Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs, and say good things.

And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and they will be given up into your hands.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good to me, but of evil?

And the Lord said, How may Ahab, king of Israel, be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?

And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

And say, By the king's order this man is to be put in prison, and given prison food till I come back in peace.

And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress, and they went to the fight.

And a certain man sent an arrow from his bow without thought of its direction, and gave the king of Israel a wound where his breastplate was joined to his clothing; so he said to the driver of his war-carriage, Go to one side and take me away out of the army, for I am badly wounded.

But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king of Israel was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans till the evening; and by sundown he was dead.

So now let the fear of the Lord be in you; do your work with care; for in the Lord our God there is no evil, or respect for high position, or taking of payment to do wrong.

And if any cause comes before you from your brothers living in their towns, where the death punishment is in question, or where there are questions of law or order, or rules or decisions, make them take care that they are not in the wrong before the Lord, so that wrath may not come on you and on your brothers; do this and you yourselves will not be in the wrong.

And now, Amariah, the chief priest, is over you in all questions to do with the Lord; and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, the head of the family of Judah, in everything to do with the king's business; and the Levites will be overseers for you. Be strong to do the work; and may the Lord be with the upright.

O our God, will you not be their judge? for our strength is not equal to this great army which is coming against us; and we are at a loss what to do: but our eyes are on you.

And he said, Give ear, O Judah, and you people of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat: the Lord says to you, Have no fear and do not be troubled on account of this great army; for the fight is not yours but God's.

Go down against them tomorrow: see, they are coming up by the slope of Ziz; at the end of the valley, before the waste land of Jeruel, you will come face to face with them.

There will be no need for you to take up arms in this fight; put yourselves in position, and keep where you are, and you will see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: have no fear and do not be troubled: go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.

And early in the morning they got up and went out to the waste land of Tekoa: and when they were going out, Jehoshaphat took his station and said to them, Give ear to me, O Judah and you people of Jerusalem: have faith in the Lord your God and you will be safe; have faith in his prophets and all will go well for you.

And after discussion with the people, he put in their places those who were to make melody to the Lord, praising him in holy robes, while they went at the head of the army, and saying, May the Lord be praised, for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

And Judah came to the watchtower of the waste land, and looking in the direction of the army, they saw only dead bodies stretched on the earth; no living man was to be seen.

Then the word of Eliezer the prophet, the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah, came against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because you have let yourself be joined with Ahaziah, the Lord has sent destruction on your works. And the ships were broken and were not able to go to Tarshish.

Then Jehoram went over with his captains and all his war-carriages ... made an attack by night on the Edomites, whose forces were all round him ... on the captains of the war-carriages.

And you yourself will undergo the cruel pains of a disease in your stomach, so that day by day your inside will be falling out because of the disease.

Then the Philistines and the Arabians, who are by Ethiopia, were moved by the Lord to make war on Jehoram;

And after all this the Lord sent on him a disease of the stomach from which it was impossible for him to be made well.

Acting on their suggestion, he went with Jehoram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, to make war on Hazael, king of Aram, at Ramoth-gilead: and Joram was wounded by the bowmen.

Now by the purpose of God, Ahaziah's journey to see Jehoram was the cause of his downfall: for when he came there, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu, the son of Nimshi, who had been marked out by the Lord for the destruction of the family of Ahab.

And all the people made an agreement with the king in the house of God. And he said to them, Truly, the king's son will be king, as the Lord has said about the sons of David.

And a third are to be stationed at the king's house; and a third at the doorway of the horses: while all the people are waiting in the open spaces round the house of the Lord.

And the Levites are to make a circle round the king, every man being armed; and any man who comes into the house is to be put to death; you are to keep with the king when he comes in and when he goes out.

And he put all the people in position, every man with his instruments of war in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left, by the altar and the house and all round the king.

And looking, she saw the king in his place by the pillar at the doorway, and the captains and the horns by his side; and all the people of the land were giving signs of joy and sounding the horns; and the makers of melody were playing on instruments of music, taking the chief part in the song of praise. Then Athaliah, violently parting her robes, said, Broken faith, broken faith!

Then Jehoiada the priest gave orders to the captains of hundreds who had authority over the army, saying, Take her outside the lines, and let anyone who goes after her be put to death with the sword. For the priest said, Let her not be put to death in the house of the Lord

So they put their hands on her, and she went to the king's house by the doorway of the king's horses; and there she was put to death.

And Jehoiada made an agreement between the Lord and all the people and the king, that they would be the Lord's people.

