God

And now you intend to reduce to slavery the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem. But are you not also guilty before the LORD your God?

Now therefore, listen to me and return the captives you took from your kinsmen, for the fierce anger of the LORD is upon you.”

“You must not bring the captives here,” they said, “for you are proposing to bring guilt upon us from the LORD and to add to our sins and our guilt. For our guilt is great, and fierce anger is upon Israel.”

For the LORD humbled Judah because Ahaz king of Israel had thrown off restraint in Judah and had been most unfaithful to the LORD.

Although Ahaz had taken a portion from the house of the LORD, from the royal palace, and from the princes and had presented it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD.

Then Ahaz gathered up the articles of the house of God, cut them into pieces, shut the doors of the house of the LORD, and set up altars of his own on every street corner in Jerusalem.

In every city of Judah he built high places to offer incense to other gods, and so he provoked the LORD, the God of his fathers.

And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done.

In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened and repaired the doors of the house of the LORD.

“Listen to me, O Levites,” he said. “Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers. Remove from the Holy Place every impurity.

For our fathers were unfaithful and did evil in the sight of the LORD our God. They abandoned Him, turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the LORD, and turned their backs on Him.

They also shut the doors of the portico and extinguished the lamps. They did not burn incense or present burnt offerings in the Holy Place of the God of Israel.

Therefore, the wrath of the LORD has fallen upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has made them an object of terror, horror, and mockery, as you can see with your own eyes.

Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that His fierce anger will turn away from us.

Now, my sons, do not be negligent, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, to minister before Him, and to burn incense.”

When they had assembled their brothers and consecrated themselves, they went in to cleanse the house of the LORD, according to the command of the king by the words of the LORD.

So the priests went inside the house of the LORD to cleanse it, and they brought out to the courtyard all the unclean things that they found in the temple of the LORD. Then the Levites took these things and carried them out to the Kidron Valley.

They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the LORD. For eight more days they consecrated the house of the LORD itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.

Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported, “We have cleansed the entire house of the LORD, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table of the showbread with all its utensils.

Moreover, we have prepared and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz in his unfaithfulness cast aside during his reign. They are now in front of the altar of the LORD.”

Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the city officials and went up to the house of the LORD.

They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. And the king commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the LORD.

Hezekiah stationed the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres according to the command of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet. For the command had come from the LORD through His prophets.

And Hezekiah ordered that the burnt offering be sacrificed on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD and the trumpets began as well, accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel.