3rd Ezra 1

CHAPTER 1

¹And Josiah made pask in Jerusalem to the Lord, and he offered pask the fourteenth day of the month of the first month,

²ordaining priests by their whiles of days, clothed in stoles, or long clothes , in the temple of the Lord.

³And he said to the deacons [or Levites] , the holy servants of Israel, that they should hallow themselves to the Lord, in setting of the holy ark of the Lord in the house, that king Solomon, the son of David, builded;

⁴It shall not be to you no more to take it upon shoulders; and now serveth to our Lord, and do ye care of that folk of Israel, of the part after towns, and their lineages,

⁵after the writing of David, king of Israel, and after the great worshipful doing of Solomon, his son, in all the temple, and after your little fathers part of princehood of them, that stand in the sight of the brethren of the sons of Israel.

⁶Offer ye pask, and maketh ready the sacrifices to your brethren; and do ye after the behest of the Lord, that is given to Moses.

⁷And Josiah gave to the folk that was found there , sheep, of lambs, and of kids, and of she-goats, thirty thousand; calves, three thousand.

⁸These gifts be given of the king’s own things, after the behest of the Lord to the people, and to priests, into pask; sheep in number two thousand, and calves an hundred.

⁹And Jeconiah, and Samaeas, and Nathanael, his brother, and Sabias, and Ochiel, and Joram, gave into pask, five thousand sheep, and five hundred calves.

¹⁰And when these things were nobly done, the priests and deacons [or Levites] stood, having therf loaves by lineages.

¹¹And after the parts of the prince-hood of fathers, they offered to the Lord in the sight of the people, after those things that be written in the book of Moses.

¹²And they roasted the pask with fire, as it behooved; and they soddened hosts in seething vessels and in pots, with well-willing.

¹³And they brought it to all that there were of the folk; and after these things they made ready to themselves and to priests.

¹⁴Forsooth the priests offered inner fatness [or tallow] , unto the hour was ended; and deacons prepared [or Levites made ready] to themselves, and to their brethren, and to the sons of Aaron.

¹⁵And men sacrificing [or the sacrificers] offered their daughters, after the order and the behests of David; and Asaph, and Zechariah, and Eddinus, that was of the king;

¹⁶and the porters by all the gates offered , so that none passed his gate . Forsooth their brethren prepared to them.

¹⁷And so those things, that pertained to the sacrifice of the Lord, be ended. In that day they did pask,

¹⁸and offered hosts upon the sacrifice of the Lord, after the behest of king Josiah.

¹⁹And the sons of Israel, that were found present , did in that time pask, and the feast day of therf loaves by seven days.

²⁰And there was not solemnized such a pask in Israel, from the times of Samuel, the prophet.

²¹And all the kings of Israel hallowed not such a pask, as did Josiah, and the priests, and deacons [or Levites] , and Jews, and all Israel, that were found in the commemoration, or mind -making , at Jerusalem.

²²In the eighteenth year, Josiah reigning, this pask was hallowed.

²³And the works of Josiah be made right in the sight of the Lord, in full dreading heart;

²⁴and those things forsooth that were about him be written, in the rather times of them that sinned, and the which were unreligious against the Lord, before, or more than , all heathen folk, and the which sinners sought not the words of the Lord upon Israel.

²⁵And after all this deed of Josiah, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, went up, coming to cast away in Carchemish upon Euphrates; and Josiah went into meeting to him.

²⁶And the king of Egypt sent to Josiah, saying, What is to me and to thee, king of Judea?

²⁷I am not sent of the Lord, upon Euphrates forsooth is my battle; hastily therefore go down.

²⁸And Josiah was not turned again upon the chariot, but he enforced him to overcome Pharaoh, not taking heed to the word of the prophet, from the mouth of the Lord;

²⁹but he set to him battle in the field of Megiddo; and princes came down to king Josiah.

³⁰And then the king said to his children, Moveth me away from the battle; forsooth I am greatly made sick. And anon his children moved him away from the battle array.

³¹And he went up upon his secondary chariot; and coming to Jerusalem, he died, and was buried in his father’s sepulchre.

³²And in all Judah they bewailed Josiah, and they that before-set with wives, wailed him unto this day; and this is granted to be done evermore in all the kindred of Israel.

³³These things forsooth be written in the book of stories of kings of Judah, and the glory of Josiah, and his understanding in the law of God, by all deeds of the doing of him; for evenly those were done of him, and the which be not written in the book of kings of Israel and of Judah.

³⁴And they that were of the kindred took Jeconiah, the son of Josiah, and set him king for Josiah, his father, when he was of three and thirty years.

³⁵And he reigned upon Israel three months; and then the king of Egypt put him away, that he reigned not in Jerusalem.

³⁶And he polled the folk of an hundred talents of silver, and of a talent of gold.

³⁷And the king of Egypt set Jehoiakim, his brother, king of Judea and of Jerusalem;

³⁸and he bound the master judges of Jehoiakim, and taking Zarius, his brother, he brought him again to or out of Egypt.

³⁹Jehoiakim was of five and twenty years, when he reigned in the land of Judah and of Jerusalem; and he did evil things in the sight of the Lord.

⁴⁰After this forsooth Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, went up, and binding Jehoiakim in a strong bond, brought him into Babylon;

⁴¹and Nebuchadnezzar took and brought the holy vessels of God, and made sacred those in his temple in Babylon.

⁴²Forsooth of his uncleanness and unreligiosity it is written in the book of the times of kings.

⁴³And Jehoiachin, his son, reigned for him; when forsooth he was ordained king , he was of eighteen years.

⁴⁴Forsooth he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem; and did evil in sight of the Lord.

⁴⁵And after a year Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him over into Babylon, together with the sacred vessels of the Lord.

⁴⁶And he set Zedekiah king of Judah and of Jerusalem, when he was of one and twenty years. Forsooth he reigned eleven years;

⁴⁷and he did evil in sight of the Lord, and was not adread of the words that be said of Jeremy, the prophet, from the mouth of the Lord.

⁴⁸And he adjured, or charged by oath , of king Nebuchadnezzar, for-sworn went away, and his noll made hard, he over-passed the lawful things of the Lord God of Israel.

⁴⁹And the dukes of the Lord’s people bare them wickedly many things, and they did unpiously over all the wickednesses [or the unclean-nesses] of Gentiles; and they defouled the temple of the Lord, that was holy in Jerusalem.

⁵⁰And God of their fathers sent by his angel to again-call them, for the which thing he spared to them, and to their tabernacles [or their tabernacle] .

⁵¹They forsooth scorned in their corners, and that day that the Lord spake, they were bobbing his prophets.

⁵²The which Lord is stirred to wrath upon his folk, for their irreligiosity. And the kings of Chaldees commanded, and went up,

⁵³they slew the young men of them with sword, about [or in the environ of] the holy temple of them; and they spared not to young man, nor to maiden, nor to old man, and to full waxen man; but also all they be taken into the hands of them;

⁵⁴and they took all the sacred vessels of the Lord, and the king’s coffers, and brought those into Babylon.

⁵⁵And they burned up the house of the Lord, and destroyed the walls of Jerusalem, and they burned his towers with fire.

⁵⁶And they wasted all the worship-ful things, and brought them to nought; and they brought the people left of the sword into Babylon.

⁵⁷And they were his thralls, unto the time that Persians reigned, in the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, in the mouth of Jeremy;

⁵⁸till that the land would do benignly their sabbaths, he sabbatized all the time of their forsaking, in the applying of seventy years.