The Temple Cleansed

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them.^(A)

²⁴ Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God and cut in pieces the utensils of the house of God. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem.^(A)

⁷ They also shut the doors of the vestibule and put out the lamps and have not offered incense or made burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.

³³ But seek first the kingdom of God^[a] and his^[b] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.^(A)

¹⁶ to reveal his Son to me,^[a] so that I might proclaim him among the gentiles, I did not confer with any human,^(A)

¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.^(A)

³ For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a boy, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David, and in the twelfth year he began to cleanse Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the sacred poles,^[a] and the carved and the cast images.^(A)

¹⁴ The bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar.^{(A) 15} King Ahaz commanded the priest Uriah, saying, “Upon the great altar offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offering; then dash against it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”^{(B) 16} The priest Uriah did everything that King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷ Then King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the laver from them; he removed the sea from the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a pediment of stone.^{(C) 18} The covered portal for use on the Sabbath that had been built inside the palace and the outer entrance for the king he removed from^[a] the house of the Lord. He did this because of the king of Assyria.