‘Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I did not choose a city among all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house so that My Name (Presence) might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a leader over My people Israel;

If I shut up the heavens so that no rain falls, or if I command locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence and plague among My people,

then I will uproot Israel from My land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have consecrated for My Name, out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and an object of scorn among all nations.

Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah the chief leader among his brothers, because he intended to make him king.

They taught in Judah having the Book of the Law of the Lord with them; they went throughout all the cities of Judah and taught among the people.

Then the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son,

So Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem, and he went out again among the people from Beersheba to the hill country of Ephraim and brought them back to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found much among them, including equipment, garments, and valuable things which they took for themselves, more than they could carry away; so much that they spent three days gathering the spoil.

But Jehoshabeath, the king’s daughter, took Joash the [infant] son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and she placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram [of Judah] and wife of Jehoiada the priest, hid Joash from [his grandmother] Athaliah so that she did not murder him (for Jehoshabeath was the sister of Ahaziah).

They buried him in the City of David among the kings, because he had done good [things] in Israel and toward God and His house.

Now it happened at the end of the year, that the army of Aram (Syria) went up against Joash. They came to Judah and Jerusalem and killed all the leaders among the people and sent all their spoil to the king of Damascus.

He went out and made war against the Philistines, and broke through the wall of Gath, the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod; and he built cities near Ashdod and [elsewhere] among the Philistines.

Then the men who were designated by name rose up and took the captives, and from the spoil they clothed all those who were naked; they clothed them and gave them sandals, and fed them and gave them [something to] drink, anointed them [with oil, as was a host’s duty], and led all the feeble ones on donkeys, and they brought them to Jericho, the City of Palm Trees, to their brothers (fellow descendants of Israel, i.e. Jacob). Then they returned to Samaria.

Also for the sons of Aaron, the priests, who were in the pasture lands of their cities or in each and every city, there were men who were designated by name to give portions to every male among the priests and to everyone genealogically registered among the Levites.

Who [was there] among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed who was able to rescue his people from my hand, that your God should be able to rescue you from my hand?

So Manasseh slept with his fathers [in death], and they buried him in [the garden of] his own house. And his son Amon became king in his place.

Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem.

But he did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images which his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

Further, he did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh [finally] had done, but Amon multiplied his guilt and his sin.

But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up [to Jerusalem]!’” Cross references: 2 Chronicles 36:9 : 2 Kin 24:8 2 Chronicles 36:21 : Lev 25:4; 26:43; Jer 25:11; 29:10 end of crossrefs