While they were bringing out the silver that had been brought into the House of Adonai, Hilkiah the kohen found a Torah scroll of Adonai given by Moses.
When they had called to the king, Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the royal palace, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, came out to them.
Now it came to pass, when the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and he had become strong, that he and all Israel with him forsook the Torah of Adonai.
Moreover, he commanded the people, the residents of Jerusalem, to give the portion allotted to the kohanim and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to the Torah of Adonai.
They came to Hilkiah the kohen gadol and handed over the silver money that was brought into the House of God, which the Levites, the gatekeepers, had collected from Manasseh, Ephraim and all the remnant of Israel, as well as from all Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw, and as chaff collapses into the flame, so their root will be like rot, and their blossom will go up like dust. For they have rejected the Torah of Adonai–Tzva’ot, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
This book of the Torah should not depart from your mouth—you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. For then you will make your ways prosperous and then you will be successful.