Study Desk

They talked about the God of Jerusalem as if He were one of the gods of the people of the earth, which were made by the hands of men.

But King Hezekiah and Isaiah the man of God, the son of Amoz, prayed about this and cried out to heaven.

And the Lord sent an angel who destroyed every powerful soldier and every captain and leader in the camp of the king of Assyria. So Sennacherib returned in shame to his own land. And when he had gone into the house of his god, some of his own children killed him there with the sword.

He made cities for himself, and gathered very many flocks and cattle. For God had given him very many riches.

It was so even when the men were sent to him from the rulers of Babylon to ask about the wonder that had happened in the land. God left Hezekiah alone to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.

Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his good works are written in the special dream of Isaiah the man of God, the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

Manasseh made an object to look like a false god, and put it in God's house, 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 families of Israel, I will put My name forever.

When Manasseh was in trouble, he prayed to the Lord his God, and put away his pride before the God of his fathers.

When he prayed to Him, God heard his prayer and listened to him, and brought him again to Jerusalem and to his nation. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

He took away the strange gods and the false god from the house of the Lord. And he took away all the altars he had built on the mountain of the Lord's house and in Jerusalem, and threw them outside the city.

He set up the altar of the Lord and gave peace gifts and thank gifts in worship on it. And he told Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

But the people still killed animals in worship at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words the men who spoke for God spoke to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, are among the writings of the kings of Israel.

His prayer and how God heard his prayer, and of all his sin and how he was not faithful, are found in the writings of the men who spoke for God. Also it is written where he built the high places, and made the objects of the false goddess Asherah, and made objects to look like gods, before he put away his pride.

For in the eighth year of his rule while he was still young, he began to look for the God of his father David. In the twelfth year he began to take the sinful things out of Judah and Jerusalem. He took away the high places, the objects of the false goddess Asherah, and all the objects made to look like gods.

Now it was the eighteenth year of his rule, and Josiah had made the land and the Lord's house free from worshiping false gods. At that time he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the leader of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, who wrote down the things that happened, to do the work needed on the house of the Lord his God.

They came to Hilkiah the head religious leader and gave him the money that was brought into the house of God. The Levites who watched the door had received this money from Manasseh and Ephraim and from all those who were left of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin and the people of Jerusalem.

So Hilkiah and those whom the king had sent went to Huldah the woman who spoke for God. She was the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, who watched over the clothing. (She lived in Jerusalem in the second part of the city.) They spoke to her about this.

And she said to them, "The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Tell the man who sent you to Me

But tell the king of Judah who sent you to the Lord, "This is what the Lord God of Israel says about the words which you have heard: