God of your ancestors—clean all the debris from the holy place. ⁶ For our fathers have committed a deep sin before the Lord our God; they abandoned the Lord and his Temple and turned their backs on it. ⁷ The doors have been shut tight, the perpetual flame has been put out, and the incense and burnt offerings have not been offered. ⁸ Therefore, the wrath of the Lord has been upon Judah and Jerusalem. He has caused us to be objects of horror, amazement, and contempt, as you see us today. ⁹ Our fathers have been killed in war, and our sons and daughters and wives are in captivity because of this.

¹⁰ “But now I want to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. ¹¹ My children, don’t neglect your duties any longer, for the Lord has chosen you to minister to him and to burn incense.”

^12-14 Then the Levites went into action:

¹⁵ They in turn summoned their fellow Levites and sanctified themselves, and began to clean up and sanctify the Temple, as the king (who was speaking for the Lord) had commanded them. ¹⁶ The priests cleaned up the inner room of the Temple and brought out into the court all the filth and decay they found there. The Levites then carted it out to Kidron Brook. ¹⁷ This all began on the first day of April, and by the eighth day they had reached the outer court, which took eight days to clean up, so the entire job was completed in sixteen days.

¹⁸ Then they went back to the palace and reported to King Hezekiah, “We have completed the cleansing of the Temple and of the altar of burnt offerings and of its accessories, also the table of the Bread of the Presence and its equipment. ¹⁹ What’s more, we have recovered and sanctified all the utensils thrown away by King Ahaz when he closed the Temple. They are beside the altar of the Lord.”

²⁰ Early the next morning King Hezekiah went to the Temple with the city officials, ²¹ taking seven young bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats for a sin offering for the nation and for the Temple.

He instructed the priests, the sons of Aaron, to sacrifice them on the altar of the Lord. ²² So they killed the young bulls, and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar, and they killed the rams and sprinkled their blood upon the altar, and did the same with the lambs. ²³ The male goats for the sin offering were then brought before the king and his officials, who laid their hands upon them. ²⁴ Then the priests killed the animals and made a sin offering with their blood upon the altar to make atonement for all Israel, as the king had commanded—for the king had specified that the burnt offering and sin offering must be sacrificed for the entire nation.

^25-26 He organized Levites at the Temple into an orchestral group, using cymbals, psalteries, and harps. This was in accordance with the directions of David and the prophets Gad and Nathan, who had received their instructions from the Lord. The priests formed a trumpet corps. ²⁷ Then Hezekiah ordered the burnt offering to be placed upon the altar, and as the sacrifice began, the instruments of music began to play the songs of the Lord, accompanied by the trumpets. ²⁸ Throughout the entire ceremony everyone worshiped the Lord as the singers sang and the trumpets blew. ²⁹ Afterwards the king and his aides bowed low before the Lord in worship. ³⁰ Then King Hezekiah ordered the Levites to sing before the Lord some of the psalms of David and of the prophet Asaph, which they gladly did, and bowed their heads and worshiped.

³¹ “The consecration ceremony is now ended,” Hezekiah said. “Now bring your sacrifices and thank offerings.” So the people from every part of the nation brought their sacrifices and thank offerings, and those who wished to brought burnt offerings too. ^32-33 In all, there were 70 young bulls for burnt offerings, 100 rams, and 200 lambs. In addition, 600 oxen and 3,000 sheep were brought as holy gifts. ³⁴ But there were too few priests to prepare the burnt offerings, so their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was finished—and until more priests had reported to work—for the Levites were much more ready to sanctify themselves than the priests were. ³⁵ There was an abundance of burnt offerings, and the usual drink offering with each, and many peace offerings. So it was that the Temple was restored to service, and the sacrifices offered again. ³⁶ And Hezekiah and all the people were very happy because of what God had accomplished so quickly.

30 King Hezekiah now sent letters throughout all of Israel, Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh, inviting everyone to come to the Temple at Jerusalem for the annual Passover celebration. ^2-3 The king, his aides, and all the assembly of Jerusalem had voted to celebrate the Passover in May this time, rather than at the normal time in April, because not enough priests were sanctified at the earlier date, and there wasn’t enough time to get notices out. ⁴ The king and his advisors were in complete agreement in this matter, ⁵ so they sent a Passover proclamation throughout Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, inviting everyone. They had not kept it in great numbers as prescribed.^[b]

⁶ “Come back to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,” the king’s letter said, “so that he will return to us who have escaped from the power of the kings of Assyria. ⁷ Do not be like your fathers and brothers who sinned against the Lord God of their fathers and were destroyed. ⁸ Do not be stubborn, as they were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his Temple which he has sanctified forever, and worship the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. ⁹ For if you turn to the Lord again, your brothers and your children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they will be able to return to this land. For the Lord your God is full of kindness and mercy and will not continue to turn away his face from you if you return to him.”

