Abijah Reigns over Judah

13 In the eighteenth year of King Jerobo′am Abi′jah began to reign over Judah. ² He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Micai′ah the daughter of U′riel of Gib′eah.

Now there was war between Abi′jah and Jerobo′am. ³ Abi′jah went out to battle having an army of valiant men of war, four hundred thousand picked men; and Jerobo′am drew up his line of battle against him with eight hundred thousand picked mighty warriors. ⁴ Then Abi′jah stood up on Mount Zemara′im which is in the hill country of E′phraim, and said, “Hear me, O Jerobo′am and all Israel! ⁵ Ought you not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel for ever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt? ⁶ Yet Jerobo′am the son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord; ⁷ and certain worthless scoundrels gathered about him and defied Rehobo′am the son of Solomon, when Rehobo′am was young and irresolute and could not withstand them.

⁸ “And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David, because you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves which Jerobo′am made you for gods. ⁹ Have you not driven out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods. ¹⁰ But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him. We have priests ministering to the Lord who are sons of Aaron, and Levites for their service. ¹¹ They offer to the Lord every morning and every evening burnt offerings and incense of sweet spices, set out the showbread on the table of pure gold, and care for the golden lampstand that its lamps may burn every evening; for we keep the charge of the Lord our God, but you have forsaken him. ¹² Behold, God is with us at our head, and his priests with their battle trumpets to sound the call to battle against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your fathers; for you cannot succeed.”

¹³ Jerobo′am had sent an ambush around to come on them from behind; thus his troops^[a] were in front of Judah, and the ambush was behind them. ¹⁴ And when Judah looked, behold, the battle was before and behind them; and they cried to the Lord, and the priests blew the trumpets. ¹⁵ Then the men of Judah raised the battle shout. And when the men of Judah shouted, God defeated Jerobo′am and all Israel before Abi′jah and Judah. ¹⁶ The men of Israel fled before Judah, and God gave them into their hand. ¹⁷ Abi′jah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; so there fell slain of Israel five hundred thousand picked men. ¹⁸ Thus the men of Israel were subdued at that time, and the men of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord, the God of their fathers. ¹⁹ And Abi′jah pursued Jerobo′am, and took cities from him, Bethel with its villages and Jesha′nah with its villages and Ephron^[b] with its villages. ²⁰ Jerobo′am did not recover his power in the days of Abi′jah; and the Lord smote him, and he died. ²¹ But Abi′jah grew mighty. And he took fourteen wives, and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters. ²² The rest of the acts of Abi′jah, his ways and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.

Asa Reigns

14 ^[c] So Abi′jah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land had rest for ten years. ^2 [d] And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. ³ He took away the foreign altars and the high places, and broke down the pillars and hewed down the Ashe′rim, ⁴ and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to keep the law and the commandment. ⁵ He also took out of all the cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under him. ⁶ He built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest. He had no war in those years, for the Lord gave him peace. ⁷ And he said to Judah, “Let us build these cities, and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars; the land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we have sought him, and he has given us peace on every side.” So they built and prospered. ⁸ And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand from Judah, armed with bucklers and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand men from Benjamin, that carried shields and drew bows; all these were mighty men of valor.

Ethiopian Invasion Repulsed

⁹ Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mare′shah. ¹⁰ And Asa went out to meet him, and they drew up their lines of battle in the valley of Zeph′athah at Mare′shah. ¹¹ And Asa cried to the Lord his God, “O Lord, there is none like thee to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on thee, and in thy name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.” ¹² So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled. ¹³ Asa and the people that were with him pursued them as far as Gerar, and the Ethiopians fell until none remained alive; for they were broken before the Lord and his army. The men of Judah^[e] carried away very much booty. ¹⁴ And they smote all the cities round about Gerar, for the fear of the Lord was upon them. They plundered all the cities, for there was much plunder in them. ¹⁵ And they smote the tents of those who had cattle,^[f] and carried away sheep in abundance and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

15 The Spirit of God came upon Azari′ah the son of Oded, ² and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. ³ For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law; ⁴ but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. ⁵ In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. ⁶ They were broken in pieces, nation against nation and city against city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. ⁷ But you, take courage! Do not let you hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

⁸ When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azari′ah the son of Oded,^[g] he took courage, and put away the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken in the hill country of E′phraim, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the Lord.^{[h] 9} And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from E′phraim, Manas′seh, and Simeon who were sojourning with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. ¹⁰ They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. ¹¹ They sacrificed to the Lord on that day, from the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. ¹² And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul; ¹³ and that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. ¹⁴ They took oath to the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with horns. ¹⁵ And all Judah rejoiced over the oath; for they had sworn with all their heart, and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest round about.

¹⁶ Even Ma′acah, his mother, King Asa removed from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Ashe′rah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the brook Kidron. ¹⁷ But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was blameless all his days. ¹⁸ And he brought into the house of God the votive gifts of his father and his own votive gifts, silver, and gold, and vessels. ¹⁹ And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.

God’s Election of Israel

9 I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; ⁵ to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.^[a] Amen.

⁶ But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, ⁷ and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” ⁸ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants. ⁹ For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰ And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, ¹¹ though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, ¹² she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” ¹³ As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴ What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶ So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸ So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills.

God’s Wrath and Mercy

¹⁹ You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”^{[b] 20} But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” ²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? ²² What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴ even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

²⁵ As indeed he says in Hose′a,

²⁷ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; ²⁸ for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch.” ²⁹ And as Isaiah predicted,

Israel’s Unbelief

³⁰ What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; ³¹ but that Israel who pursued the righteousness which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. ³² Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³ as it is written,