2 Chronicles
Chapter 30
1 Hezekiah sent messages to all of Israel and Judah, and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to God’s house in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover for the God of Israel.
2 The king, his leaders, and everyone in Jerusalem decided to celebrate Passover in the second month.
3 They couldn’t do it then because the priests weren’t properly prepared, and the people hadn’t come together in Jerusalem.
4 The king and everyone else liked the idea.
5 They made a rule to announce to all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that they should come to celebrate the Passover for the God of Israel in Jerusalem, because they hadn’t done so properly in a long time as it was supposed to be done.
6 So the messengers went with the letters from the king and his leaders to all of Israel and Judah. The king commanded, “People of Israel, come back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will come back to those of you who have escaped from the Assyrian kings.”
7 Do not be like your ancestors and your relatives who sinned against God, who then let their land be ruined, as you can see.
8 Don’t be stubborn like your ancestors, but submit to God and go into his holy place that he has made holy forever: and serve God, so that his intense anger might turn away from you.
9 If you turn back to God, your relatives and children will receive kindness from their captors, allowing them to return to this land; because God is kind and compassionate, and will not ignore you if you come back to Him.
10 The messengers went from town to town through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and on to Zebulun, but the people laughed at and mocked them.
11 Some people from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun became humble and went to Jerusalem.
12 In Judah, God worked to give them unity in following the king’s and leaders’ orders, as God directed.
13 Many people gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month, forming a huge crowd.
14 They got up, removed the altars in Jerusalem, took away all the incense altars, and threw them into the Kidron Valley.
15 They sacrificed the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month; the priests and Levites felt ashamed, made themselves holy, and brought the burnt offerings into God’s house.
16 They stood where they should, following Moses’s law, as God’s servant. The priests threw the blood they got from the Levites.
17 Many people in the group were not holy, so the Levites were responsible for slaughtering the Passover animals for anyone not clean, to make them holy for God.
18 Many people from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun hadn’t purified themselves, but still ate the Passover in a different way than prescribed. However, Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May God forgive everyone.”
19 He gets his heart ready to look for God, the God of his ancestors, even if he is not clean by the rules of the holy place.
20 God listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.
21 The Israelites in Jerusalem celebrated the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with much happiness, and the Levites and priests praised God every day, singing loudly with instruments to God.
22 Hezekiah spoke kindly to all the Levites who taught about God, and they ate for seven days during the feast, giving peace offerings and confessing to the God of their ancestors.
23 The entire group decided to celebrate for another seven days, and they joyfully did so for another seven days.
24 King Hezekiah of Judah gave the people one thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep; the leaders gave one thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep; and many priests made themselves pure.
25 The whole group from Judah, along with the priests, the Levites, everyone from Israel, and the foreigners who lived in Judah, were very happy.
26 Jerusalem was filled with great happiness like it had not experienced since Solomon, David’s son and king of Israel, was alive.
27 The Levite priests stood up, blessed the people, and their voices were heard; their prayer reached God’s holy home in heaven.