Yet Jehu was not careful to follow the instruction of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins that Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.

Then in the seventh year, Jehoiada sent messengers and brought in the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, and the guards. He had them come to him in the Lord’s temple, where he made a covenant with them and put them under oath. He showed them the king’s son

Then Jehoiada the priest ordered the commanders of hundreds in charge of the army, “Take her out between the ranks, and put to death by the sword anyone who follows her,” for the priest had said, “She is not to be put to death in the Lord’s temple.”

All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, for they had put Athaliah to death by the sword in the king’s palace.

But by the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash, the priests had not repaired the damage to the temple.

So King Joash of Judah took all the consecrated items that his ancestors—Judah’s kings Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah—had consecrated, along with his own consecrated items and all the gold found in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and in the king’s palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram. Then Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and followed the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.

but they didn’t turn away from the sins that the house of Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit. Jehoahaz walked in them, and the Asherah pole also remained standing in Samaria.

Jehoahaz did not have an army left, except for 50 horsemen, 10 chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them, making them like dust at threshing.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. He did not turn away from all the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit, but he walked in them.

The rest of the events of Jehoash’s reign, along with all his accomplishments and the power he had to wage war against Judah’s King Amaziah, are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.

The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times. Then you would have struck down Aram until you had put an end to them, but now you will only strike down Aram three times.”

but the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and turned toward them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was not willing to destroy them. Even now He has not banished them from His presence.

Then Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took back from Ben-hadad son of Hazael the cities that Hazael had taken in war from Jehoash’s father Jehoahaz. Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times and recovered the cities of Israel.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, but not like his ancestor David. He did everything his father Joash had done.

As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, Amaziah killed his servants who had murdered his father the king.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. He did not turn away from all the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

He restored Israel’s border from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant, the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher.

However, the Lord had not said He would blot out the name of Israel under heaven, so He delivered them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign—along with all his accomplishments, the power he had to wage war, and how he recovered for Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah —are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.

Azariah did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his father Amaziah had done.

The Lord afflicted the king, and he had a serious skin disease until the day of his death. He lived in a separate house, while Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household governing the people of the land.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight as his fathers had done. He did not turn away from the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. Throughout his reign, he did not turn away from the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and did not turn away from the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. He did not turn away from the sins Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his father Uzziah had done.

but walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

Uriah built the altar according to all the instructions King Ahaz sent from Damascus. Therefore, by the time King Ahaz came back from Damascus, Uriah the priest had completed it.

To satisfy the king of Assyria, he removed from the Lord’s temple the Sabbath canopy they had built in the palace, and he closed the outer entrance for the king.

But the king of Assyria discovered Hoshea’s conspiracy. He had sent envoys to So king of Egypt and had not paid tribute money to the king of Assyria as in previous years. Therefore the king of Assyria arrested him and put him in prison.

This disaster happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt and because they had worshiped other gods.

They had lived according to the customs of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and the customs the kings of Israel had introduced.

They burned incense on all the high places just like those nations that the Lord had driven out before them. They did evil things, provoking the Lord.

They served idols, although the Lord had told them, “You must not do this.”

They rejected His statutes and His covenant He had made with their ancestors and the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, following the surrounding nations the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

Even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God but lived according to the customs Israel had introduced.

So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and handed them over to plunderers until He had banished them from His presence.

Finally, the Lord removed Israel from His presence just as He had declared through all His servants the prophets. So Israel has been exiled to Assyria from their homeland until today.

So one of the priests they had deported came and lived in Bethel, and he began to teach them how they should fear Yahweh.

But the people of each nation were still making their own gods in the cities where they lived and putting them in the shrines of the high places that the people of Samaria had made.

They feared the Lord, but they also worshiped their own gods according to the custom of the nations where they had been deported from.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestor David had done.

He remained faithful to Yahweh and did not turn from following Him but kept the commands the Lord had commanded Moses.

because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord their God but violated His covenant—all He had commanded Moses the servant of the Lord. They did not listen, and they did not obey.

At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the Lord’s sanctuary and from the doorposts he had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.

When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he returned and found him fighting against Libnah.

The king had heard this about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Look, he has set out to fight against you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

Isaiah had not yet gone out of the inner courtyard when the word of the Lord came to him:

Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple on the third day?”

So Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow back the 10 steps it had descended on Ahaz’s stairway.

