The Daily Audio Bible

Hezekiah's illness and his mistake

20 At that time, Hezekiah became very ill. He nearly died. Then Amoz's son, Isaiah the prophet, went to Hezekiah. He said to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord says: “You will soon die. You will not get better. So you must tell your family what to do after your death.” ’ ² Then Hezekiah turned his face towards the wall and he prayed to the Lord. ³ He said, ‘Lord, please remember that I have served you well. I have always obeyed you. You could trust me to do the things that you told me to do.’ Hezekiah wept very much.

⁴ While Isaiah was still in the middle yard of the palace, the Lord gave him this message: ⁵ ‘Go back! Say to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, “This is what the Lord says, the God that your ancestor David worshipped. I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. I will make you well again. On the third day from now you will go to the Lord's temple. ⁶ I will let you live for 15 more years. I will rescue you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria. I will keep Jerusalem safe, because I do what is right and I made a promise to my servant David.” ’

⁷ Then Isaiah said, ‘Take some figs to make a medicine.’ So the king's servants did what Isaiah had said. They put the medicine on Hezekiah's boil. He became well again.

⁸ Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, ‘What will show me that the Lord will make me well again? How will I know that I will go up to the Lord's temple on the third day from now?’ ⁹ Isaiah answered, ‘The Lord will do a miracle to show you that he will do what he has promised. Do you want the shadow on these stairs to move down ten steps? Or do you want the shadow to go back up ten steps?’ ¹⁰ Hezekiah said, ‘It is easy to cause the shadow to move down ten steps. So I want it to go back up ten steps.’^{[a] 11} Then Isaiah the prophet asked the Lord to do this. The Lord caused the shadow to go back up ten steps on the stairs that King Ahaz had made.

¹² At that time, Baladan's son, Merodach-Baladan, was the king of Babylon. Merodach-Baladan sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah. He had heard the news that Hezekiah had been ill. ¹³ Hezekiah was happy to meet the officers who came from the king of Babylon. Hezekiah showed them the places where he stored his valuable things. He showed them his silver and gold things, his spices and very valuable olive oil. He also showed them all his weapons. Hezekiah showed them all his valuable things. There was nothing in his palace or in his whole kingdom that he did not show to the king of Babylon's officers.

¹⁴ Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah. Isaiah asked the king, ‘What did those men say? Where did they come from?’ Hezekiah replied, ‘They came from Babylon, far away.’ ¹⁵ Isaiah asked, ‘What did they see in your palace?’ Hezekiah said, ‘They saw everything that is in my palace. I showed all my valuable things to them.’

¹⁶ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, ‘Listen to this message from the Lord: ¹⁷ “Understand this! One day, soldiers from Babylon will carry away all your valuable things. Everything that you and your ancestors have stored here until now will go to Babylon. They will leave nothing here. ¹⁸ Some of your own descendants will also go to Babylon. Soldiers from Babylon will take them away from here. Your descendants will become eunuchs in the king of Babylon's palace.” That is what the Lord says. ’

¹⁹ Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The Lord's message that you have spoken to me is good.’ But he was thinking, ‘While I am still alive, people will live safely without any trouble.’

²⁰ The other things that happened while Hezekiah was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about the things that Hezekiah did. It includes a report about the pool and the stream that he built to bring water into the city of Jerusalem. ²¹ So Hezekiah died and they buried him beside his ancestors. His son Manasseh became king after him.

Manasseh becomes the king of Judah

21 Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king. He ruled as king in Jerusalem for 55 years. His mother's name was Hephzibah. ² Manasseh did things that the Lord said were evil. He did the same terrible sins that the other nations in Canaan had done. Those were the nations that the Lord had chased out so that the Israelites could live there. ³ Manasseh built again the altars on the hills that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He built altars for people to worship Baal. He also made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done. He bent down low to worship all the stars in the sky. ⁴ He built altars in the Lord's temple.^[b] The Lord had said about his temple, ‘That is my home in Jerusalem where people will worship me.’

⁵ Manasseh built altars to give honour to the stars, in both yards of the Lord's temple. ⁶ He burnt his own son with fire as a sacrifice. He used magic and false gods to find out what would happen in the future. He took advice from magicians and people who talked to the spirits of dead people. He did many things that the Lord said were very evil. This made the Lord very angry.

⁷ Manasseh used wood to make an image of the false god, Asherah. He put this idol in the Lord's temple. The Lord had said this about his temple to King David and to his son King Solomon: ‘My people will worship me in my temple here in Jerusalem. That is the place that I have chosen to be my home for ever. I have chosen it from among all the tribes of Israel. ⁸ I will never cause the Israelite people to leave this land that I gave to their ancestors. But they must be careful to obey all my commands and all my Law that my servant Moses gave to them.’

⁹ But the people did not obey the Lord. Manasseh caused them to turn away from God. The Israelites did more evil things than the people who lived in Canaan before them. The Lord had destroyed those nations so that the Israelites could live there.

¹⁰ So the Lord used his servants, the prophets, to say this: ¹¹ ‘Manasseh, the king of Judah, has done terrible sins. He has done more evil things than the Amorites did, who lived in Canaan before him. He has caused the people of Judah to do wrong things as they worship his idols. ¹² So the Lord, Israel's God, says this: “I will cause great trouble to happen in Jerusalem and in all the kingdom of Judah. Everyone who hears the news about it will be very surprised. ¹³ I will judge Jerusalem and I will punish the people, as I punished Samaria and the family of King Ahab.^[c] I will remove the people from Jerusalem, like someone who washes the dirt from both sides of a plate.

