1. Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old. He ruled 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah. Abijah was Zechariah’s daughter.
2. Hezekiah did what the Lord wanted him to do. He did what was right just as David his ancestor had done.
3. Hezekiah repaired the doors of the Lord’S Temple and made them strong. He opened the Temple again. He did this in the first month of the first year after he became king.
4-5. Hezekiah called the priests and Levites together in one assembly. He had a meeting with them in the courtyard on the east side of the Temple. Hezekiah said to them, “Listen to me, Levites! Make yourselves ready for holy service. Make the Temple of the Lord God ready for holy service. He is the God your ancestors obeyed. Take away the things from the Temple that don’t belong in there. These things make the Temple unclean.
6. Our ancestors were not faithful and did what the Lord says is evil. They stopped following him. They no longer paid any attention to the Lord’S house and turned their backs on him.
7. They shut the doors of the porch of the Temple and let the fire go out in the lamps. They stopped burning incense and offering burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Israel.
12-14. This is a list of the Levites who started to work: From the Kohath family there were Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah. From the Merari family there were Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel. From the Gershon family there were Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joab. From Elizaphan’s descendants there were Shimri and Jeiel. From Asaph’s descendants there were Zechariah and Mattaniah. From Heman’s descendants there were Jehiel and Shimei. From Jeduthun’s descendants there were Shemaiah and Uzziel.
23-24. Then the priests brought the male goats in front of the king, and the people gathered together. The goats were the sin offering. The priests put their hands on the goats and killed the goats. They made a sin offering with the goats’ blood on the altar. They did this so that God would forgive the sins of the Israelites. The king said that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all the Israelites.