Second Book of Chronicles 29

¹ Hezekiah came to the throne when he was twenty-five years old and reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, daughter of Zechariah.

² He did what is pleasing to Yahweh, just as his ancestor David had done.

³ It was he who, in the first month of the first year of his reign, threw open the doors of the Temple of Yahweh and repaired them.

⁴ Then he brought the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the eastern square, and said to them.

⁵ ‘Listen to me, Levites! Sanctify yourselves now and consecrate the Temple of Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, and eject what is impure from the sanctuary.

⁶ Your ancestors have been unfaithful and done what is displeasing to Yahweh our God. They have deserted him; they have turned their faces away from the place Yahweh has made his home, they have turned their backs on him.

⁷ They have even closed the doors of the Vestibule, they have put out the lamps and offered no incense, no holocaust, to the God of Israel in the holy place.

⁸ So the anger of Yahweh has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of terror, astonishment and derisive whistling, as you can see for yourselves.

⁹ This is why our ancestors have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, our wives, been taken captive.

¹⁰ I am now determined to make a covenant with Yahweh, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger may be turned away from us.

¹¹ My sons, be negligent no longer, for Yahweh has chosen you to stand in his presence and serve him, to conduct his worship, and offer him incense.’

¹² The Levites set to work: Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah, of the sons of Kohath; of the Merarites: Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel; of the Gershonites: Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah;

¹³ of the sons of Elizaphan: Shimri and Jeuel; of the sons of Asaph: Zechariah and Mattaniah;

¹⁴ of the sons of Heman: Jehiel and Shimei; of the sons of Jeduthun: Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵ They gathered their brothers together, they sanctified themselves, and in obedience to the king’s order, in accordance with the words of Yahweh, they began purifying the Temple of Yahweh.

¹⁶ The priests went inside the Temple of Yahweh to purify it. They brought out everything unclean they found in the sanctuary of Yahweh, out into the court of the Temple of Yahweh, and the Levites collected it and carried it outside, into the wadi Kidron.

¹⁷ They began this consecration on the first day of the first month, and were able to enter the Vestibule of Yahweh on the eighth of the month; they then took eight days to consecrate the Temple of Yahweh, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.

¹⁸ They then waited on King Hezekiah and said, ‘We have purified the whole Temple of Yahweh, the altar of holocaust with all its furnishings, and the tables on which the rows of bread are set with all its furnishings.

¹⁹ All the furnishings King Ahaz cast aside during his sacrilegious reign we have put back and consecrated; they are now in front of the altar of Yahweh.’

²⁰ King Hezekiah lost no time but called the officials of the city together and went up to the Temple of Yahweh.

²¹ They brought seven bulls, seven rams and seven lambs, with seven he-goats as a sacrifice for sin on behalf of the royal house, of the sanctuary, and of Judah. The king then told the priests, the sons of Aaron, to offer the holocaust on the altar of Yahweh.

²² They slaughtered the bulls and the priests took up the blood and poured it on the altar. They then slaughtered the rams and poured their blood on the altar; and they slaughtered the lambs and poured their blood on the altar.

²³ Then they brought the he-goats, the sacrifice for sin, before the king and the assembly who laid their hands on them.

²⁴ The priests slaughtered them, and with their blood on the altar offered a sacrifice for sin, to perform the ritual of atonement for all Israel – since the king had ordered the holocaust and the sacrifice for sin on behalf of all Israel.

²⁵ He then positioned the Levites in the Temple of Yahweh with cymbals, harps and lyres, in accordance with the ordinances of David, of Gad the king’s seer and of Nathan the prophet; the order had in fact come from Yahweh through his prophets.

²⁶ When the Levites had taken their places with David’s musical instruments, and the priests with their trumpets,

²⁷ Hezekiah ordered the holocaust to be offered on the altar. And as the holocaust began, the hymns of Yahweh began too, and the trumpets sounded, to the accompaniment of the instruments of David king of Israel.

²⁸ The whole assembly worshipped, cantors singing, trumpets sounding, until the holocaust was over.

²⁹ The offering at an end, the king and all there with him fell to their knees and worshipped.

³⁰ Then King Hezekiah and the officials told the Levites to sing praise to Yahweh in the words of David and of Asaph the seer; they sang most fervently and then fell down and worshipped.

³¹ Hezekiah spoke again, ‘Now you are dedicated to the service of Yahweh. Come forward, bring the sacrifices of communion and praise into the Temple of Yahweh.’ The assembly brought sacrifices of communion and praise, and every kind of holocaust as votive offerings.

³² The number of victims for these holocausts was seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two hundred lambs, all as holocausts for Yahweh;

³³ six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep were consecrated.

³⁴ The priests were too few, however, and could not dismember all the holocausts, so the Levites helped them until the work was done and the priests were sanctified; for the Levites had been more conscientious about sanctifying themselves than the priests had.

³⁵ There was, in addition, an abundant holocaust of fatty parts of the communion sacrifices, and numerous libations in association with the holocaust. And so the liturgy of Yahweh’s Temple was restored.

³⁶ Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had disposed the people to act so promptly.