<t /><p class="bodytext">In the fifteenth year of the reign of Judah&#8217;s King Amaziah, son of Joash, Jeroboam son of Joash became king over Israel. He reigned for forty-one years in Samaria.<n id="1" />

&#8220;Tell King Hezekiah of Judah this: &#8216;Don&#8217;t let your God in whom you trust mislead you when he says, &#8220;Jerusalem will not be handed over<n id="1" /> to the king of Assyria.&#8221;

<p class="bodytext">The rest of the events of Hezekiah&#8217;s reign and all his accomplishments, including how he built a pool and conduit to bring<n id="1" /> water into the city, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.<n id="2" />

<p class="bodytext">Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end,<n id="1" /> in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the <sc>Lordsc>.<n id="2" />p>

&#8220;This is what the <sc>Lordsc> says: &#8216;I am about to bring disaster on this place and its residents, the details of which are recorded in the scroll which the king of Judah has read.<n id="1" />

Say this to the king of Judah, who sent you to seek an oracle from the <sc>Lordsc>: &#8220;This is what the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel says concerning the words you have heard:

The king went up to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud<n id="1" /> all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.

He removed from the entrance to the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple the statues of horses<n id="1" /> that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.)<n id="2" /> He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.<n id="3" />

The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz&#8217;s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple. He crushed them up<n id="1" /> and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

The <sc>Lordsc> announced, &#8220;I will also spurn Judah,<n id="1" /> just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose &#8211; both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, &#8220;I will live there.&#8221;<n id="2" />p>

King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, his servants, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered<n id="1" /> to the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign,<n id="2" /> took Jehoiachin<n id="3" /> prisoner.

King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians<n id="1" /> in Ramah when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. King Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah went down to visit<n id="2" /> Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he was ill.p>

King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah, &#8220;A thornbush in Lebanon sent this message to a cedar in Lebanon, &#8216;Give your daughter to my son as a wife.&#8217; Then a wild animal<n id="1" /> of Lebanon came by and trampled down the thorn.<n id="2" />

&#8220;Go, seek an oracle from<n id="1" /> the <sc>Lordsc> for me and the people &#8211; for all Judah. Find out about<n id="2" /> the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s fury has been ignited against us,<n id="3" /> because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.&#8221;<n id="4" />p>

<p class="bodytext">He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined<n id="1" /> the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba.<n id="2" /> He tore down the high place of the goat idols<n id="3" /> situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.

<p class="bodytext">Josiah also got rid of<n id="1" /> the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits,<n id="2" /> the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images,<n id="3" /> and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law<n id="4" /> recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.