15. These men assembled their fellow-Levites, and they all made themselves ritually clean. Then, as the king had commanded them to do, they began to make the Temple ritually clean, according to the Law of the Lord.; or Then they began to make the Temple ritually clean, as the king, who was acting at the Lord's command, had ordered them to do.
16. The priests went inside the Temple to purify it, and they carried out into the temple courtyard everything that was ritually unclean. From there the Levites took it all outside the city to the valley of the Kidron.
17. The work was begun on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day they had finished it all, including the entrance room to the Temple. Then they worked for the next eight days, until the sixteenth of the month, preparing the Temple for worship.
18. The Levites made the following report to King Hezekiah: “We have completed the ritual purification of the whole Temple, including the altar for burnt offerings, the table for the sacred bread, and all their equipment.
19. We have also brought back all the equipment which King Ahaz took away during those years he was unfaithful to God, and we have rededicated it. It is all in front of the Lord's altar.”
20. Without delay King Hezekiah assembled the leading men of the city, and together they went to the Temple.
21. As an offering to take away the sins of the royal family and of the people of Judah and to purify the Temple, they took seven bulls, seven sheep, seven lambs, and seven goats. The king told the priests, who were descendants of Aaron, to offer the animals as sacrifices on the altar.
22. The priests killed the bulls first, then the sheep, and then the lambs, and sprinkled the blood of each sacrifice on the altar.
23. Finally they took the goats to the king and to the other worshippers, who laid their hands on them.