1. When the Passover celebration was finished, all the Israelites in Jerusalem went out to the towns of Judah. There they smashed the stone pillars used to worship gods. They cut down the Asherah idols and destroyed the altars and places for worshiping gods in all of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and homes.
2. King Hezekiah appointed groups of priests and Levites for their special duties. They were to offer burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, to worship, and to give thanks and praise at the gates of the Lord’s house.
3. Hezekiah gave some of his own animals for the burnt offerings, which were given every morning and evening, on Sabbath days, during New Moons, and at other feasts commanded in the Lord’s Teachings.
4. Hezekiah commanded the people living in Jerusalem to give the priests and Levites the portion that belonged to them. Then the priests and Levites could give all their time to the Lord’s Teachings.
5. As soon as the king’s command went out to the Israelites, they gave freely of the first portion of their grain, new wine, oil, honey, and everything they grew in their fields. They brought a large amount, one-tenth of everything.
6. The people of Israel and Judah who lived in Judah also brought one-tenth of their cattle and sheep and one-tenth of the holy things that were given to the Lord their God, and they put all of them in piles.
7. The people began the piles in the third month and finished in the seventh month.
8. When Hezekiah and his officers came and saw the piles, they praised the Lord and his people, the people of Israel.
9. Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites about the piles.
10. Azariah, the leading priest from Zadok’s family, answered Hezekiah, “Since the people began to bring their offerings to the Temple of the Lord, we have had plenty to eat and plenty left over, because the Lord has blessed his people. So we have all this left over.”