The Daily Audio Bible

King Hezekiah's Illness and Recovery^(A)

20 About this time King Hezekiah became sick and almost died. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to see him and said to him, “The Lord tells you that you are to put everything in order, because you will not recover. Get ready to die.”

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed: ³ “Remember, Lord, that I have served you faithfully and loyally and that I have always tried to do what you wanted me to.” And he began to cry bitterly.

⁴ Isaiah left the king, but before he had passed through the central courtyard of the palace the Lord told him ⁵ to go back to Hezekiah, ruler of the Lord's people, and say to him, “I, the Lord, the God of your ancestor David, have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you, and in three days you will go to the Temple. ⁶ I will let you live fifteen years longer. I will rescue you and this city Jerusalem from the emperor of Assyria. I will defend this city, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.”

⁷ Then Isaiah told the king's attendants to put on his boil a paste made of figs, and he would get well.^{[a] 8} King Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign to prove that the Lord will heal me and that three days later I will be able to go to the Temple?”

⁹ Isaiah replied, “The Lord will give you a sign to prove that he will keep his promise. Now, would you prefer to have the shadow on the stairway go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?”^[b]

¹⁰ Hezekiah answered, “It's easy to have the shadow go forward ten steps!^[c] Have it go back ten steps.”^[d]

¹¹ Isaiah prayed to the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps^[e] on the stairway^[f] set up by King Ahaz.

Messengers from Babylonia^(B)

¹² About that same time the king of Babylonia, Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, heard that King Hezekiah had been sick, so he sent him a letter and a present. ¹³ Hezekiah welcomed the messengers and showed them his wealth—his silver and gold, his spices and perfumes, and all his military equipment. There was nothing in his storerooms or anywhere in his kingdom that he did not show them. ¹⁴ Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did these men come from and what did they say to you?”

Hezekiah answered, “They came from a very distant country, from Babylonia.”

¹⁵ “What did they see in the palace?”

“They saw everything. There is nothing in the storerooms that I didn't show them.”

¹⁶ Isaiah then told the king, “The Lord Almighty says that ^17 (C)a time is coming when everything in your palace, everything that your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylonia. Nothing will be left. ^18 (D)Some of your own direct descendants will be taken away and made eunuchs to serve in the palace of the king of Babylonia.”

¹⁹ King Hezekiah understood this to mean that there would be peace and security during his lifetime, so he replied, “The message you have given me from the Lord is good.”

The End of Hezekiah's Reign^(E)

²⁰ Everything else that King Hezekiah did, his brave deeds, and an account of how he built a reservoir and dug a tunnel to bring water into the city, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.

²¹ Hezekiah died, and his son Manasseh succeeded him as king.

King Manasseh of Judah^(F)

21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for fifty-five years. His mother was Hephzibah. ^2 (G)Following the disgusting practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out of the land as his people advanced, Manasseh sinned against the Lord. ³ He rebuilt the pagan places of worship that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he built altars for the worship of Baal and made an image of the goddess Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done. Manasseh also worshiped the stars. ^4 (H)He built pagan altars in the Temple, the place that the Lord had said was where he should be worshiped. ⁵ In the two courtyards of the Temple he built altars for the worship of the stars. ⁶ He sacrificed his son as a burnt offering. He practiced divination and magic and consulted^[g] fortunetellers and mediums. He sinned greatly against the Lord and stirred up his anger. ^7 (I)He placed the symbol of the goddess Asherah in the Temple, the place about which the Lord had said to David and his son Solomon: “Here in Jerusalem, in this Temple, is the place that I have chosen out of all the territory of the twelve tribes of Israel as the place where I am to be worshiped. ⁸ And if the people of Israel will obey all my commands and keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them, then I will not allow them to be driven out of the land that I gave to their ancestors.” ⁹ But the people of Judah did not obey the Lord, and Manasseh led them to commit even greater sins than those committed by the nations whom the Lord had driven out of the land as his people advanced.

