For they could not keep it in its time; because there were not priests enough sanctified, and the people was not as yet gathered together to Jerusalem.
But the priests were few, and were not enough to flay the holocausts. Wherefore the Levites their brethren helped them, till the work was ended, and priests were sanctified. For the Levites are sanctified with an easier rite than the priests.
The first month, the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the same month in the evening.
And they began to cleanse on the first day of the first month; and on the eighth day of the same month they came into the porch of the temple of the Lord. And they purified the temple in eight days; and on the sixteenth day of the same month they finished what they had begun.
And they immolated the phase on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites being at length sanctified offered holocausts in the house of the Lord.
For Ezechias the king of Juda had given to the multitude a thousand bullocks, and seven thousand sheep: and the princes had given the people a thousand bullocks, and ten thousand sheep. And a great number of priests was sanctified.