And Jehoiada put the work and the care of the house of the Lord into the hands of the priests and the Levites, who had been grouped in divisions by David to make burned offerings to the Lord, as it is recorded in the law of Moses, with joy and song as David had said.

And getting together the priests and Levites, he said to them, Go out into the towns of Judah year by year, and get from all Israel money to keep the house of your God in good condition; and see that this is done without loss of time. The Levites, however, were slow in doing so.

Then the king sent for Jehoiada, the chief priest, and said to him, Why have you not given the Levites orders that the tax fixed by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and by the meeting of Israel, for the Tent of witness, is to be got in from Judah and Jerusalem and handed over?

For the house of the Lord had been broken up by Athaliah, that evil woman, and her sons; and all its holy things they had given to the Baals.

And an order was sent out through all Judah and Jerusalem that payment was to be made to the Lord of the tax which Moses, the servant of God, had put on Israel in the waste land.

So when the chest was taken to the king's servants by the Levites, and they saw that there was much money in it, the king's scribe and the chief priest's servant took the money out, and put the chest back in its place. They did this day by day, and got together a great amount of money.

But when they had made a secret design against him, he was stoned with stones, by the king's order, in the outer square of the Lord's house.

Now the story of his sons, and all the words said by the prophet against him, and the building up again of the Lord's house, are recorded in the account in the book of the kings. And Amaziah his son became king in his place.

But he did not put their children to death, for he kept the orders of the Lord recorded in the book of the law of Moses, saying, The fathers are not to be put to death for their children or the children for their fathers, but a man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.

Then Amaziah got all Judah together and put them in order by their families, even all Judah and Benjamin, under captains of thousands and captains of hundreds: and he had those of twenty years old and over numbered, and they came to three hundred thousand of the best fighting-men, trained for war and in the use of the spear and the body-cover.

But go yourself, and be strong in war; God will not let you go down before those who are fighting against you; for God has power to give help or to send you down before your attackers.

Then Amaziah said to the man of God, But what is to be done about the hundred talents which I have given for the armed band of Israel? And the man of God in answer said, God is able to give you much more than this.

And ten thousand more the children of Israel took living, and made them go up to the top of the rock, pushing them down from the top of the rock so that their bodies were broken by the fall.

But while he was talking to him the king said to him, Have we made you one of the king's government? say no more, or it will be the cause of your death. Then the prophet gave up protesting, and said, It is clear to me that God's purpose is your destruction, because you have done this and have not given ear to my words.

And Joash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

And he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels which were in the house of the Lord, under the care of Obed-edom, and all the wealth from the king's house, as well as those whose lives would be the price of broken faith, and went back to Samaria.

In addition, Uzziah had an army of fighting-men who went out to war in bands, as they had been listed by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the authority of Hananiah, one of the king's captains.

And in Jerusalem he made machines, the invention of expert men, to be placed on the towers and angles of the walls for sending arrows and great stones. And his name was honoured far and wide; for he was greatly helped till he was strong.

And they made protests to Uzziah the king, and said to him, The burning of perfumes, Uzziah, is not your business but that of the priests, the sons of Aaron, who have been made holy for this work: go out of the holy place, for you have done wrong, and it will not be to your honour before God.

Then Uzziah was angry; and he had in his hand a vessel for burning perfume; and while his wrath was bitter against the priests, the mark of the leper's disease came out on his brow, before the eyes of the priests in the house of the Lord by the altar of perfumes.

Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, were recorded by Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

And now your purpose is to keep the children of Judah and Jerusalem as men-servants and women-servants under your yoke: but are there no sins against the Lord your God to be seen among yourselves?

And said to them, You are not to let these prisoners come here; for what you are designing to do will be a cause of sin against the Lord to us, making even greater our sin and our wrongdoing, which now are great enough, and his wrath is burning against Israel.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And they took with them seven oxen and seven male sheep and seven lambs and seven he-goats as a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the holy house and for Judah. And he gave orders to the sons of Aaron, the priests, that these were to be offered on the altar of the Lord.

So they put the oxen to death and their blood was given to the priests to be drained out against the altar; then they put the male sheep to death, draining out their blood against the altar, and they put the lambs to death, draining out their blood against the altar.

Then he put the Levites in their places in the house of the Lord, with brass and corded instruments of music as ordered by David and Gad, the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for the order was the Lord's, given by his prophets.

And Hezekiah gave the word for the burned offering to be offered on the altar. And when the burned offering was started, then the song of the Lord was started, with the blowing of horns and with all the instruments of David, king of Israel.

