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.”

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