2 Chronicles 29:3-19 - Hezekiah Cleanses The Temple

³ In the first year of his rule, in the first month, opening the doors of the Lord's house, he made them strong. ⁴ And he sent for the priests and the Levites, and got them together in the wide place on the east side, ⁵ And said to them, Give ear to me, O Levites: now make yourselves holy, and make holy the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and take away everything unclean from the holy place. ⁶ For our fathers have done evil, sinning in the eyes of the Lord our God, and have given him up, turning away their faces from the house of the Lord, and turning their backs on him. ⁷ The doors of his house have been shut and the lights put out; no perfumes have been burned or offerings made to the God of Israel in his holy place. ⁸ And so the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to be a cause of fear and wonder and shame, as your eyes have seen. ⁹ For see, our fathers have been put to death with the sword, and our sons and daughters and wives have been taken away prisoners because of this. ¹⁰ Now it is my purpose to make an agreement with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that the heat of his wrath may be turned away from us. ¹¹ My sons, take care now: for you have been marked out by the Lord to come before him and to be his servants, burning offerings to him.

¹² Then the Levites took their places; Mahath, the son of Amasai, and Joel, the son of Azariah, among the Kohathites; and of the sons of Merari, Kish, the son of Abdi, and Azariah, the son of Jehallelel; and of the Gershonites, Joah, the son of Zimmah, and Eden, the son of Joah; ¹³ And of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah; ¹⁴ And of the sons of Heman, Jehuel and Shimei; and of the sons of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵ And they got their brothers together and made themselves holy, and went in, as the king had said by the word of the Lord, to make the house of the Lord clean.

¹⁶ And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to make it clean, and everything unclean which was to be seen in the Temple of the Lord they took out into the outer square of the Lord's house, and the Levites got it together and took it away to the stream Kidron. ¹⁷ On the first day of the first month the work of making the house holy was started, and on the eighth day they came to the covered way of the Lord; in eight days they made the Lord's house holy, and on the sixteenth day of the first month the work was done.

¹⁸ Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, We have made all the house of the Lord clean, as well as the altar of burned offerings with all its vessels, and the table for the holy bread, with all its vessels. ¹⁹ And all the vessels which were turned out by King Ahaz in his sin while he was king, we have put in order and made holy, and now they are in their places before the altar of the Lord.