13. From Elizaphan’s family there were Shimri and Jeiel. From Asaph’s family there were Zechariah and Mattaniah.
14. From Heman’s family there were Jehiel and Shimei. From Jeduthun’s family there were Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15. These Levites gathered their brothers together. Then they made themselves holy for service in the Temple. They obeyed the king’s command that had come from the Lord. They went into the Temple of the Lord to purify it.
16. The priests went into the Temple of the Lord to purify it. They took out all the unclean things they found in the Temple of the Lord. And they put them in the Temple courtyard. Then the Levites took these things out to the Kidron Valley.
17. They made the Temple holy for the Lord’s service. They began on the first day of the first month. On the eighth day of the month, they came to the porch of the Temple. For eight more days they made the Temple of the Lord holy. They finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.
18. Then they went to King Hezekiah. They said to him, “We have purified all the Temple of the Lord. We have purified the altar for burnt offerings and its things. We have purified the table for the holy bread and all its things.
19. When Ahaz was king, he was unfaithful to God. He removed some things from the Temple. But we have put them back and made them holy for the Lord. They are now in front of the Lord’s altar.”
20. Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the leaders of the city. They went up to the Temple of the Lord.
21. They brought seven bulls, seven male sheep, seven male lambs and seven male goats. These animals were an offering to remove the sin of the people and the kingdom of Judah. And this offering made the Temple ready for service to God. King Hezekiah commanded the priests to offer these animals on the Lord’s altar. The priests were from the family of Aaron.
22. So the priests killed the bulls. Then they sprinkled the bulls’ blood on the altar. They killed the male sheep and sprinkled their blood on the altar. Then they killed the lambs. And they sprinkled the lambs’ blood on the altar.
23. Then the priests brought the male goats before the king and the people there. The goats were for the sin offering. The king and the people put their hands on the goats.
24. Then the priests killed the goats. They made a sin offering with the goats’ blood on the altar. They did this to remove the sins of the Israelites so they would belong to the Lord. The king had said that the burnt offering and sin offering should be made for all Israel.
25. King Hezekiah put the Levites in the Temple of the Lord with cymbals, harps and lyres. He did this as David, Gad and Nathan had commanded. (Gad was the king’s seer, and Nathan was a prophet.) This command came from the Lord through his prophets.