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.”

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