2 Chronicles 30–33

30TH CHAPTER

Hezekiah Celebrates the Passover

¹Hezekiah sent a message to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. He invited them to come to the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover of the Lord God of Israel. 

²The king, his officials, and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month. ³They couldn’t celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had performed the ceremonies to make themselves holy and the people hadn’t gathered in Jerusalem. ⁴The king and the whole assembly considered their plan to be the right thing to do. ⁵So they decided to send an announcement throughout Israel from Beersheba to Dan. They summoned everyone to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover of the Lord God of Israel. These people had not celebrated it in large numbers as the written instructions said they should. 

⁶Messengers took letters from the king and his officials throughout Israel and Judah. The king’s order said, “Israelites, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Then he will return to the few of you who escaped from the power of the kings of Assyria. ⁷Don’t be like your ancestors and your relatives who were unfaithful to the Lord God of their ancestors. He made them something that shocks people, as you have seen. ⁸Don’t be impossible to deal with like your ancestors. Reach out for the Lord. Come to his holy place that he made holy forever. Serve the Lord your God, and he will turn his burning anger away from you. ⁹When you return to the Lord, your relatives and children will find compassion from those who captured them. They will return to this land. The Lord your God is merciful and compassionate. He will not turn his face away from you if you return to him.” 

¹⁰So the messengers went from city to city in the territories of Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun. But the people ridiculed them. ¹¹However, some people from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. ¹²Also, God guided the people of Judah so that they united to carry out the command which the king and the leaders gave from the Lord’s word. 

¹³Many people gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month. They formed a large assembly. 

¹⁴Then the people got rid of the ⸤idols’⸥ altars in Jerusalem. They got rid of all the altars for incense by dumping them in the Kidron Valley. 

¹⁵They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and Levites were ashamed, so they performed the ceremonies to make themselves holy. Then they brought burnt offerings to the Lord’s temple. ¹⁶They stood in their regular places as instructed by Moses’ Teachings. (Moses was a man of God.) The priests sprinkled the blood they received from the Levites. ¹⁷Many people in the assembly had not made themselves holy. So the Levites had to kill the Passover lambs for all who weren’t clean^aand couldn’t make their lambs holy for the Lord. 

¹⁸Many people from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not made themselves clean. So they ate the Passover, but not in the way the written instructions said they should. Hezekiah prayed for them: “May the good Lord forgive ¹⁹those who have their hearts set on dedicating their lives to serving God. May the Lord God of their ancestors do this for those who are not clean as required for the holy place.” ²⁰The Lord listened to Hezekiah and healed the people. 

²¹So the Israelites in Jerusalem celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great joy. Each day the Levites and priests praised the Lord in song. They played the Lord’s instruments loudly. ²²Hezekiah spoke encouraging words to all the Levites who had the skills to serve the Lord. They ate the festival meals for seven days, sacrificed fellowship offerings, and confessed their sins to the Lord God of their ancestors. 

²³Then the whole assembly decided to celebrate the festival for seven more days. So they joyfully celebrated for seven more days. ²⁴King Hezekiah of Judah provided 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep as sacrifices for the assembly. The leaders provided 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep for the assembly. So a large number of priests were able to perform the ceremonies to make themselves holy. 

²⁵The whole assembly from Judah, the priests, the Levites, the whole assembly from Israel, the foreigners who came from Israel, and those who lived in Judah rejoiced. ²⁶The city of Jerusalem was filled with joy. Nothing like this had happened in Jerusalem since the days of King Solomon of Israel. 

²⁷Then the Levitical priests blessed the people. Their voices were heard, and their prayers went to God’s holy place in heaven. 

31ST CHAPTER

Hezekiah Reforms Judah’s Worship

¹When this was over, all the Israelites who were there went to the cities in Judah. They crushed the sacred stones, cut down the poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, and tore down the illegal places of worship and the altars throughout Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. The Israelites destroyed all of these things. Then all the Israelites returned to their own cities. Each person went to his own property. 

