You are going to be unglued after this ❤️❤️❤️

Today’s read is short but you need to sit still for a minute and read every word.  231 days ago you started this read and this just might be one of the hardest reads on your heart and the most uplifting at the same time.

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
  • 2 Kings
  • 2 Chronicles

Four months ago we started the books Chronicles and 3 months ago we started Kings.  We weaved the History books with most of the Minor and Major prophets. Today we are closing out 2 Books as we wrap up the end of the Captivity.  We close both Kings and Chronicles today.

Ok, this visual is amazing!  By the end of the week I will post it in “Printables”.  Take a minute to study this!  Find where we are.  The year is 586 BC.

This is the climax of our Summer reading.  I really have no words.  We can sit here and read it from the view of His chosen people being brought into captivity, the priests watching the Temple being destroyed, the prophets giving their life to warn the people, from Nebuchadnezzar as he takes the land OR  we should look at it from’s God’s view.  Re-read the ending one more time.  God is Love.  People are so undeserving of His promises.  You can read this as the Fall of Jerusalem or you can read this as God made a promise; a covenant that he will never break.

The Fall of Jerusalem

¹⁵ The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. ¹⁶ But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. ¹⁷ He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. ¹⁸ He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. ¹⁹ They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there.

²⁰ He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his successors until the kingdom of Persia came to power. ²¹ The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

²² In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

²³ “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
• 2 Kings
• 2 Chron

On April 9th we read about the Hebrews asking for a king!  116 days ago!!

The Lord WARNED them that it was not what they needed, they needed God to be their King.  They said no thanks, and God gave them what they asked for to show them they were wrong.  That was in 1046 BC.  500 years has passed and we are about to read the last 5 kings of Judah.

Click here if you want to print this one.  But I will post it again this week.

2 Kings 22 “Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years.”  Ok…so you know I need my trusty line graph to prepare myself!  So Manasseh and Amon were his father and grandfather….terrible role models. BUT Josiah comes on the scene at a mere 8 years old so obviously, he wasn’t old enough to follow in their footsteps.  He shoots straight up to the “revival” section…BUT we can see he is the LAST good king…

It saddens me that since Hezekiah the Temple has to be repaired again after the damage Manasseh and Amon did making alters to foreign gods in it.  Young Josiah puts the task to repair the temple when the Book of the Law was found.  WHAT???  I honestly didn’t realize it was lost.

Who remembers when I used to repeat Deuteronomy 17 over and over…What was a King supposed to do??

The King must:

1. He must be the one the Lord chooses
2. He must not multiply his horses for military purposes
3. He must not acquire many wives
4. He must make a copy of the Law and have it with him at all times.  He will read it every day.

So imagine finding the Book of the Law (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and reading ALL that they are not doing according to God’s plan and then realizing that the King should have been reading it every day.  (Kind of like me finding my dusty Bible)

Entering stage left is a prophetess!  Yaaaasssss!  Huldah.  BUT her message was bittersweet.  Judah will be destroyed, but I will wait till after your death to do it.

Chapter 23- It takes 20 verses to describe how many pagan altars Josiah had to demolish in the Temple area.  The only thing he left from the “yester-year” were the bones of the prophets that disobeyed God’s commands in 1 Kings 13.

Josiah makes an atonement for their sins:

²⁰ Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

This was the same atonement that was made when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai to find the people worshiping the golden calf!.

Exodus 32:  ²⁷ Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” ²⁸ The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. ²⁹ Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

NOW let’s start putting all the pieces together.  ALL those prophecy books…all the splintered facts we have…they all fit.  Remember I was talking about the world powers in the prophecy books…who can remember them??

Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.

²⁹ While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

And then finally we read about the next 2 kings…who did evil in the eyes of the Lord…

• Jehoahaz King of Judah
• Jehoiakim King of Judah

2 Chron 34-35-  SOoooo I was a little lazy and read only kings before I wrote this and then I listened to 2 Chronicles.  It’s been a while since we read these side by side and I forget that I like the detail from the Chronicler.  Just know when you read it you are reading it from the Priestly view so you will definitely see more of the Temple’s “workings”.

Thank you for all the encouragement.  I love you guys.-  Patricia Szymanski

• THIS IS A GREAT (but sad) READ
• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
• DO NOT SKIM 2 Kings 17

Look closely at the King’s names for the Kingdom of Israel.  Today is the day we read about Hosea.  The last king In Israel.  

On the Judah side, we are still at Ahaz.

