CHAPTER 30

¹And Hezekiah sent out to all Israel and Judah, and he also wrote missives to Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem to perform the Passover to the LORD God of Israel. ²And the king and his officers and all the assembly in Jerusalem took counsel to perform the Passover in the second month. ³For they could not do it at its set time for the priests had not consecrated themselves in the required numbers and the people had not gathered in Jerusalem. ⁴And the thing seemed right in the eyes of the king and in the eyes of all the assembly. ⁵And they set word to send about a proclamation through all Israel from Beersheba to Dan to come to perform the Passover to the LORD God of Israel in Jerusalem, for they had not for the most part done as was written. ⁶And the couriers went with missives from the hand of the king and his officials through all Israel and Judah and by the king’s command, saying, “Israelites, turn back to the LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He turn back to the survivors remaining of you from the grip of the kings of Assyria ⁷And be not like your fathers and like your brothers, who betrayed the LORD God of your fathers, and He made them a desolation, as you can see. ⁸Now, do not be stiff-necked like your fathers. Pledge yourselves to the LORD your God and come into His sanctuary that He sanctified for all time, and serve the LORD your God, that His smoldering wrath turn back from you. ⁹For when you turn back to the LORD, your brothers and your sons will be given mercy before their captors and will return to this land, for gracious and merciful is the LORD your God, and He will not take His presence from you if you turn back to Him.” ¹⁰And the couriers were passing from town to town in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and as far as Zebulun, but they were laughing at them and mocking them. ¹¹Yet men from Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun submitted and came to Jerusalem. ¹²In Judah as well the hand of God was at work to give them a single heart to do the command of the king and the officials by the word of the LORD. ¹³And a great crowd gathered in Jerusalem to do the Festival of Flatbread in the second month, a very great assembly. ¹⁴And they rose up and removed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and all the incense stands they removed and flung them into the Kidron Wadi. ¹⁵And they slaughtered the Passover sacrifice on the fourteenth of the second month, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the house of the LORD. ¹⁶And they stood at their station according to their rule, according to the teaching of Moses man of God, the priests sprinkling the blood which they got from the hand of the Levites. ¹⁷For many were there in the assembly who had not consecrated themselves, and the Levites were over the slaughter of the paschal lambs for all who were unclean, to consecrate to the LORD. ¹⁸For most of the people, many from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not been purified, yet they ate the Passover sacrifice not as it was written. So Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the good LORD atone for everyone ¹⁹who has readied his heart to seek the LORD God of his fathers, though not in the purity of the sanctuary.” ²⁰And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people. ²¹And the Israelites who were in Jerusalem performed the Festival of Flatbread seven days with great rejoicing, the Levites and the priests praising the LORD with loud-sounding instruments for the LORD. ²²And Hezekiah encouraged all the Levites skilled in deft skill for the LORD, and they completed the festival in seven days, offering well-being sacrifices and confessing to the LORD God of their fathers. ²³And all the assembly took counsel to do another seven days, and they did seven days in rejoicing, ²⁴for Hezekiah king of Judah had contributed to the assembly a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep. And the priests consecrated themselves in large numbers. ²⁵And all the assembly of Judah and the priests and the Levites and all the assembly coming from Israel and the sojourners coming from the land of Israel and the dwellers in Judah rejoiced. ²⁶And there was great rejoicing in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had not been its like in Jerusalem. ²⁷And the levitical priests arose and blessed the people, and the LORD heard their voice, and their prayer came up to His holy abode, to the heavens.