Othniel Becomes Israel’s Judge

⁷ The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles.

¹³ Instead, you must break down their pagan altars, smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherah poles.

¹⁹ Manasseh’s prayer, the account of the way God answered him, and an account of all his sins and unfaithfulness are recorded in The Record of the Seers.^[a] It includes a list of the locations where he built pagan shrines and set up Asherah poles and idols before he humbled himself and repented.

³ He rebuilt the pagan shrines his father, Hezekiah, had broken down. He constructed altars for the images of Baal and set up Asherah poles. He also bowed before all the powers of the heavens and worshiped them.

¹⁸ They decided to abandon the Temple of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and they worshiped Asherah poles and idols instead! Because of this sin, divine anger fell on Judah and Jerusalem.

¹⁶ King Asa even deposed his grandmother^[a] Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made an obscene Asherah pole. He cut down her obscene pole, broke it up, and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

¹⁴ He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles. Then he desecrated these places by scattering human bones over them.

⁶ The king removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s Temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. Then he ground the ashes of the pole to dust and threw the dust over the graves of the people.

¹⁹ Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who are supported by Jezebel.^[a]”

³³ Then he set up an Asherah pole. He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the other kings of Israel before him.