2 Chronicles 28-30

Evangelical Heritage Version

Ahaz of Judah

28 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord as his father David had done. ² Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals ³ and sent up sacrifices in smoke in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. He burned his sons in the fire, in keeping with the disgusting practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel. ⁴ He also sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree.

⁵ So the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and captured a great number of prisoners, who were taken to Damascus. Ahaz was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who dealt him a heavy blow.

⁶ In one day, Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand men in Judah, all of them strong warriors, because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. ⁷ Zikri, a strong warrior from Ephraim, killed the king’s son Ma’aseiah, as well as Azrikam chief officer of the palace, and Elkanah second in command to the king.

⁸ The men from Israel took two hundred thousand of their fellow Israelites captive, including wives, sons, and daughters. They also seized a large amount of plunder from them and took it to Samaria.

⁹ There was a prophet of the Lord there, whose name was Oded. He went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Look! Because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry against Judah, he gave them into your hand. You have killed them in a rage that reaches up to heaven. ¹⁰ Now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem as male and female slaves for yourselves. Do you not have enough guilt of your own against the Lord your God? ¹¹ Now hear me. Send back the captives whom you have taken from your brothers, because the fierce anger of the Lord is upon you.”

¹² Some of the leaders of Ephraim, Azariah son of Johanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai, took a stand against those returning from the battle. ¹³ They said to them, “You must not bring the captives here, because it would make us guilty before the Lord. You are proposing to increase our sins and our guilt, because great guilt rests upon us and fierce anger burns against Israel.”

¹⁴ So the armed men left the captives and the plunder in front of the officials and the whole assembly. ¹⁵ The men who had been designated by name got up and took custody of the captives. From the spoils they provided clothing for all those who were naked. They clothed them and provided them with sandals, with food and drink, and with salve for their wounds. They transported all those who were weak on donkeys. They brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, to their fellow Israelites. Then they returned to Samaria.

¹⁶ At that time King Ahaz sent a request for help to the kings of Assyria. ¹⁷ Once again the Edomites came and defeated Judah and carried away captives.

¹⁸ The Philistines also made raids on the cities in the Shephelah and the Negev of Judah. They captured Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soko with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages, and they settled there.

¹⁹ The Lord brought Judah low, because Ahaz king of Israel^[a] had led Judah to throw off all restraint. He had been very unfaithful to the Lord.

²⁰ When Tiglath Pileser^[b] king of Assyria came, he marched against Ahaz and oppressed him instead of strengthening him. ²¹ Ahaz took some things from the House of the Lord, from the palace of the king, and from the officials, and he gave them to the king of Assyria, but it did not help him.

²² In the time of his distress King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. That was the way he was. ²³ He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him. He said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me.” But they were his ruin and the ruin of all Israel.

²⁴ Ahaz gathered the articles from the House of God and cut all these things from the House of God to pieces. He shut the doors of the House of the Lord and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵ In each and every city throughout Judah, he made high places to burn incense to other gods. He provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers, to anger.

²⁶ As for the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, you can find them written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷ Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of Jerusalem. They did not bury him in the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah ruled as king in his place.

Hezekiah King of Judah

29 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

² He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.

Restoration of the Temple

³ In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. ⁴ He brought the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the eastern square. ⁵ He said to them:

¹² These are the Levites who responded:

¹⁵ They gathered their brother Levites, consecrated themselves, and went to cleanse the House of the Lord, as the king commanded by the words of the Lord.

¹⁶ The priests entered the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it. They brought every unclean thing that they found in the Lord’s temple out into the courtyard of the House of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.

¹⁷ On the first day of the first month, they began to consecrate the temple. By the eighth day of the month they had gotten as far as the porch of the Lord. They continued to purify the House of the Lord for eight more days. On the sixteenth day of the first month, they completed the work.

¹⁸ They went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the entire House of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the presentation of bread and all its utensils. ¹⁹ We have prepared and consecrated all the utensils which King Ahaz discarded during his reign, when he was unfaithful. Look! They are right there in front of the altar of the Lord.”

²⁰ King Hezekiah got up early. He gathered the officials of the city and went up to the House of the Lord.

²¹ They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. He commanded the sons of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord. ²² So they slaughtered the cattle. The priests collected the blood and splashed it against the altar. They killed the rams and splashed the blood against the altar. They killed the lambs and splashed the blood against the altar. ²³ Then they brought the male goats for the sin offering to the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. ²⁴ The priests slaughtered them and made a sin offering with their blood on the altar to make atonement for all Israel, because the king had commanded a burnt offering and a sin offering for all Israel.