¹⁴ I will no longer help those of my own people who still remain. I will put them under the power of their enemies. All their enemies will rob them. They will take all their valuable things for themselves. ¹⁵ My people have done things that I say are evil. They have made me very angry. They have continued to do that since their ancestors came out from Egypt, until today.” ’

¹⁶ Also, Manasseh murdered many people who had not done anything wrong. Their blood was in all the streets of Jerusalem! He caused the people in Judah to do bad things too. He caused them to do things that the Lord said were evil.

¹⁷ The other things that happened while Manasseh was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about the things that Manasseh did, including all his terrible sins. ¹⁸ Manasseh died and they buried him in the garden of his palace. It is called Uzza's garden. His son Amon became king after him.

Amon becomes the king of Judah

¹⁹ Amon was 22 years old when he became king. He ruled as king in Jerusalem for two years. His mother's name was Meshullemeth. She was the daughter of Haruz, who came from Jotbah. ²⁰ Amon did things that the Lord said were evil, as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹ He lived in the same bad way as his father did. He bent down low to worship the useless idols that his father had worshipped. ²² He turned away from the Lord, the God that his ancestors worshipped. He did not obey the Lord's teaching.

²³ Amon's officers decided to kill him. They killed him in his palace. ²⁴ Then the people of Judah punished all Amon's murderers with death. They chose his son Josiah to be king after him.

²⁵ The other things that Amon did are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’ ²⁶ People buried him in his grave in Uzza's garden. His son Josiah became king after him.

Josiah becomes the king of Judah

22 Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled as king in Jerusalem for 31 years. His mother's name was Jedidah. She was the daughter of Adaiah, who came from Bozkath. ² Josiah did things that the Lord said were right. He lived in the good ways of his ancestor, King David. He did not turn away from the Lord's teaching in any way.

¹⁸ The next day, we went with Paul to see James. The leaders of the believers were also there. ¹⁹ Paul said, ‘hello’ to them and then he told them everything about his work. God had helped him to do many good things for the Gentiles.

²⁰ After the leaders had listened to Paul, they praised God. Then they said, ‘Brother Paul, you can see the problem. There are now many thousands of Jews who have believed in Jesus. But they also really want to obey the Law of Moses.^{[a] 21} These Jews here have heard about what you teach Jewish people in other countries. They think that you say to them, “You do not need to obey the Law of Moses any longer. You do not need to circumcise your children. You do not need to live in the way that Jewish people usually live.”

²² We need to do something about this problem. These Jewish believers will certainly hear that you are in Jerusalem. ²³ We will tell you what you must do. There are four Jewish men in our group who have made a promise to God. ²⁴ You must go with these men to the temple. There, they will wash to make themselves clean in front of God. Join with them when they do that. Then pay the priest the money for their sacrifices. After that, the men can cut the hair off their heads. When you do that, everyone will understand about you. They will see what you have done. They will know that you yourself obey the Law of Moses. They will know that what they have heard about you is not true. ²⁵ But it is different for the Gentiles who believe in Jesus. We have already sent a letter to them. We wrote, “Do not eat any food that people have given to their idols. Do not eat anything that still has blood in it. If people have strangled an animal to kill it, do not eat its meat. Do not have sex with anyone that you are not married to.” ’

²⁶ So the next day, Paul went with the four men. He joined with them when they washed to make themselves clean in front of God. Then he went into the yard of the temple. He told the priest there when the four men would finish their promise to God. This would be after seven days. After that, each man would give an animal as a sacrifice to God.^[b]

²⁷ At the end of those seven days, some Jews from Asia region saw Paul in the temple. They said some bad things against Paul to the crowd. So the people became angry and they took hold of Paul. ²⁸ The Jews from Asia shouted, ‘People of Israel, come and help us! This is the man who goes everywhere and he teaches everyone bad things. He speaks against us, the people of Israel. He also speaks against the Law of Moses and against this temple. Now he has even brought some Gentiles into this temple. So now this special place is not clean in front of God any longer.’

²⁹ (These men had earlier seen Paul in the city with a man called Trophimus. Trophimus was a Gentile who came from Ephesus. They thought that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple. That is why they shouted bad things against Paul.)^[c]

³⁰ Many other people in the city heard about the trouble and they also became angry. They all ran from their homes to the temple and they took hold of Paul. Then they pulled him out of the temple and they closed the doors immediately.^[d]

³¹ The angry crowd was trying to kill Paul. But someone sent a message to the leader of the Roman soldiers. The message was, ‘People are fighting everywhere in the city.’

³² So the soldiers' leader quickly took some other officers and a large group of soldiers and they ran down to the crowd. The angry crowd of people saw the leader with his soldiers. So then they stopped hitting Paul.

³³ The Roman soldiers' leader went to Paul and he took hold of him. He said to his men, ‘Tie two chains round the arms of this man.’ Then he asked the people in the crowd, ‘Who is this man and what has he done?’

³⁴ Some people in the crowd shouted one thing and other people shouted something different. There was so much noise that the leader of the soldiers was not sure about the true facts. He did not know what had really happened. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Take this man up into our strong building!’ ³⁵ The soldiers then led Paul as far as the steps of their building. Then they had to carry him because the crowd was so angry. ³⁶ The crowd followed behind Paul and the soldiers. They were shouting, ‘Kill him!’

The 5th Hallelujah Psalm^[a]