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.
9. For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.
10. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, that his fierce anger may turn away from us.
11. My sons, don’t be negligent now; for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and that you should be his ministers, and burn incense.”
12. Then the Levites arose, Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel the son of Azariah, of the sons of the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish the son of Abdi, and Azariah the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah the son of Zimmah, and Eden the son of Joah;
13. and of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah;
14. and of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15. They gathered their brothers, sanctified themselves, and went in, according to the commandment of the king by the Lord’s words, to cleanse the Lord’s house.
16. The priests went into the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the Lord’s temple into the court of the Lord’s house. The Levites took it from there to carry it out to the brook Kidron.
17. Now they began on the first day of the first month to sanctify, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the Lord’s porch. They sanctified the Lord’s house in eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished.
18. Then they went in to Hezekiah the king within the palace, and said, “We have cleansed all the Lord’s house, including the altar of burnt offering with all its vessels, and the table of show bread with all its vessels.