But the high places were not eliminated; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense on the high places. He built the Upper Gate to the Lord’s temple.

Then Ahaz took the silver and gold that were ¹  in the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as tribute ²  to the king of Assyria.

At that time King Hezekiah of Judah stripped the metal overlays from the doors of the Lord’s temple and from the posts which he had plated ¹  and gave them to the king of Assyria.

One day, ¹  as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, ²  his sons ³  Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. ⁴  They escaped to the land of Ararat; his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.

Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?”

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: ¹ 

“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him melt down ¹  the silver that has been brought by the people to the Lord’s temple and has been collected by the guards at the door.

Hilkiah the high priest informed Shaphan the scribe, “I found the law scroll in the Lord’s temple.” Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan and he read it.

He removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. ¹  He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. ² 

The Lord announced, “I will also spurn Judah, ¹  just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose – both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, “I will live there.” ² 

The Babylonians broke the two bronze pillars in the Lord’s temple, as well as the movable stands and the big bronze basin called the “The Sea.” ¹  They took the bronze to Babylon.

Their relatives, who were leaders of their families, numbered 1,760. They were capable men who were assigned to carry out the various tasks of service in God’s temple. ¹ 

David ordered the resident foreigners in the land of Israel to be called together. He appointed some of them to be stonecutters to chisel stones for the building of God’s temple.

He will build a temple to honor me; ¹  he will become my son, and I will become his father. I will grant to his dynasty permanent rule over Israel.’ ² 

These were the descendants of Levi according to their families, that is, the leaders of families as counted and individually listed who carried out assigned tasks in the Lord’s temple and were twenty years old and up. ¹ 

They were in charge of the meeting tent and the holy place, and helped their relatives, the descendants of Aaron, in the service of the Lord’s temple. ¹ 

This was the order in which they carried out their assigned responsibilities when they entered the Lord’s temple, according to the regulations given them by their ancestor ¹  Aaron, just as the Lord God of Israel had instructed him. ² 

He said to me, ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my temple and my courts, for I have chosen him to become my son and I will become his father.

He gave him ¹  the prescribed weight for all the gold items to be used in various types of service in the Lord’s temple, for all the silver items to be used in various types of service, ² 

They donated for the service of God’s temple 5,000 talents ¹  and ten thousand darics ²  of gold, 10,000 talents of silver, 18,000 talents of bronze, and 100,000 talents of iron.