listen from heaven and make a just decision about your servants' claims. Condemn the guilty party, declare the other innocent, and give both of them what they deserve.

When the queen of Sheba heard about Solomon, she came to challenge him with difficult questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a great display of pomp, bringing with her camels carrying spices, a very large quantity of gold, and precious gems. She visited Solomon and discussed with him everything that was on her mind.

She said to the king, "The report I heard in my own country about your wise sayings and insight was true!

All Judah was happy about the oath, because they made the vow with their whole heart. They willingly sought the Lord and he responded to them. He made them secure on every side.

So look, the Lord is about to severely afflict your people, your sons, your wives, and all you own.

After about two years his intestines came out because of the disease, so that he died a very painful death. His people did not make a bonfire to honor him, as they had done for his ancestors.

God brought about Ahaziah's downfall through his visit to Joram. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had commissioned to wipe out Ahab's family.

He assembled the priests and Levites and ordered them, "Go out to the cities of Judah and collect the annual quota of silver from all Israel for repairs on the temple of your God. Be quick about it!" But the Levites delayed.

Amaziah asked the prophet: "But what should I do about the hundred talents of silver I paid the Israelite troops?" The prophet replied, "The Lord is capable of giving you more than that."

King Joash of Israel captured King Amaziah of Judah, son of Joash son of Jehoahaz, in Beth Shemesh and brought him to Jerusalem. He broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate -- a distance of about six hundred feet.

But there were not enough priests to skin all the animals, so their brothers, the Levites, helped them until the work was finished and the priests could consecrate themselves. (The Levites had been more conscientious about consecrating themselves than the priests.)

Hezekiah and all the people were happy about what God had done for them, for it had been done quickly.

When Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites about the heaps,

he consulted with his advisers and military officers about stopping up the springs outside the city, and they supported him.

They talked about the God of Jerusalem as if he were one of the man-made gods of the nations of the earth.

King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed about this and cried out to heaven.

So when the envoys arrived from the Babylonian officials to visit him and inquire about the sign that occurred in the land, God left him alone to test him, in order to know his true motives.

He built altars in the Lord's temple, about which the Lord had said, "Jerusalem will be my permanent home."

He put an idolatrous image he had made in God's temple, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, "This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home.

"Go, seek an oracle from the Lord for me and those who remain in Israel and Judah. Find out about the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the Lord's fury has been ignited against us, because our ancestors have not obeyed the word of the Lord by doing all that this scroll instructs!"

"This is what the Lord says: 'I am about to bring disaster on this place and its residents, the details of which are recorded in the scroll which they read before the king of Judah.

He told the Levites, who instructed all Israel about things consecrated to the Lord, "Place the holy ark in the temple which King Solomon son of David of Israel built. Don't carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and his people Israel!