People worship God again in his temple
20 King Hezekiah got up early the next morning. He brought the city's officers together. They all went up to the Lord's temple. 21 They took with them seven bulls, seven male sheep, seven lambs and seven male goats. They offered these animals as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the holy place and for the people of Judah. The king told the priests, Aaron's descendants, to offer sacrifices on the Lord's altar. 22 So they killed the bulls. The priests took the blood and they splashed it on the altar. Then they killed the male sheep. The priests splashed their blood on the altar too. Then they killed the lambs. The priests also splashed their blood on the altar. 23 Finally, the priests brought the male goats in front of King Hezekiah and the people who were there. The king and the people put their hands on the goats. 24 Then the priests killed the goats as a sin offering. They offered their blood on the altar as a sacrifice. Then all the people of Israel would no longer be guilty for their sins. This was because the king had said that the burnt offerings and the sin offerings would be for all Israel.
25 The king told the Levites to stand in the Lord's temple with their cymbals, harps and lyres to make music. They stood at the places where King David, David's prophet Gad and the prophet Nathan had told the Levites to stand. This was the Lord's command that he had given to his prophets. 26 The Levites held the musical instruments that King David had provided. The priests held their trumpets.
27 Then Hezekiah told the priests to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When they began to offer the sacrifice, the singers started to sing to praise the Lord. The trumpets and the musical instruments of King David of Israel also started to make music. 28 All the people there were worshipping the Lord. At the same time the singers were singing and the priests were making music with their trumpets. They all continued to do that until the priests finished making the burnt offering.
29 When the priests finished offering the sacrifices, the king and everyone with him bent down low to worship God. 30 King Hezekiah and his officers told the Levites to sing songs to praise the Lord. They told them to sing the songs that King David and the prophet Asaph had written. So the Levites praised God in that way. They were very happy and they bent down low to worship God.
31 Then Hezekiah said, ‘Now you have made yourselves clean to serve the Lord. So come to the Lord's temple and bring sacrifices and offerings to thank the Lord.’ So all the people brought their sacrifices and their offerings to thank the Lord. Everyone who wanted to offer burnt offerings brought animals for that too.
32 For their burnt offerings, the people brought 70 bulls, 100 male sheep and 200 lambs to offer to the Lord. 33 They also brought 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep to offer to the Lord. 34 But there were not enough priests to prepare all the animals for the sacrifices. So their relatives, the Levites, helped them until they had finished the work. By that time more priests had made themselves clean to serve the Lord. (The Levites had been more careful than the priests to make themselves clean for the Lord.) 35 The people brought a lot of animals for burnt offerings. There was also the fat from the friendship offerings. And there were drink offerings too. The priests offered all those with the burnt offerings.
That is how they started to worship the Lord again in his temple. 36 Hezekiah and all the people were happy because God had helped them. They had been able to do the work on the temple very quickly.