¹⁰ So the messengers went from city to city throughout Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as Zebulun. But for the most part they were received with laughter and scorn! ¹¹ However, some from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun turned to God and came to Jerusalem. ¹² But in Judah the entire nation felt a strong, God-given desire to obey the Lord’s direction as commanded by the king and his officers. ¹³ And so it was that a very large crowd assembled at Jerusalem in the month of May for the Passover celebration. ¹⁴ They set to work and destroyed the heathen altars in Jerusalem, and knocked down all the incense altars, and threw them into Kidron Brook.

¹⁵ On the first day of May the people killed their Passover lambs. Then the priests and Levites became ashamed of themselves for not taking a more active part, so they sanctified themselves and brought burnt offerings into the Temple. ¹⁶ They stood at their posts as instructed by the law of Moses the man of God; and the priests sprinkled the blood received from the Levites.

^17-19 Since many of the people arriving from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun were ceremonially impure because they had not undergone the purification rites, the Levites killed their Passover lambs for them, to sanctify them. Then King Hezekiah prayed for them, and they were permitted to eat the Passover anyway, even though this was contrary to God’s rules. But Hezekiah said, “May the good Lord pardon everyone who determines to follow the Lord God of his fathers, even though he is not properly sanctified for the ceremony.” ²⁰ And the Lord listened to Hezekiah’s prayer and did not destroy them.

²¹ So the people of Israel celebrated the Passover at Jerusalem for seven days with great joy.

Meanwhile the Levites and priests praised the Lord with music and cymbals day after day. ²² (King Hezekiah spoke very appreciatively to the Levites of their excellent music.)

So for seven days the observance continued, and peace offerings were sacrificed, and the people confessed their sins to the Lord God of their fathers. ²³ The enthusiasm continued, so it was unanimously decided to continue the observance for another seven days. ²⁴ King Hezekiah gave the people 1,000 young bulls for offerings and 7,000 sheep; and the princes donated 1,000 young bulls and 10,000 sheep. And at this time another large group of priests stepped forward and sanctified themselves.

²⁵ Then the people of Judah, together with the priests, the Levites, the foreign residents, and the visitors from Israel, were filled with deep joy. ²⁶ For Jerusalem hadn’t seen a celebration like this one since the days of King David’s son Solomon. ²⁷ Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed the people, and the Lord heard their prayers from his holy temple in heaven.

31 Afterwards a massive campaign against idol worship was begun. Those who were at Jerusalem for the Passover went out to the cities of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh and tore down the idol altars, the obelisks, the shameful images, and other heathen centers of worship. Then the people who had come to the Passover from the northern tribes returned again to their own homes.

² Hezekiah now organized the priests and Levites into service corps to offer the burnt offerings and peace offerings, and to worship and give thanks and praise to the Lord. ³ He also made a personal contribution of animals for the daily morning and evening burnt offerings, as well as for the weekly Sabbath and monthly new moon festivals, and for the other annual feasts as required in the law of God.

⁴ In addition, he required the people in Jerusalem to bring their tithes to the priests and Levites so that they wouldn’t need other employment but could apply themselves fully to their duties as required in the law of God. ^5-6 The people responded immediately and generously with the first of their crops and grain, new wine, olive oil, honey, and everything else—a tithe of all they owned, as required by law to be given to the Lord their God. Everything was laid out in great piles. The people who had moved to Judah from the northern tribes and the people of Judah living in the provinces also brought in the tithes of their cattle and sheep, and brought a tithe of the dedicated things to give to the Lord, and piled them up in great heaps. ^7-8 The first of these tithes arrived in June, and the piles continued to grow until October. When Hezekiah and his officials came and saw these huge piles, how they blessed the Lord and praised his people!

⁹ “Where did all this come from?” Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites.

¹⁰ And Azariah the High Priest from the clan of Zadok replied, “These are tithes! We have been eating from these stores of food for many weeks, but all this is left over, for the Lord has blessed his people.”

¹¹ Hezekiah decided to prepare storerooms in the Temple. ^12-13 All the dedicated supplies were brought into the Lord’s house. Conaniah the Levite was put in charge, assisted by his brother Shimei and the following aides: Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, Benaiah.

These appointments were made by King Hezekiah and Azariah the High Priest.

^14-15 Kore (son of Imnah, the Levite), who was the gatekeeper at the East Gate, was put in charge of distributing the offerings to the priests. His faithful assistants were Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah. They distributed the gifts to the clans of priests in their cities, dividing them to young and old alike. ¹⁶ However, the priests on duty at the Temple and their families^[c] were supplied directly from there, so they were not included in this distribution. ^17-18 The priests were listed in the genealogical register by clans, and the Levites twenty years old and older were listed under the names of their work corps. A regular food allotment was given to all families of properly registered priests, for they had no other source of income because their time and energies were devoted to the service of the Temple. ¹⁹ One of the priests was appointed in each of the cities of the priests to issue food and other supplies to all priests in the area and to all registered Levites.

²⁰ In this way King Hezekiah handled the distribution throughout all Judah, doing what was just and fair in the sight of the Lord his God. ²¹ He worked very hard to encourage respect for the Temple, the law, and godly living, and was very successful.