¹⁶ But as soon as he became powerful, he grew so arrogant that he acted corruptly. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God by entering the Lord’s sanctuary to burn incense upon the incense altar. ¹⁷ The priest Azariah, accompanied by eighty other of the Lord’s courageous priests, went in after him ¹⁸ and confronted King Uzziah.

“You have no right, Uzziah,” he said, “to burn incense to the Lord! That privilege belongs to the priests, Aaron’s descendants, who have been ordained to burn incense. Get out of this holy place because you have been unfaithful! The Lord God won’t honor you for this.”

¹⁹ Then Uzziah, who already had a censer in his hand ready to burn the incense, became angry. While he was fuming at the priests, skin disease^[a] erupted on his forehead in the presence of the priests before the incense altar in the Lord’s temple. ²⁰ When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests turned and saw the skin disease on his forehead, they rushed him out of there. Uzziah also was anxious to leave because the Lord had afflicted him. ²¹ King Uzziah had skin disease until the day he died. He lived in a separate house,^[b] diseased in his skin, because he was barred from the Lord’s temple. His son Jotham supervised the palace administration and governed the people of the land. ²² The rest of Uzziah’s deeds, from beginning to end, were written down by the prophet Isaiah, Amoz’s son. ²³ Uzziah died and was buried with his ancestors in a field belonging to the kings, because people said, “He had skin disease.” His son Jotham succeeded him as king.