Study Desk

Then they stood at their positions according to custom, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests were sprinkling the blood from the hand of the Levites.

everyone whose heart is set to seek God, Yahweh the God of his ancestors, though not according to the cleansing for the sanctuary."

And Hezekiah spoke to the heart of all the Levites who were skilled at service to Yahweh. So they ate the feast seven days, offering peace offerings and giving thanks to Yahweh, the God of their ancestors.

Then the people of Israel and Judah who were living in the cities of Judah, they also brought a tithe of cattle and sheep and a tithe of consecrated objects to Yahweh their God. And they gave heaps upon heaps.

And Jehiel, Azaziah, Nathan, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismachiah, Mahath, and Benaiah were chief officers under the hand of Conaniah and Shimei, his brother, by appointment of King Hezekiah. And Azaraiah was leader of the house of God.

Now Kore the son of Imlah, the Levite, the gatekeeper of the east gate was over the freewill offerings of God, to give offerings to Yahweh and the most holy things.

And Hezekiah did according to this throughout all Judah. And he did what is good and what is right and what is faithful before Yahweh his God.

And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God or with respect to the law and the commandment to seek his God, he did with all his heart, and he prospered.

With him is the arm of flesh, and with us is Yahweh our God, to help us and to fight our battles." And the people took confidence with the words of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

Is not Hezekiah urging you to give you up to die by starvation and thirst, saying, "Yahweh our God will save us from the hand of the king of Assyria"?

Who among all the gods of those nations whom my ancestors utterly destroyed was able to save his people from my hand, that your God will be able to save you from my hand?

So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive you. Do not let him urge you according to this. Do not put trust in him, for no god of any nation and kingdom has been able to save his people from my hand and from the hand of my ancestors. Surely then your God will not save you from my hand!'"

And still more his servants said against Yahweh God and against Hezekiah his servant.

And he wrote letters to treat Yahweh the God of Israel with contempt and spoke against him, saying, "As the gods of the nations of the earth who did not save their people from my hand, so likewise the God of Hezekiah will not save his people from my hand."

And they spoke about the God of Jerusalem as about the gods of the peoples of the earth, the works of the hands of humankind.

Then Yahweh sent an angel, and he destroyed every mighty warrior of strength, commander, and officer in the camp of the king of Assyria. And he returned with shamed face to his land and went into the house of his god. And some of the offspring of his loins fell upon him there with the sword.

And he made cities for himself, and livestock of sheep and abundant cattle, for God had given to him very abundant possessions.

And thus in the matter of the envoys of the commanders of Babylon who had been sent to him to seek the sign that had happened in the land, God forsook him, to test him and to know all that was in his heart.

And he placed the carved image of the idol that he had made in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

And when he was in distress he entreated Yahweh his God and greatly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors