1. Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
2. He did that which was right in the Lord’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done.
3. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the Lord’s house, and repaired them.
4. He brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the wide place on the east,
5. and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the Lord, the God of your fathers’ house, and carry the filthiness out of the holy place.
6. For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in the Lord our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs.
7. Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burnt incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.
8. Therefore the Lord’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your eyes.