And he brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the east street,
The east street - the court of the priests, which fronted the eastern gate of the temple. Assembling the priests and Levites there, he enjoined them to set about the immediate purification of the temple. It does not appear that the order referred to the removal of idols, because objects of idolatrous homage could scarcely have been put there, seeing the doors had been shut up; but in its forsaken and desolate state the temple and its courts had been polluted by every kind of impurities.