²Hezekiah assigned the priests and the Levites to divisions. Each priest or Levite was put in a division based on the service he performed: sacrificing burnt offerings, sacrificing fellowship offerings, serving, giving thanks, or praising within the gates of the Lord’s camp. 

³He set aside part of the king’s property for burnt offerings, the morning and evening offerings, burnt offerings on the weekly days of rest—holy days, the New Moon Festivals, and the annual festivals, as it is written in the Lord’s Teachings. ⁴He told the people living in Jerusalem to give the priests and Levites the portions they were due so that they could devote themselves to the Lord’s Teachings. ⁵As soon as the word spread, the Israelites brought plenty of offerings from the first of their produce: grain, new wine, fresh olive oil, honey, and every crop from the fields. They brought large quantities, a tenth of everything. ⁶The people of Israel and Judah who were living in the cities of Judah brought a tenth of their cattle and sheep and a tenth of the holy things they had dedicated to the Lord their God. They piled these holy things in heaps. ⁷In the third month they started piling them up, and in the seventh month they finished. ⁸When Hezekiah and the leaders saw the heaps, they praised the Lord and his people Israel. 

⁹Hezekiah asked the priests and the Levites about the heaps. ¹⁰The chief priest Azariah from Zadok’s family said, “Since the people started to bring the offerings to the Lord’s temple, we have had all we wanted to eat and plenty to spare. The Lord has blessed his people, and there’s a lot left over.” 

¹¹Then Hezekiah told them to prepare storerooms in the Lord’s temple. After they had prepared them, ¹²they faithfully brought in the contributions, the offerings of one-tenth of the crops, and the gifts dedicated to God. The Levite Conaniah was in charge of these things, and his brother Shimei was his assistant. ¹³King Hezekiah and Azariah, who was in charge of God’s temple, appointed Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, and Benaiah to serve under Conaniah and his brother Shimei. ¹⁴Kore, son of Imnah the Levite, was the gatekeeper at East Gate and had to take care of the freewill offerings made to God. His responsibility was to distribute the offerings made to the Lord and the holy gifts dedicated to God. ¹⁵Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah served under him in the cities belonging to the priests. They were to distribute the offerings faithfully to all their relatives, young and old, by their divisions. ¹⁶They were appointed to distribute them to males who were at least three years old. The way they were enrolled in the genealogical records did not matter. The six men who served under Kore were to distribute the offerings to everyone who went to the Lord’s temple to perform the daily service that each division was responsible for. ¹⁷They were to distribute offerings to the priests who were enrolled by families and to the Levites who were at least 20 years old. Distribution was based on the way they served in their divisions. ¹⁸The priests and Levites were enrolled with their wives, sons, daughters, and other people who depended on them—the whole community. The priests and Levites had to be faithful in keeping themselves holy for the holy work. ¹⁹Men were appointed to give a portion of the offerings to all the males in the priestly families and to everyone listed in the genealogies of the Levites. These men were Aaron’s descendants, priests who lived in the pasturelands of every Levite city. 

²⁰This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah. He did what was good and right and true to the Lord his God. ²¹Hezekiah incorporated Moses’ Teachings and commands into worship and dedicated his life to serving God. Whatever he did for the worship in God’s temple, he did wholeheartedly, and he succeeded. 

32ND CHAPTER

God Saves Judah from the Assyrians—2 Kings 18:13–19:37; Isaiah 36:1–37:38

¹After everything Hezekiah had done so faithfully, King Sennacherib of Assyria came to invade Judah. He set up camp ⸤to attack⸥ the fortified cities. He intended to conquer them himself. 

²When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to wage war against Jerusalem, ³he, his officers, and his military staff made plans to stop the water from flowing out of the springs outside the city. They helped him do it. ⁴A large crowd gathered as they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land. They said, “Why should the kings of Assyria find plenty of water?” 

⁵Hezekiah worked hard. He rebuilt all the broken sections of the wall, made the towers taller, built another wall outside ⸤the city wall⸥, strengthened the Millo^ain the…