1. Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled twenty-nine years from Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
2. Hezekiah obeyed the Lord by doing right, just as his ancestor David had done.
3. In the first month of the first year of Hezekiah's rule, he unlocked the doors to the Lord's temple and had them repaired.
4. Then he called the priests and Levites to the east courtyard of the temple
5. and said:It's time to purify the temple of the Lord God of our ancestors. You Levites must first go through the ceremony to make yourselves clean, then go into the temple and bring out everything that is unclean and unacceptable to the Lord.
6. Some of our ancestors were unfaithful and disobeyed the Lord our God. Not only did they turn their backs on the Lord, but they also completely ignored his temple.
7. They locked the doors, then let the lamps go out and stopped burning incense and offering sacrifices to him.
8. The Lord became terribly angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem, and everyone was shocked and horrified at what he did to punish them. Not only were