1. Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
2. He did what the Lord approved, just as his ancestor David had done.
3. In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the Lord’s temple and repaired them.
4. He brought in the priests and Levites and assembled them in the square on the east side.
5. He said to them: “Listen to me, you Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, so you can consecrate the temple of the Lord God of your ancestors! Remove from the sanctuary what is ceremonially unclean!
6. For our fathers were unfaithful; they did what is evil in the sight of the Lord our God and abandoned him! They turned away from the Lord’s dwelling place and rejected him.
7. They closed the doors of the temple porch and put out the lamps; they did not offer incense or burnt sacrifices in the sanctuary of the God of Israel.
8. The Lord was angry at Judah and Jerusalem and made them an appalling object of horror at which people hiss out their scorn, as you can see with your own eyes.
9. Look, our fathers died violently and our sons, daughters, and wives were carried off because of this.
10. Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, so that he may relent from his raging anger.