²⁵ He stationed the Levites in the House of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres according to the command of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet, because a command that comes through the hand of his prophets is a command from the hand of the Lord. ²⁶ The Levites stood with the musical instruments prescribed by David, and the priests stood with the trumpets.

²⁷ Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. At the time that the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord and the trumpets also began. While the instruments prescribed by David king of Israel were playing, ²⁸ the whole assembly bowed down and worshipped. The singers sang. The trumpeters sounded the trumpets. All this continued until the burnt offering was completed.

²⁹ When the burnt offering was finished, the king and all those present with him bowed down and worshipped.

³⁰ King Hezekiah and his officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. They sang glad praises and bowed down and worshipped.

³¹ Hezekiah responded, “Now you have taken up your duty to the Lord.^[c] Approach and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the House of the Lord.” The assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings. All those whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings.

³² The number of burnt offerings which the assembly brought was seventy cattle, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. All these served as a burnt offering to the Lord. ³³ The consecrated offerings consisted of six hundred cattle and three thousand sheep.

³⁴ But the priests were too few to be able to skin all the burnt offerings. So, their brothers, the Levites, helped them until the work was completed and until more priests had consecrated themselves, because the Levites were more upright in heart^[d] in consecrating themselves than the priests.

³⁵ In addition to the great number of burnt offerings, they presented both the fat of the fellowship offerings and the drink offerings that accompanied the burnt offerings. So the service of the House of the Lord was restored.

³⁶ Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had restored this for the people, and all this had been done very quickly.

The Great Passover Celebration

30 Hezekiah sent messengers to all Israel and Judah. He also wrote letters inviting Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the House of the Lord at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel. ² The king, his officials, and the whole assembly in Jerusalem had made plans to celebrate the Passover in the second month. ³ They were not able to celebrate it at its proper time, because the priests had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number, and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem.

⁴ The plan seemed right in the eyes of the king and in the eyes of the whole assembly. ⁵ So they decided to issue a proclamation throughout Israel from Beersheba to Dan to come to observe the Passover for the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, because they had not been celebrating it with large numbers of people as had been commanded. ⁶ Runners were sent out with letters from the hand of the king and from his officials to all Israel and Judah. Because of the command of the king, they made the following announcement:

¹⁰ The runners went from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and even as far as Zebulun, but people laughed at them and ridiculed them. ¹¹ Nevertheless, some men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.

¹² But in Judah the hand of God was present to give them one heart to follow the command of the king and the command of the officials, in agreement with the word of the Lord. ¹³ Many people gathered in Jerusalem to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month—a very great assembly.

¹⁴ They quickly removed the altars from Jerusalem. They took away all the altars for burning incense and threw them into the Kidron Valley.

¹⁵ They slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites had been put to shame, so they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the House of the Lord. ¹⁶ They took up their positions as prescribed in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The priests splashed the blood, which was given to them by the Levites, against the altar. ¹⁷ Because many of the assembly had not consecrated themselves,^[f] the Levites carried out the slaughtering of the Passover lambs for everyone who was not ceremonially clean, to make them holy to the Lord.

¹⁸ A large number of the people, many of whom were from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not purified themselves, but they ate the Passover anyway, in a manner not in keeping with what is written. So Hezekiah prayed for them: “May the good Lord pardon everyone all around, ¹⁹ that is, everyone who seeks God the Lord, the God of his fathers, with all his heart, even though he does not have the ceremonial purity required by the holy place.”

²⁰ The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

²¹ The people of Israel who were present in Jerusalem observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing. The Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day with loud instruments for the Lord.

²² Hezekiah encouraged the hearts of all the Levites, who displayed wonderful skills in service of the Lord. They ate the food of the festival for the appointed seven days, presenting fellowship sacrifices and giving thanks to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

²³ The entire assembly agreed to celebrate for another seven days. They gladly did it for another seven days, ²⁴ because Hezekiah king of Judah provided one thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep for the assembly, and the officials contributed one thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep for the assembly. The priests consecrated themselves in great number.

²⁵ The whole assembly of Judah rejoiced together with the priests, the Levites, the entire assembly from Israel, the aliens who resided in the land of Israel, and the people who lived in Judah. ²⁶ There was great joy in Jerusalem, because since the time of Solomon, the son of David, the king of Israel, there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.

²⁷ Then the levitical priests arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard. Their prayer ascended to the Lord’s holy dwelling in heaven.