So it was ordered that word was to be sent out through all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, that they were to come to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: because they had not kept it in great numbers in agreement with the law.

So runners went with letters from the king and his chiefs through all Israel and Judah, by the order of the king, saying, O children of Israel, come back again to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he may come again to that small band of you which has been kept safe out of the hands of the kings of Assyria.

Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were sinners against the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that he made them a cause of fear, as you see.

Now do not be hard-hearted, as your fathers were; but give yourselves to the Lord, and come into his holy place, which he has made his for ever, and be the servants of the Lord your God, so that the heat of his wrath may be turned away from you.

For if you come back to the Lord, those who took away your brothers and your children will have pity on them, and let them come back to this land: for the Lord your God is full of grace and mercy, and his face will not be turned away from you if you come back to him.

And they took their places in their right order, as it was ordered in the law of Moses, the man of God: the priests draining out on the altar the blood given them by the Levites.

So the children of Israel who were present in Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread for seven days with great joy: and the Levites and the priests gave praise to the Lord day by day, making melody to the Lord with loud instruments.

And by the desire of all the people, the feast went on for another seven days, and they kept the seven days with joy.

Now when all this was over, all the men of Israel who were present went out into the towns of Judah, causing the stone pillars to be broken up and the wood pillars to be cut down, pulling down the high places and the altars in all Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, till all were gone. Then all the children of Israel went back to their towns, every man to his property.

In addition, he gave orders to the people of Jerusalem to give to the priests and Levites that part which was theirs by right, so that they might be strong in keeping the law of the Lord.

And the children of Israel and Judah, who were living in the towns of Judah came with the tenth part of their oxen and sheep, and a tenth of all the holy things which were to be given to the Lord their God, and put them in great masses.

Then Hezekiah said that store-rooms were to be made ready in the house of the Lord; and this was done.

And Jehiel and Azaziah and Nahath and Asahel and Jerimoth and Jozabad and Eliel and Ismachiah and Mahath and Benaiah were overseers, under the directions of Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by the order of Hezekiah the king and Azariah, the ruler of the house of God.

And under him were Eden and Miniamin and Jeshua and Shemaiah and Amariah and Shecaniah, in the towns of the priests, who were made responsible for giving it to all their brothers, by divisions, to small and great:

As well as to all the males, of three years old and over, listed by their families, who went into the house of the Lord to do what was needed day by day, for their special work with their divisions.

And the families of the priests were listed by their fathers' names, but the Levites, of twenty years old and over, were listed in relation to their work in their divisions;

And as for the sons of Aaron, the priests, living in the country on the outskirts of their towns, every different town there were men, marked out by name, to give their part of the goods to all the males among the priests, and to all who were listed among the Levites.

Now after these things and this true-hearted work, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came into Judah, and put his army in position before the walled towns of Judah, designing to make his way into them by force.

Be strong and take heart; have no fear, and do not be troubled on account of the king of Assyria and all the great army with him: for there is a greater with us.

Is it not Hezekiah who has got you to do it, causing your death from need of food and water, by saying, The Lord our God will give us salvation out of the hands of the king of Assyria?

So do not be tricked by Hezekiah or let him get you to do this, and do not put any faith in what he says: for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to keep his people safe from my hands, or the hands of my fathers: how much less will your God keep you safe from my hands!

However, in the business of the representatives sent by the rulers of Babylon to get news of the wonder which had taken place in the land, God gave up guiding him, testing him to see what was in his heart.

For he put up again the high places which had been pulled down by his father Hezekiah; and he made altars for the Baals, and pillars of wood, and was a worshipper and servant of all the stars of heaven;

And he made altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem will my name be for ever.

And never again will I let the feet of Israel be moved out of the land which I have given to their fathers; if only they will take care to do all my orders, even all the law and the orders and the rules given to them by Moses.

After this he made an outer wall for the town of David, on the west side of Gihon in the valley, as far as the way into the town by the fish doorway; and he put a very high wall round the Ophel; and he put captains of the army in all the walled towns of Judah.

And he put the altar of the Lord in order, offering peace-offerings and praise-offerings on it, and said that all Judah were to be servants of the Lord, the God of Israel.

And the men did the work well; and those who had authority over them were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, who were to be responsible for seeing that the work was done; and others of the Levites, who were expert with instruments of music,

Now when they were taking out the money which had come into the Lord's house, Hilkiah the priest came across the book of the law of the Lord, which he had given by the mouth of Moses.

Because they have given me up, burning offerings to other gods and moving me to wrath by all the works of their hands; so my wrath is let loose on this place and will not be put out.