Old/New Testament

28 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn’t do that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, like David his father, ² but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and also made molten images for the Baals. ³ Moreover he burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. ⁴ He sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

⁵ Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. They struck him, and carried away from him a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter. ⁶ For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed in Judah one hundred twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men, because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers. ⁷ Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king’s son, Azrikam the ruler of the house, and Elkanah who was next to the king. ⁸ The children of Israel carried away captive of their brothers two hundred thousand women, sons, and daughters, and also took away much plunder from them, and brought the plunder to Samaria. ⁹ But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, “Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven. ¹⁰ Now you intend to degrade the children of Judah and Jerusalem as male and female slaves for yourselves. Aren’t there even with you trespasses of your own against Yahweh your God? ¹¹ Now hear me therefore, and send back the captives that you have taken captive from your brothers, for the fierce wrath of Yahweh is on you.” ¹² Then some of the heads of the children of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against those who came from the war, ¹³ and said to them, “You must not bring in the captives here, for you intend that which will bring on us a trespass against Yahweh, to add to our sins and to our guilt; for our guilt is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.”

¹⁴ So the armed men left the captives and the plunder before the princes and all the assembly. ¹⁵ The men who have been mentioned by name rose up and took the captives, and with the plunder clothed all who were naked among them, dressed them, gave them sandals, gave them something to eat and to drink, anointed them, carried all the feeble of them on donkeys, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees, to their brothers. Then they returned to Samaria.

¹⁶ At that time King Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria to help him. ¹⁷ For again the Edomites had come and struck Judah, and carried away captives. ¹⁸ The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and also Gimzo and its villages; and they lived there. ¹⁹ For Yahweh brought Judah low because of Ahaz king of Israel, because he acted without restraint in Judah and trespassed severely against Yahweh. ²⁰ Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came to him and gave him trouble, but didn’t strengthen him. ²¹ For Ahaz took away a portion out of Yahweh’s house, and out of the house of the king and of the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria; but it didn’t help him.

²² In the time of his distress, he trespassed yet more against Yahweh, this same King Ahaz. ²³ For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had defeated him. He said, “Because the gods of the kings of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them, that they may help me.” But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel. ²⁴ Ahaz gathered together the vessels of God’s house, cut the vessels of God’s house in pieces, and shut up the doors of Yahweh’s house; and he made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵ In every city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked Yahweh, the God of his fathers, to anger.

²⁶ Now the rest of his acts, and all his ways, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷ Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem, because they didn’t bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel; and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

29 Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. ² He did that which was right in Yahweh’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done. ³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of Yahweh’s house and repaired them. ⁴ He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together into the wide place on the east, ⁵ and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place. ⁶ For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs. ⁷ Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore Yahweh’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment and a hissing, as you see with your eyes. ⁹ For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this. ¹⁰ Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, don’t be negligent now; for Yahweh has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers and burn incense.”

¹² Then the Levites arose: Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah; ¹³ and of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah; ¹⁴ and of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel. ¹⁵ They gathered their brothers, sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by Yahweh’s words, to cleanse Yahweh’s house. ¹⁶ The priests went into the inner part of Yahweh’s house to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in Yahweh’s temple into the court of Yahweh’s house. The Levites took it from there to carry it out to the brook Kidron. ¹⁷ Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month they came to Yahweh’s porch. They sanctified Yahweh’s house in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished. ¹⁸ Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace and said, “We have cleansed all Yahweh’s house, including the altar of burnt offering with all its vessels, and the table of show bread with all its vessels. ¹⁹ Moreover, we have prepared and sanctified all the vessels which King Ahaz threw away in his reign when he was unfaithful. Behold, they are before Yahweh’s altar.”

²⁰ Then Hezekiah the king arose early, gathered the princes of the city, and went up to Yahweh’s house. ²¹ They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. He commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on Yahweh’s altar. ²² So they killed the bulls, and the priests received the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. They killed the rams and sprinkled the blood on the altar. They also killed the lambs and sprinkled the blood on the altar. ²³ They brought near the male goats for the sin offering before the king and the assembly; and they laid their hands on them. ²⁴ Then the priests killed them, and they made a sin offering with their blood on the altar, to make atonement for all Israel; for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.

²⁵ He set the Levites in Yahweh’s house with cymbals, with stringed instruments, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet; for the commandment was from Yahweh by his prophets. ²⁶ The Levites stood with David’s instruments, and the priests with the trumpets. ²⁷ Hezekiah commanded them to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When the burnt offering began, Yahweh’s song also began, along with the trumpets and instruments of David king of Israel. ²⁸ All the assembly worshiped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished.

²⁹ When they had finished offering, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped. ³⁰ Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises to Yahweh with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer. They sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped.

³¹ Then Hezekiah answered, “Now you have consecrated yourselves to Yahweh. Come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings into Yahweh’s house.” The assembly brought in sacrifices and thank offerings, and as many as were of a willing heart brought burnt offerings. ³² The number of the burnt offerings which the assembly brought was seventy bulls, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. All these were for a burnt offering to Yahweh. ³³ The consecrated things were six hundred head of cattle and three thousand sheep. ³⁴ But the priests were too few, so that they could not skin all the burnt offerings. Therefore their brothers the Levites helped them until the work was ended, and until the priests had sanctified themselves, for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests. ³⁵ Also the burnt offerings were in abundance, with the fat of the peace offerings and with the drink offerings for every burnt offering. So the service of Yahweh’s house was set in order. ³⁶ Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because of that which God had prepared for the people; for the thing was done suddenly.

17 Jesus said these things, then lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you; ² even as you gave him authority over all flesh, so he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. ⁴ I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do. ⁵ Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.

⁶ “I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word. ⁷ Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you, ⁸ for the words which you have given me I have given to them; and they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are. ¹² While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I have kept those whom you have given me. None of them is lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.^{(A) 18} As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰ “Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. ²² The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, ²³ I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”