2 Chronicles 28–29

Ahaz King of Judah

28Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled sixteen years in Jerusalem. Unlike his ancestor David, he did not do what the Lord said was right. ²Ahaz did the same things the kings of Israel had done. He made metal idols to worship Baal. ³He burned incense in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and made his children pass through the fire. He did the same hateful sins as the nations had done whom the Lord had forced out of the land ahead of the Israelites. ⁴Ahaz offered sacrifices and burned incense at the places where gods were worshiped, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

⁵So the Lord his God handed over Ahaz to the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated Ahaz and took many people of Judah as prisoners to Damascus.

He also handed over Ahaz to Pekah king of Israel, and Pekah’s army killed many soldiers of Ahaz. ⁶The army of Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand brave soldiers from Judah in one day. Pekah defeated them because they had left the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ⁷Zicri, a warrior from Ephraim, killed King Ahaz’s son Maaseiah. He also killed Azrikam, the officer in charge of the palace, and Elkanah, who was second in command to the king. ⁸The Israelite army captured two hundred thousand of their own relatives. They took women, sons and daughters, and many valuable things from Judah and carried them back to Samaria. ⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there. He met the Israelite army when it returned to Samaria and said to them, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, handed Judah over to you, because he was angry with those people. But God has seen the cruel way you killed them. ¹⁰Now you plan to make the people of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves, but you also have sinned against the Lord your God. ¹¹Now listen to me. Send back your brothers and sisters whom you captured, because the Lord is very angry with you.”

¹²Then some of the leaders in Ephraim—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—met the Israelite soldiers coming home from war. ¹³They warned the soldiers, “Don’t bring the prisoners from Judah here. If you do, we will be guilty of sin against the Lord, and that will make our sin and guilt even worse. Our guilt is already so great that he is angry with Israel.”

¹⁴So the soldiers left the prisoners and valuable things in front of the officers and people there. ¹⁵The leaders who were named took the prisoners and gave those who were naked the clothes that the Israelite army had taken. They gave the prisoners clothes, sandals, food, drink, and medicine. They put the weak prisoners on donkeys and took them back to their families in Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned home to Samaria.

^16–17At that time the Edomites came again and attacked Judah and carried away prisoners. So King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help. ¹⁸The Philistines also robbed the towns in the western hills and in southern Judah. They captured the towns of Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo, and the villages around them. Then the Philistines lived in those towns. ¹⁹The Lord brought trouble on Judah because Ahaz their king led the people of Judah to sin, and he was unfaithful to the Lord. ²⁰Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz, but he gave Ahaz trouble instead of help. ²¹Ahaz took some valuable things from the Temple of the Lord, from the palace, and from the princes, and he gave them to the king of Assyria, but it did not help.

²²During Ahaz’s troubles he was even more unfaithful to the Lord. ²³He offered sacrifices to the gods of the people of Damascus, who had defeated him. He thought, “The gods of the kings of Aram helped them. If I offer sacrifices to them, they will help me also.” But this brought ruin to Ahaz and all Israel.

²⁴Ahaz gathered the things from the Temple of God and broke them into pieces. Then he closed the doors of the Temple of the Lord. He made altars and put them on every street corner in Jerusalem. ²⁵In every town in Judah, Ahaz made places for burning sacrifices to worship other gods. So he made the Lord, the God of his ancestors, very angry.

²⁶The other things Ahaz did as king, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷Ahaz died and was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but not in the graves of the kings of Israel. Ahaz’s son Hezekiah became king in his place.

Hezekiah Purifies the Temple

29Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. ²Hezekiah did what the Lord said was right, just as his ancestor David had done.

³Hezekiah opened the doors of the Temple of the Lord and repaired them in the first month of the first year he was king. ⁴Hezekiah brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the courtyard on the east side of the Temple. ⁵Hezekiah said, “Listen to me, Levites. Make yourselves ready for the Lord’s service, and make holy the Temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove from the Temple everything that makes it impure. ⁶Our ancestors were unfaithful to God and did what the Lord said was wrong. They left the Lord and stopped worshiping at the Temple where he lives. They rejected him. ⁷They shut the doors of the porch of the Temple, and they let the fire go out in the lamps. They stopped burning incense and offering burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. ⁸So the Lord became very angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and he punished them. Other people are frightened and shocked by what he did to them. So they insult the people of Judah. You know these things are true. ⁹That is why our ancestors were killed in battle and our sons, daughters, and wives were taken captive. ¹⁰Now I, Hezekiah, have decided to make an agreement with the Lord, the God of Israel, so he will not be angry with us anymore. ¹¹My sons, don’t waste any more time. The Lord chose you to stand before him, to serve him, to be his servants, and to burn incense to him.”

¹²These are the Levites who started to work. From the Kohathite family there were Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah. From the Merarite family there were Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel. From the Gershonite family there were Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah. ¹³From Elizaphan’s family there were Shimri and Jeiel. From Asaph’s family there were Zechariah and Mattaniah. ¹⁴From Heman’s family there were Jehiel and Shimei. From Jeduthun’s family there were Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵These Levites gathered their brothers together and made themselves holy for service in the Temple. Then they went into the Temple of the Lord to purify it. They obeyed the king’s command that had come from the Lord. ¹⁶When the priests went into the Temple of the Lord to purify it, they took out all the unclean things they found in the Temple of the Lord and put them in the Temple courtyard. Then the Levites took these things out to the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷Beginning on the first day of the first month, they made the Temple holy for the Lord’s service. On the eighth day of the month, they came to the porch of the Temple, and for eight more days they made the Temple of the Lord holy. So they finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.

¹⁸Then they went to King Hezekiah and said, “We have purified the entire Temple of the Lord, the altar for burnt offerings and its utensils, and the table for the holy bread and all its utensils. ¹⁹When Ahaz was king, he was unfaithful to God and removed some things from the Temple. But we have put them back and made them holy for the Lord. They are now in front of the Lord’s altar.”

²⁰Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the leaders of the city and went up to the Temple of the Lord. ²¹They brought seven bulls, seven male sheep, seven lambs, and seven male goats. These animals were an offering to remove the sin of the people and the kingdom of Judah and to make the Temple ready for service to God. King Hezekiah commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer these animals on the Lord’s altar. ²²So the priests killed the bulls and sprinkled their blood on the altar. They killed the sheep and sprinkled their blood on the altar. Then they killed the lambs and sprinkled their blood on the altar. ²³Then the priests brought the male goats for the sin offering before the king and the people there. After the king and the people put their hands on the goats, ²⁴the priests killed them. With the goats’ blood they made an offering on the altar to remove the sins of the Israelites so they would belong to God. The king had said that the burnt offering and sin offering should be made for all Israel.

²⁵King Hezekiah put the Levites in the Temple of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres, as David, Gad, and Nathan had commanded. (Gad was the king’s seer, and Nathan was a prophet.) This command came from the Lord through his prophets. ²⁶So the Levites stood ready with David’s instruments of music, and the priests stood ready with their trumpets.

²⁷Then Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the singing to the Lord also began. The trumpets were blown, and the musical instruments of David king of Israel were played. ²⁸All the people worshiped, the singers sang, and the trumpeters blew their trumpets until the burnt offering was finished.

²⁹When the sacrifices were completed, King Hezekiah and everyone with him bowed down and worshiped. ³⁰King Hezekiah and his officers ordered the Levites to praise the Lord, using the words David and Asaph the seer had used. So they praised God with joy and bowed down and worshiped.

³¹Then Hezekiah said, “Now that you people of Judah have given yourselves to the Lord, come near to the Temple of the Lord. Bring sacrifices and offerings, to show…