9. If you return to the Lord, then those who have taken your relatives away as prisoners will take pity on them and let them come back home. The Lord your God is kind and merciful, and if you return to him, he will accept you.”
10. The messengers went to every city in the territory of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far north as the tribe of Zebulun, but people laughed at them and ridiculed them.
11. Still, there were some from the tribes of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun who were willing to come to Jerusalem.
12. God was also at work in Judah and united the people in their determination to obey his will by following the commands of the king and his officials.
13. A great number of people gathered in Jerusalem in the second month to celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
14. They took all the altars that had been used in Jerusalem for offering sacrifices and burning incense and threw them into the valley of the Kidron.
15. And on the fourteenth day of the month they killed the lambs for the Passover sacrifice. The priests and Levites who were not ritually clean were so ashamed that they dedicated themselves to the Lord, and now they could sacrifice burnt offerings in the Temple.
16. They took their places in the Temple according to the instructions in the Law of Moses, the man of God. The Levites gave the blood of the sacrifices to the priests, who sprinkled it on the altar.
17. Because many of the people were not ritually clean, they could not kill the Passover lambs, so the Levites did it for them, and dedicated the lambs to the Lord.
18. In addition, many of those who had come from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun had not performed the ritual of purification, and so they were observing Passover improperly. King Hezekiah offered this prayer for them:
19. “O Lord, the God of our ancestors, in your goodness forgive those who are worshipping you with all their heart, even though they are not ritually clean.”
20. The Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer; he forgave the people and did not harm them.
21. For seven days the people who had gathered in Jerusalem celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread with great joy, and day after day the Levites and the priests praised the Lord with all their strength.
22. Hezekiah praised the Levites for their skill in conducting the worship of the Lord.After the seven days during which they offered sacrifices in praise of the Lord, the God of their ancestors,
23. they all decided to celebrate for another seven days. So they celebrated with joy.
24. King Hezekiah contributed 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for the people to kill and eat, and the officials gave them another thousand bulls and 10,000 sheep. A large number of priests went through the ritual of purification.
25. So everyone was happy — the people of Judah, the priests, the Levites, the people who had come from the north, and the foreigners who had settled permanently in Israel and Judah.