2 Chronicles 35-36

2 Chronicles 35

¹Josiah kept a Passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem: and they killed the Passover on the fourteenth [day] of the first month.

²He set the priests in their offices, and encouraged them to the service of the house of Yahweh.

³He said to the Levites who taught all Israel, who were holy to Yahweh, "Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel built. There shall no more be a burden on your shoulders. Now serve Yahweh your God, and his people Israel.

⁴Prepare yourselves after your fathers' houses by your divisions, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son.

⁵Stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the fathers' houses of your brothers the children of the people, and [let there be for each] a portion of a fathers' house of the Levites.

⁶Kill the Passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare for your brothers, to do according to the word of Yahweh by Moses."

⁷Josiah gave to the children of the people, of the flock, lambs and young goats, all of them for the Passover offerings, to all who were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bulls: these were of the king's substance.

⁸His princes gave for a freewill offering to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah and Zechariah and Jehiel, the rulers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand and six hundred [small livestock], and three hundred head of cattle.

⁹Conaniah also, and Shemaiah and Nethanel, his brothers, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave to the Levites for the Passover offerings five thousand [small livestock], and five hundred head of cattle.

¹⁰So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place, and the Levites by their divisions, according to the king's commandment.

¹¹They killed the Passover, and the priests sprinkled [the blood which they received] of their hand, and the Levites flayed them.

¹²They removed the burnt offerings, that they might give them according to the divisions of the fathers' houses of the children of the people, to offer to Yahweh, as it is written in the book of Moses. So did they with the cattle.

¹³They roasted the Passover with fire according to the ordinance: and the holy offerings boiled they in pots, and in caldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the children of the people.

¹⁴Afterward they prepared for themselves, and for the priests, because the priests the sons of Aaron [were busied] in offering the burnt offerings and the fat until night: therefore the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests the sons of Aaron.

¹⁵The singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer; and the porters were at every gate: they didn't need to depart from their service; for their brothers the Levites prepared for them.

¹⁶So all the service of Yahweh was prepared the same day, to keep the Passover, and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of Yahweh, according to the commandment of king Josiah.

¹⁷The children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.

¹⁸There was no Passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁹In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this Passover kept.

²⁰After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight against Carchemish by the Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.

²¹But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, "What have I to do with you, you king of Judah? I come not against you this day, but against the house with which I have war. God has commanded me to make haste. Beware that it is God who is with me, that he not destroy you."

²²Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and didn't listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.

²³The archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, "Take me away, because I am seriously wounded!"

²⁴So his servants took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem; and he died, and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

²⁵Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel: and behold, they are written in the lamentations.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his good deeds, according to that which is written in the law of Yahweh,

²⁷and his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

2 Chronicles 36

¹Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's place in Jerusalem.

²Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

³The king of Egypt deposed him at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

⁴The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.

⁵Jehoiakim was Twenty-five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh his God.

⁶Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of Yahweh to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.

⁹Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

¹⁰At the return of the year king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of Yahweh, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem:

¹²and he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh his God; he didn't humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet [speaking] from the mouth of Yahweh.

¹³He also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

¹⁴Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of Yahweh which he had made holy in Jerusalem.

¹⁵Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

¹⁶but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against his people, until there was no remedy.

¹⁷Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed: he gave them all into his hand.

¹⁸All the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.

¹⁹They burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels of it.

²⁰He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

²¹to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

²²Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,

²³"Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given all the kingdoms of the earth to me; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up.'"