§  1. About  the  same  time  Pekah  the  king  of
Israel  died,  by  the  treachery  of  a  friend  of  his,
whose  name  was  Hoshea,  who  retained  the  king-
dom nine  years'  time ;  but  was  a  wicked  man,
and  a  dcspiser  of  the  divine  worship  :  and  Shal-
maneser,  the  king  of  Assyria,  made  an  expedition
against  him,  and  overcame  him,  (wliich  must
have  been  because  he  had  not  God  favourable
nor  assistant  to  him,)  and  brought  him  to  sub-
mission, and  ordered  him  to  pay  an  appointed
tribute. Now  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign  of
Hoshea,  Hezekiah,  the  son  of  Ahaz,  began  to
reign  in  Jerusalem  ;  and  his  mother's  name  was
Abijah,  a  citizen  of  Jerusalem. His  nature  was
good,  and  righteous,  and  religious ;  for  when  he
came  to  the  kingdom,  he  thought  that  nothing
was  prior,  or  more  necessary,  or  more  advan-
tageous, to  himself  and  to  his  subjects,  than  to
worship  God. Accordingly,  he  called  the  people
together,  and  the  priests,  and  the  Levites,  and
made  a  speech  to  them,  and  said, — "You  are
not  ignorant  how,  by  the  sins  of  my  father,  who
transgressed  that  sacred  honour  which  was  due
to  God,  you  have  had  experience  of  many  and
great  miseries,  while  you  were  corrupted  iu  your
mind  by  him,  and  were  induced  to  worsliip  those
which  he  supposed  to  be  gods  :  I  exhort  you,
therefore,  who  have  learned  by  sad  experience
how  dangerous  a  thing  impiety  is,  to  put  that
immediately  out  of  your  memory,  and  to  purify
yourselves  from  your  former  pollutions,  and  to
open  the  temple  to  these  priests  and  Levites  who
are  here  convened,  and  to  cleanse  it  with  the
accustomed  sacrifices,  and  to  recover  all  to  the
ancient  honour  which  our  fathers  paid  to  it :
for  by  this  means  we  may  render  God  favour-
able, and  he  wii*  ••emit  the  anger  he  hath  had
to  us."

2. Wlien  the  king  had  ^oid  this,  the  priests
opened  the  temple ;  and  when  they  had  set  in
order  the  vessels  of  God,  and  cast  out  what  was
impure,  they  laid  the  accustomed  sacrifices  upon
the  altar. 