At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah since he heard that he had been sick.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed and reestablished the altars for Baal. He made an Asherah, as King Ahab of Israel had done; he also worshiped the whole heavenly host and served them.

He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “Jerusalem is where I will put My name.”

Manasseh set up the carved image of Asherah, which he made, in the temple that the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

But they did not listen; Manasseh caused them to stray so that they did greater evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

“Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these detestable things—greater evil than the Amorites who preceded him had done—and by means of his idols has also caused Judah to sin,

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight as his father Manasseh had done.

He walked in all the ways his father had walked; he served the idols his father had served, and he worshiped them.

Then the common people executed all those who had conspired against King Amon and made his son Josiah king in his place.

Then the king went to the Lord’s temple with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the prophets—all the people from the youngest to the oldest. As they listened, he read all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the Lord’s temple.

Then he did away with the idolatrous priests the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and in the areas surrounding Jerusalem. They had burned incense to Baal, and to the sun, moon, constellations, and the whole heavenly host.

Then Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defiled the high places from Geba to Beer-sheba, where the priests had burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city (on the left at the city gate).

He did away with the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They had been at the entrance of the Lord’s temple in the precincts by the chamber of Nathan-melech the court official, and he burned up the chariots of the sun.

The king tore down the altars that were on the roof—Ahaz’s upper chamber that the kings of Judah had made—and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. Then he smashed them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

The king also defiled the high places that were across from Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the detestable idol of the Sidonians; for Chemosh, the detestable idol of Moab; and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.

He even tore down the altar at Bethel and the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made. Then he burned the high place, crushed it to dust, and burned the Asherah.

Josiah also removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord. Josiah did the same things to them that he had done at Bethel.

No such Passover had ever been kept from the time of the judges who judged Israel through the entire time of the kings of Israel and Judah.

In spite of all that, the Lord did not turn from the fury of His great burning anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had provoked Him with.

For the Lord had said, “I will also remove Judah from My sight just as I have removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, that I have chosen, and the temple about which I said, ‘My name will be there.’”

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestors had done.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestors had done.

The Lord sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim. He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord He had spoken through His servants the prophets.

Indeed, this happened to Judah at the Lord’s command to remove them from His sight. It was because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all he had done,

and also because of all the innocent blood he had shed. He had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not forgive.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight as his father had done.

He also carried off from there all the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king’s palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the Lord’s sanctuary, just as God had predicted.

Zedekiah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as Jehoiakim had done.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.

Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the population.

As for the two pillars, the one reservoir, and the water carts that Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple, the weight of the bronze of all these articles was beyond measure.

One pillar was 27 feet tall and had a bronze capital on top of it. The capital, encircled by a grating and pomegranates of bronze, stood five feet high. The second pillar was the same, with its own grating.

He took a court official who had been appointed over the warriors from the city; five trusted royal aides found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army, who enlisted the people of the land for military duty; and 60 men from the common people who were found within the city.

When all the commanders of the armies—they and their men—heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The commanders included Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite—they and their men.

Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar bore Perez and Zerah to him. Judah had five sons in all.

Caleb son of Hezron had children by his wife Azubah and by Jerioth. These were Azubah’s sons: Jesher, Shobab, and Ardon.

After this, Hezron slept with the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead. Hezron had married her when he was 60 years old, and she bore Segub to him.

Jerahmeel had another wife named Atarah, who was the mother of Onam.

Sheshan had no sons, only daughters, but he did have an Egyptian servant whose name was Jarha.

Ashhur fathered Tekoa and had two wives, Helah and Naarah.

These were the sons of Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah; Mered had married her. His Judean wife gave birth to Jered the father of Gedor, Heber the father of Soco, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah.

Shimei had 16 sons and six daughters, but his brothers did not have many children, so their whole family did not become as numerous as the Judeans.

They found rich, good pasture, and the land was broad, peaceful, and quiet, for some Hamites had lived there previously.

They struck down the remnant of the Amalekites who had escaped, and they still live there today.

They also settled in the east as far as the edge of the desert that extends to the Euphrates River, because their herds had increased in the land of Gilead.

The sons of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh had 44,760 warriors who could serve in the army—men who carried shield and sword, drew the bow, and were trained for war.

But they were unfaithful to the God of their ancestors. They prostituted themselves with the gods of the nations God had destroyed before them.

But Aaron and his sons did all the work of the most holy place. They presented the offerings on the altar of burnt offerings and on the altar of incense to make atonement for Israel according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded.