2 Chronicles 29:1–32:33

Now Ezechias began to reign, when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Abia, the daughter of Zacharias.

²And he did that which was pleasing in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.

³In the first year and month of his reign he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and repaired them.

⁴And he brought the priests and the Levites, and assembled them in the east street.

⁵And he said to them: Hear me, ye Levites, and be sanctified, purify the house of the Lord the God of your fathers, and take away all filth out of the sanctuary.

⁶Our fathers have sinned and done evil in the sight of the Lord God, forsaking him: they have turned away their faces from the tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backs.

⁷They have shut up the doors that were in the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense, nor offered holocausts in the sanctuary of the God of Israel.

⁸Therefore the wrath of the Lord hath been stirred up against Juda and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, and to destruction, and to be hissed at, as you see with your eyes.

⁹Behold, our fathers are fallen by the sword, our sons, and our daughters, and wives are led away captives for this wickedness.

¹⁰Now therefore I have a mind that we make a covenant with the Lord the God of Israel, and he will turn away the wrath of his indignation from us.

¹¹My sons, be not negligent: the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, and to minister to him, and to worship him, and to burn incense to him.

¹²Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azarias, of the sons of Caath: and of the sons of Merari, Cis the son of Abdi, and Azarias the son of Jalaleel. And of the sons of Gerson, Joah the son of Zemma, and Eden the son of Joah.

¹³And of the sons of Elisaphan, Samri, and Jahiel. Also of the sons of Asaph, Zacharias, and Mathanias.

¹⁴And of the sons of Heman, Jahiel, and Semei: and of the sons of Idithun, Semeias, and Oziel.

¹⁵And they gathered together their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and went in according to the commandment of the king, and the precept of the Lord, to purify the house of God.

¹⁶And the priests went into the temple of the Lord to sanctify it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found within to the entrance of the house of the Lord, and the Levites took it away, and carried it out abroad to the torrent Cedron.

¹⁷And they began to cleanse on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the same month they came into the porch of the temple of the Lord, and they purified the temple in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the same month they finished what they had begun.

¹⁸And they went in to king Ezechias, and said to him: We have sanctified all the house of the Lord, and the altar of holocaust, and the vessels thereof, and the table of proposition with all its vessels,

¹⁹And all the furniture of the temple, which king Achaz in his reign had defiled, after his transgression; and behold they are all set forth before the altar of the Lord.

²⁰And king Ezechias rising early, assembled all the rulers of the city, and went up into the house of the Lord:

²¹And they offered together seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he goats for sin, for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, for Juda: and he spoke to the priests the sons of Aaron, to offer them upon the altar of the Lord.

²²Therefore they killed the bullocks, and the priests took the blood, and poured it upon the altar; they killed also the rams, and their blood they poured also upon the altar, and they killed the lambs, and poured the blood upon the altar.

²³And they brought the he goats for sin before the king, and the whole multitude, and they laid their hand upon them:

²⁴And the priests immolated them, and sprinkled their blood before the altar for an expiation of all Israel: for the king had commanded that the holocaust and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.

²⁵And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, and psalteries, and harps according to the regulation of David the king, and of Gad the seer, and of Nathan the prophet: for it was the commandment of the Lord by the hand of his prophets.

²⁶And the Levites stood, with the instruments of David, and the priests with trumpets.

²⁷And Ezechias commanded that they should offer holocausts upon the altar: and when the holocausts were offered, they began to sing praises to the Lord, and to sound with trumpets, and divers instruments which David the king of Israel had prepared.

²⁸And all the multitude adored, and the singers, and the trumpeters, were in their office till the holocaust was finished.

²⁹And when the oblation was ended, the king, and all that were with him bowed down and adored.

³⁰And Ezechias and the princes commanded the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David, and Asaph the seer: and they praised him with great joy, and bowing the knee adored.

³¹And Ezechias added, and said: You have filled your hands to the Lord, come and offer victims, and praises in the house of the Lord. And all the multitude offered victims, and praises, and holocausts with a devout mind.

³²And the number of the holocausts which the multitude offered, was seventy bullocks, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs.

³³And they consecrated to the Lord six hundred oxen, and three thousand sheep.

³⁴But the priests were few, and were not enough to flay the holocausts: wherefore the Levites their brethren helped them, till the work was ended, and priests were sanctified, for the Levites are sanctified with an easier rite than the priests.

³⁵So there were many holocausts, and the fat of peace offerings, and the libations of holocausts: and the service of the house of the Lord was completed.

³⁶And Ezechias, and all the people rejoiced because the ministry of the Lord was accomplished. For the resolution of doing this thing was taken suddenly.

Chapter 30

And Ezechias sent to all Israel and Juda: and he wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasses, that they should come to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel,

²For the king, taking counsel, and the princes, and all the assembly of Jerusalem, decreed to keep the phase the second month.

³For they could not keep it in its time; because there were not priests enough sanctified, and the people was not as yet gathered together to Jerusalem.

⁴And the thing pleased the king, and all the people.

⁵And they decreed to send messengers to all Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, that they should come, and keep the phase to the Lord the God of Israel in Jerusalem: for many had not kept it as it is prescribed by the law.

⁶And the posts went with letters by commandment of the king, and his princes, to all Israel and Juda, proclaiming according to the king’s orders: Ye children of Israel, turn again to the Lord the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Israel: and he will return to the remnant of you that have escaped the hand of the king of the Assyrians.

⁷Be not like your fathers, and brethren, who departed from the Lord the God of their fathers, and he hath given them up to destruction, as you see.

⁸Harden not your necks, as your fathers did: yield yourselves to the Lord, and come to his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified forever: serve the Lord the God of your fathers, and the wrath of his indignation shall be turned away from you.

⁹For if you turn again to the Lord, your brethren, and children shall find mercy before their masters, that have led them away captive, and they shall return into this land: for the Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

¹⁰So the posts went speedily from city to city, through the land of Ephraim, and of Manasses, even to Zabulon, whilst they laughed at them and mocked them.

¹¹Nevertheless some men of Aser, and of Manasses, and of Zabulon, yielding to the counsel, came to Jerusalem.

¹²But the hand of God was in Juda, to give them one heart to do the word of the Lord, according to the commandment of the king, and of the princes.

¹³And much people were assembled to Jerusalem to celebrate the solemnity of the unleavened bread in the second month:

¹⁴And they arose and destroyed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and took away all things in which incense was burnt to idols and cast them into the torrent Cedron.

¹⁵And they immolated the phase on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites being at length sanctified offered holocausts in the house of the Lord.

¹⁶And they stood in their order according to the disposition and law of Moses the man of God: but the priests received the blood which was to be poured out, from the hands of the Levites,

¹⁷Because a great number was not sanctified: and therefore the Levites immolated the phase for them that came not in time to be sanctified to the Lord.

¹⁸For a great part of the people from Ephraim, and Manasses, and Issachar, and Zabulon, that had not been sanctified, ate the phase otherwise than it is written: and Ezechias prayed for them, saying: The Lord who is good will shew mercy,

¹⁹To all them, who with their whole heart, seek the Lord the God of their fathers: and will not impute it to them that they are not sanctified.

²⁰And the Lord heard him, and was merciful to the people.

²¹And the children of Israel, that were found at Jerusalem, kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great joy, praising the Lord every day. the Levites also, and the priests, with instruments that agreed to their office.

²²And Ezechias spoke to the heart of all the Levites, that had good understanding concerning the Lord: and they ate during the seven days of the solemnity, immolating victims of peace offerings, and praising the Lord the God of their fathers.

²³And it pleased the whole…