2 Chronicles 29

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

²He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done.

³In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the LORD’s house and repaired them.

⁴He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them together into the wide place on the east,

⁵and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD, the God of your fathers, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place.

⁶For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in the LORD our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the LORD, and turned their backs.

⁷Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.

⁸Therefore the LORD’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment and a hissing, as you see with your eyes.

⁹For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

¹⁰Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us.

¹¹My sons, don’t be negligent now; for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers and burn incense.”