Ahaz (KIng od Judah)–😢

He’s awful! Let’s list a few things: Think about this for a minute.  He lived in the Southern nation, in Jerusalem- where the TEMPLE was located yet he…

• offered pagan sacrifices including sacrificing his own son to foreign gods
  • 2 Chronicles the first 9 verses read like a ‘Cause/Effect’ document in my social studies class.
  • effect-⁵ Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.
• when the king of Aram came to fight Jerusalem who did Ahaz cry out to for help?  The Lord?  NO!!!  To the King of Assyria!
• when Ahaz went to Damascus to pay the king of Aram (with the gold he took from the Temple) he told his priest to sketch their altar of worship so he could build a replica of it and make sacrifices to it
• When he went back to Jerusalem he deconstructed the Temple to look like their temple! Removing parts and rebuilding other parts.  What??

“Listen Linda”, If I were a preacher…I would make a series out of this!  SO MUCH APPLICATION here…and I am guilty of all of it…so let’s move on 😕

Now let’s look at the Northern Tribe (Israel)

Chapter 17…HERE IT IS!  The last king of Israel.  The Israelites are taken captive and removed from the Promised Land!

 ⁵ The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. ⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria.

(Follow the purple lines)

In Deuteronomy 28 God told them if you obey me….if you disobey me.  HE WARNED THEM.  (over and over and over again)  So what did they do? (Basically, I am copying the whole chapter)

⁷ All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

• They worshiped other gods ⁸ and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.
• ⁹ The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right.
• ¹⁰ They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.  
• ¹² They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, “You shall not do this.”

¹³ The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”

• ¹⁴ But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the Lord their God.
• ¹⁵ They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep.
• They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do.”
• ¹⁶ They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole.
• ¹⁷ They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.

(they would put the baby on the statue.  There was a hole in the center that had a fire in it)

¹⁸ So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left…… So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.

To make matters worse:

• ²⁴ The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites.

But they did not know how to worship our God….so Lions ate them.  Ha!  Well, that was freaking them out so they came up with a plan…have one of the captured priests go back and teach them how to worship God.

• ³³ They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
• ⁴⁰ They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. ⁴¹ Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.
  • Hashtag True Story!  Assyria is modern-day Iraq!!

If that post was confusing please let me know. 

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
• Before you even start, you might be able to say to yourself “The book of Kings will talk about BOTH Judah and Israel, but the Chronicles will only talk about____________”

We are going downhill today…

Azariah-King of Judah- (see above)  By the way Azariah also goes by the name Uzziah.  (2 Chron Uzziah is Azariah)  Azariah was one of Judah’s most popular, effective, and influential kings. He expanded Judah’s territories, fortified several Judean cities, including Jerusalem, and reorganized the army.  Unfortunately, Azariah (Uzziah) became proud, and in disobedience, to the Law and performed functions only the priests could perform:

Chron. 26:¹⁶ But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

For this sin God punished him with leprosy

Look at the left column when we talk about the horrible kings of Israel….

Zechariah-King of Israel- Zechariah reigned only six months before Shallum assassinated him. Zechariah was the last king of Jehu’s dynasty. Shallum was the son of Jabesh (not a natural successor.

2 kings 10:30 ““Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” 

Shallum-KIng of Israel- another assassination. So evidently Menaham was not happy about Shallum being the new king.  After all, Menahem was the commander in chief.  He thinks it should have been him.   It’s chaos! Shallum only sat on the throne (meaning kingship, not the toilet) for only 1 month.

Menahem-KIng of Israel- He reigned 10 years but then Pul, king of Assyria attacked the land.  Let me repeat that: the king of Assyria attacked the land!  This is the first mention of Assyrian kings as they have been growing to be a world power.  The year is 742 (only 20 years to go) and we now see this rise in power of the enemy nation beginning to infiltrate the Israelites.  Not good I tell ya!  Not good at all!!

Pekahiah-King of Israel-In 742 B.C., Pekahiah began his two-year reign (742-740 B.C.). It ended when Pekah, one of his military officers, assassinated him in Samaria, in addition to Argob and Arieh, who were probably Israelite princes and influential friends of the king

Pekah-King of Israel “In the time of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser (Pul) king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maakah, Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people to Assyria.

So Pekah made an alliance with Pul, and attacked Judah.  They started deporting people to Assyria?  What? What is beginning to happen here!  (If you have read the Bible already you know…if not you will)

KIng of Judah-Jotham-he is the last “mediocre” king.  After this, we have 2 revival kings and 7 evil kings.  He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years…The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there. Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the temple of the Lord.

Look at your schedule.  Tomorrow we start Isaiah.  Anyone want to take over the blog for Isaiah? 😬

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

So as soon as I see “Amaziah king of Judah” I immediately need to look at my visual”.  The two reads fit like a puzzle piece.  So if you already read and totally got it you can skip today’s post.  It is just a recap of the read.

