1. HEZEKIAH SENT to all Israel [as well as] Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the Lord's house at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel.
2. For the king and his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem took counsel to keep the Passover in the second month. [Num. 9:10, 11.]
3. For they could not keep it at the set time because not enough priests had sanctified themselves, neither had the people assembled in Jerusalem.
4. The new time pleased the king and all the assembly.
5. So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem. For they had not kept it collectively as prescribed for a long time.
6. So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, as the king commanded, saying, O Israelites, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He may return to those left of you who escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria.
7. Do not be like your fathers and brethren, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that He gave them up to desolation [to be an astonishment], as you see.