¹⁰ Through his servants the prophets the Lord said, ¹¹ “King Manasseh has done these disgusting things, things far worse than what the Canaanites did; and with his idols he has led the people of Judah into sin. ¹² So I, the Lord God of Israel, will bring such a disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that everyone who hears about it will be stunned. ¹³ I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe Jerusalem clean of its people, as clean as a plate that has been wiped and turned upside down. ¹⁴ I will abandon the people who survive, and will hand them over to their enemies, who will conquer them and plunder their land. ¹⁵ I will do this to my people because they have sinned against me and have stirred up my anger from the time their ancestors came out of Egypt to this day.”

¹⁶ Manasseh killed so many innocent people that the streets of Jerusalem were flowing with blood; he did this in addition to leading the people of Judah into idolatry, causing them to sin against the Lord.

¹⁷ Everything else that Manasseh did, including the sins he committed, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ¹⁸ Manasseh died and was buried in the palace garden, the garden of Uzza, and his son Amon succeeded him as king.

King Amon of Judah^(J)

¹⁹ Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for two years. His mother was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz from the town of Jotbah. ²⁰ Like his father Manasseh, he sinned against the Lord; ²¹ he imitated his father's actions, and he worshiped the idols that his father had worshiped. ²² He rejected the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and disobeyed the Lord's commands.

²³ Amon's officials plotted against him and assassinated him in the palace. ²⁴ The people of Judah killed Amon's assassins and made his son Josiah king.

²⁵ Everything else that Amon did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ²⁶ Amon was buried in the tomb in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah succeeded him as king.

King Josiah of Judah^(K)

22 ^(L)Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for thirty-one years. His mother was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah from the town of Bozkath. ² Josiah did what was pleasing to the Lord; he followed the example of his ancestor King David, strictly obeying all the laws of God.

¹⁸ The next day Paul went with us to see James; and all the church elders were present. ¹⁹ Paul greeted them and gave a complete report of everything that God had done among the Gentiles through his work. ²⁰ After hearing him, they all praised God. Then they said, “Brother Paul, you can see how many thousands of Jews have become believers, and how devoted they all are to the Law. ²¹ They have been told that you have been teaching all the Jews who live in Gentile countries to abandon the Law of Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or follow the Jewish customs. ²² They are sure to hear that you have arrived. What should be done, then? ^23 (A)This is what we want you to do. There are four men here who have taken a vow. ²⁴ Go along with them and join them in the ceremony of purification and pay their expenses; then they will be able to shave their heads.^[a] In this way everyone will know that there is no truth in any of the things that they have been told about you, but that you yourself live in accordance with the Law of Moses. ^25 (B)But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent them a letter telling them we decided that they must not eat any food that has been offered to idols, or any blood, or any animal that has been strangled, and that they must keep themselves from sexual immorality.”

²⁶ So Paul took the men and the next day performed the ceremony of purification with them. Then he went into the Temple and gave notice of how many days it would be until the end of the period of purification, when a sacrifice would be offered for each one of them.

Paul Is Arrested in the Temple

²⁷ But just when the seven days were about to come to an end, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the Temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and grabbed Paul. ²⁸ “People of Israel!” they shouted. “Help! This is the man who goes everywhere teaching everyone against the people of Israel, the Law of Moses, and this Temple. And now he has even brought some Gentiles into the Temple and defiled this holy place!” (^29 (C)They said this because they had seen Trophimus from Ephesus with Paul in the city, and they thought that Paul had taken him into the Temple.)

³⁰ Confusion spread through the whole city, and the people all ran together, grabbed Paul, and dragged him out of the Temple. At once the Temple doors were closed. ³¹ The mob was trying to kill Paul, when a report was sent up to the commander of the Roman troops that all of Jerusalem was rioting. ³² At once the commander took some officers and soldiers and rushed down to the crowd. When the people saw him with the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³ The commander went over to Paul, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked, “Who is this man, and what has he done?” ³⁴ Some in the crowd shouted one thing, others something else. There was such confusion that the commander could not find out exactly what had happened, so he ordered his men to take Paul up into the fort. ³⁵ They got as far as the steps with him, and then the soldiers had to carry him because the mob was so wild. ³⁶ They were all coming after him and screaming, “Kill him!”

Praise the Lord!

⁹ A lazy person is as bad as someone who is destructive.

¹⁰ The Lord is like a strong tower, where the righteous can go and be safe.