9. For, lo, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.
10. Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us.
11. My sons, be not now negligent: for the LORD hath chosen you to stand before him, to minister unto him, and that ye should be his ministers, and burn incense.
12. Then the Levites arose, Mahath the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites: and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehallelel: and of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah:
13. and of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel: and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah:
14. and of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei: and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15. And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD.
16. And the priests went in unto the inner part of the house of the LORD, to 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 to the brook Kidron.
17. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month came they to the porch of the LORD; and they sanctified the house of the LORD in eight days: and on the sixteenth day of the first month they made an end.
18. Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace, and said, We have cleansed all the house of the LORD, and the altar of burnt offering, with all the vessels thereof, and the table of shewbread, with all the vessels thereof.
19. Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away when he trespassed, have we prepared and sanctified; and, behold, they are before the altar of the LORD.
20. Then Hezekiah the king arose early, and gathered the princes of the city, and went up to the house of the LORD.
21. And they brought seven bullocks; and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats, for a sin offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah. And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the LORD.
22. So they killed the bullocks, and the priests received the blood, and sprinkled it on the altar: and they killed the rams, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar: they killed also the lambs, and sprinkled the blood upon the altar.
23. And they brought near the he-goats for the sin offering before the king and the congregation; and they laid their hands upon them:
24. and the priests killed them, and they made a sin offering with their blood upon the altar, to make atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.
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 the commandment was of the LORD by his prophets.