Amaziah of Judah reigned over Judah for 29 years (796-767 B.C.). He began reigning when Jehoash was king over Israel and died during the reign of Jehoash’s son and successor Jeroboam II.

One of Amaziah’s acts of goodness that the writer of Kings included was his obedience to the Law in the matter of not executing children for their fathers’ crimes (Deut. 24:16). Kings of other ancient Near Eastern countries commonly practiced such executions. Amaziah instead trusted God to control the potential rebels.

Amaziah was victorious over Edom and become prideful. (Have they not learned that any victory they have is from the Lord…oh wait…have I?.  So Amaziah (Judah) picks a fight with Jehoash (Israel).  So like children, they tease each other and Jehoash calls him a little thistle compared to himself as a cedar in Lebanon. (Listen, I am on Summer Break!  I feel like I am back with my school kids!) He warns him not to pick a fight but to just go home.  (In my head I can see people standing around saying “fight fight fight”.”)

God permitted this situation to punish Amaziah because after subduing the Edomites, he had brought some of their idols into Jerusalem and worshipped them. (2 Chron. 25:14, 20)  The army of Israel took Amaziah prisoner.

When Jehoash died, they released Amaziah who returned to Judah. But….we end on a sad note:

From the time that Amaziah turned away from following the Lord, they conspired against him in Jerusalem and he fled to Lachish, (a former royal city) but they sent men after him to Lachish and killed him there. ²⁸ He was brought back by horse and was buried with his ancestors in the City of Judah.

Jeroboam II’s reign of 41 years was the longest in Israel’s history (793-753 B.C.).   

“He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher”.

Soooo guess what book we read tomorrow???  Jonah and the Big Fish God!

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
  • 2 Kings
  • 2 Chronicles

The reading starts with:

In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. ² Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. ³ The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

So we see JERUSALEM and DID RIGHT…therefore we KNOW this must be a king from Judah,  BUT he did not take down the “high places”.  High places were man-made places to make sacrifices, which copied pagan ways, to make sacrifices.  Judah had no excuse to do this since the Temple was in their territory.

Joash was the youngest king to mount Judah’s throne. He began reigning at age seven and ruled for 40 years (835-796 B.C.). His father was Ahaziah, the most recent male ruler of Judah, and his grandmother was Athaliah. Joash was mentored by a priest named Jehoiada.  His claim to fame was bringing the Temple back to the Holy Sanctuary God had intended it to be.  JUST in case you read 2 Kings BUT skimmed 2 Chronicles (who would do that…ummmm me!) I will pull in a line or two that you may have missed.

So why did the temple need repair (besides years of neglect)?

2 Chron 24:7- Now the sons of that wicked woman Athaliah had broken into the temple of God and had used even its sacred objects for the Baals.

Click here for a bigger copy or a printable one of this: you can find her just above Joash on the right side.

Joash started off so strong but he ended on a sour note.  He made 2 big mistakes.  Remember the other day the map of Aram.  Aram wanted to be able to use the coast for trading.  King Hazael of Aram had defeated Israel during the reigns of Jehu and Jehoahaz (chapter 13). He then pressed south along the Mediterranean coast toward Judah. He captured Gath and then sent soldiers against Jerusalem who killed many Judean leaders.

1.  Joash: Rather than turning to God for deliverance, Joash bought Hazael off with gold from the renovated temple. (12:17-18)
2. He went the way of the world and eventually worshiped like they did. I am not kidding, he abandoned the Temple project as well as the Temple itself! (2 Chon 24-17-19 if you want to go back to read it)

2 Kings Chapter 13

Don’t let the names overwhelm you.  Look at the subtitle.  King of Judah or King of Israel.  That will help you.  We are getting close to the end of Israel so you will see them getting weaker and weaker.

⁷ Nothing had been left of the army of Jehoahaz except fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers, for the king of Aram had destroyed the rest and made them like the dust at threshing time.

Follow your King chart, next is Jehoash (Israel side)

Elisha is dying (did anyone stop and think…did he see it coming?)  Jehaosh weeps over this.  Why?   Because Elisha is the only reason they have not fallen into enemy hands.

¹⁴ Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. “My father! My father!” he cried. “The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

Look at some of your visuals.  Now that both Israel and Judah are falling apart, God still loves them so much,  that He is going to start sending prophets with strong messages to try to get them to turn from their evil ways. (peek at the schedule coming up)

Question:  Explain this diagram to me (even though it has not happened yet.)  Why are there little green arrows at 722?  What is the orange?  Why 2 little lines and then one fat orange line?