Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz.

Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s word which you have announced is appropriate.” Then he added, “At least there will be peace and stability during my lifetime.”

He passed his son through the fire and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

But they did not obey, and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.

So this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it.

He did what the Lord approved and followed in his ancestor David’s footsteps; he did not deviate to the right or the left.

In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders:

“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him melt down the silver that has been brought by the people to the Lord’s temple and has been collected by the guards at the door.

and she said to them: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Say this to the man who sent you to me:

He tore down the quarters of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines for Asherah.

(Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.)

Yet the Lord’s great anger against Judah did not subside; he was still infuriated by all the things Manasseh had done.

Just as the Lord had announced, he rejected Judah because of all the sins which Manasseh had committed.

Because he killed innocent people and stained Jerusalem with their blood, the Lord was unwilling to forgive them.

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord’s temple – including the two pillars, the big bronze basin called “The Sea,” the twelve bronze bulls under “The Sea,” and the movable stands – was too heavy to be weighed.

So Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord and did not obey the Lord’s instructions; he even tried to conjure up underworld spirits.

These were the leaders of David’s warriors who helped establish and stabilize his rule over all Israel, in accordance with the Lord’s word.

The following is a record of the armed warriors who came with their leaders and joined David in Hebron in order to make David king in Saul’s place, in accordance with the Lord’s decree: