2 Crônicas 29

¹ Hezekiah began to reigne, when he was fiue and twentie yeere olde, and reigned nine and twentie yeres in Ierusalem: and his mothers name was Abiiah the daughter of Zechariah.

² And hee did vprightly in the sight of the Lorde, according to all that Dauid his father had done.

³ He in the first year of his reign, in theThis is a notable example for all princes, first to establish the pure religion of God and to procure that the Lord may be honoured and served correctly.first month, opened theWhich Ahaz had shut up, (2Ch_28:24).doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them.

⁴ And he brought in the Priests and the Leuites, and gathered them into the East streete,

⁵ And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forthMeaning, all the idols, altar groves and whatever was occupied in their service and with which the temple was polluted.the filthiness out of the holy [place].

⁶ For our fathers haue trespassed, and done euill in the eyes of the Lord our God, and haue forsaken him, & turned away their faces from the Tabernacle of the Lord, and turned their backes.

⁷ They haue also shut the doores of ye porch, and quenched the lampes, and haue neither burnt incense, nor offred burnt offrings in the Sanctuarie vnto the God of Israel.

⁸ He shows that the contempt of religion is the cause of all God's plagues.Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes.

⁹ For lo, our fathers are fallen by the sword, and our sonnes, and our daughters, and our wiues are in captiuitie for the same cause.

¹⁰ Now [it is] in mine heart to make a covenant with the LORD God of Israel, that his fierce wrath mayHe proves by the judgments of God on those who have contemned his word, that there is no way to avoid his plagues, but by conforming themselves to his will.turn away from us.

¹¹ Now my sonnes, be not deceiued: for the Lorde hath chosen you to stand before him, to serue him, and to be his ministers, and to burne incense.

¹² Then the Leuites arose, Mahath ye sonne of Amashai, and Ioel the sonne of Azariah of the sonnes of the Kohathites: & of the sonnes of Merari, Kish the sonne of Abdi, & Azariah the sonne of Iehalelel: and of the Gershonites, Ioah the sonne of Zimmah, and Eden the sonne of Ioah:

¹³ And of the sonnes of Elizaphan, Shimri, and Iehiel: and of the sonnes of Asaph, Zechariah, and Mattaniah:

¹⁴ And of the sonnes of Heman, Iehiel, and Shimei: and of the sonnes of Ieduthun, Shemaiah and Vzziel.

¹⁵ And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselues and came according to the commaundement of the King, & by the words of the Lord, for to clense the house of the Lord.

¹⁶ And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the LORD, toFrom the pollution and filth that Ahaz had brought in.cleanse [it], and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the LORD. And the Levites took [it], to carry [it] out abroad into the brook Kidron.

¹⁷ Now they began on the first [day] of theWhich contained part of March and part of April.first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of the LORD: so they sanctified the house of the LORD in eight days; and in the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.

¹⁸ Then they went in to Hezekiah ye King, and sayde, We haue clensed all the house of the Lord and the altar of burnt offring, with all the vessels thereof, and the shewbread table, with all the vessels thereof:

¹⁹ And all the vessels which King Ahaz had cast aside when he reigned, and transgressed, haue we prepared and sanctified: and beholde, they are before the altar of the Lord.

²⁰ Then Hezekiah the kingBy this manner of speech the Hebrews mean a certain diligence and speed to do a thing: and when there is no delay.rose early, and gathered the rulers of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD.

²¹ And they brought seuen bullockes, and seuen rammes, and seuen lambes, and seuen hee goates, for a sinne offring for the kingdome, & for the sanctuarie, and for Iudah; he commanded the Priests the sonnes of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

²² So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, andFor without sprinkling of blood nothing could be sanctified, (Heb_9:21; Exo_24:8).sprinkled [it] on the altar: likewise, when they had killed the rams, they sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and they sprinkled the blood upon the altar.

²³ And they brought forth the he goats [for] the sin offering before the king and the congregation;That is, the king and the elders, as in (Lev_4:15) for they who offered a sin offering must lay their hands on it, to signify that they had deserved that death, and also that they consecrated it to God to be sanctified by it, (Exo_29:10).and they laid their hands upon them:

²⁴ And the Priests slewe them, and with the blood of them they clensed the altar to reconcile all Israel: for the King had commanded for all Israel the burnt offring and the sinne offring.

²⁵ And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for [so was] theThis thing was not appointed by man, but it was the commandment of God.commandment of the LORD by his prophets.

²⁶ And the Leuites stood with the instrumets of Dauid, and the Priests with the trumpets.

²⁷ And Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of theThe psalm which David had appointed to be sung for thanksgiving.LORD began [also] with the trumpets, and with the instruments [ordained]Which David had appointed to praise the Lord with.by David king of Israel.

²⁸ And al the Congregation worshipped, singing a song, and they blew the trumpets: all this continued vntill the burnt offring was finished.

²⁹ And when they had made an ende of offring, the King and all that were present with him, bowed themselues, and worshipped.

³⁰ Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the LORD with theWith the psalm mentioned in (1Ch_16:8).words of David, and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshipped.

³¹ And Hezekiah spake, and sayde, Now ye haue consecrate your selues to the Lord: come neere and bring the sacrifices and offerings of prayse into the house of the Lord; the Congregation brought sacrifices; and offrings of prayses, and euery man that was willing in heart, offred burnt offrings.

³² And the nomber of the burnt offrings, which the Congregation brought, was seuentie bullockes, an hundreth rammes, and two hundreth lambes: all these were for a burnt offring to the Lord:

³³ And theThat is, for the holy offerings.consecrated things [were] six hundred oxen and three thousand sheep.

³⁴ But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the [other] priests had sanctified themselves: for the Levites [were]Meaning, were more zealous to set forth the religion.more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests.

³⁵ And also the burnt offerings were many with the fat of the peace offrings & the drinke offrings for the burnt offring. so the seruice of the house of the Lord was set in order.

³⁶ And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God hadHe shows that religion cannot proceed unless God touches the heart of the people.prepared the people: for the thing was [done] suddenly.