8. Now, do not stiffen your neck as your fathers, but give a hand to Yahweh and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve Yahweh your God that his fierce anger may turn away from you.
9. For when you return to Yahweh, your brothers and your children will find compassion before their captors and return to this land, for Yahweh your God is gracious and compassionate, and he will not turn away his face from you if you return to him.”
10. And it happened that the runners were passing from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and up to Zebulun, but they were laughing at them and mocking them.
11. Only men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.
12. The hand of God was also upon Judah, to give them one heart to obey the command of the king and the princes concerning the word of Yahweh.
13. So many people gathered in Jerusalem to hold the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month; it was a very great assembly.
14. And they rose up and removed the altars that were in Jerusalem. And they removed all the incense altars and threw them away in the Wadi Kidron.
15. And they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites were disgraced, so they consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings into the house of Yahweh.
16. Then they stood at their positions according to custom, according to the law of Moses the man of God. The priests were sprinkling the blood from the hand of the Levites.
17. For there were many in the assembly who did not consecrate themselves, so the Levites were over the killing of the Passover sacrifices for all who were not clean, to consecrate them to Yahweh.
18. For a majority of the people, many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves. But they ate the Passover sacrifice otherwise than prescribed, but Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, “May the good Yahweh make atonement unto
19. everyone whose heart is set to seek God, Yahweh the God of his ancestors, though not according to the cleansing for the sanctuary.”