9. Because if you return to the Lord, your brothers and children will find compassion before those who have taken them captive, in order to return you to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn His face from you if you all return to Him.”
10. So the couriers ran from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and up to Zebulun, but the people laughed at them and mocked them.
11. However some men from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and journeyed to Jerusalem.
12. And even in Judah the hand of God was on them to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and officials by the word of the Lord.
13. And many people assembled in Jerusalem to have the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month. There was a very large assembly.
14. They went out and removed the altars that were in Jerusalem, and they took away all the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
15. They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and Levites were ashamed, and they consecrated themselves and brought in burnt offerings to the house of the Lord.
16. They stood at their places according to the Law of Moses, the man of God; the priests sprinkled the blood they received from the hands of the Levites.
17. For there were many in the assembly who had consecrated themselves, so the Levites slaughtered the Passover lamb for those who were not clean in order to consecrate the people to the Lord.
18. For a multitude of the people—many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun—had not purified themselves. For they ate of the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed over them saying, “The Lord is good, and may He pardon