Judah’s King Amaziah

25 Amaziah(A) became king when he was 25 years old and reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem. He did what was right in the Lord’s sight but not wholeheartedly.(B)

As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp,[a] he executed his servants who had murdered his father the king. However, he did not put their children to death, because—as it is written in the Law, in the book of Moses,(C) where the Lord commanded—“Fathers must not die because of children, and children must not die because of fathers, but each one will die for his own sin.”(D)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 2 Chronicles 25:3 LXX, Syr; MT reads was strong on him; 1Kg 14:4

Amaziah Rules in Judah

25 Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Jehoaddin[a] from Jerusalem. Amaziah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, but not wholeheartedly.

When Amaziah was well established as king, he executed the officials who had assassinated his father. However, he did not kill the children of the assassins, for he obeyed the command of the Lord as written by Moses in the Book of the Law: “Parents must not be put to death for the sins of their children, nor children for the sins of their parents. Those deserving to die must be put to death for their own crimes.”[b]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 25:1 As in parallel text at 2 Kgs 14:2; Hebrew reads Jehoaddan, a variant spelling of Jehoaddin.
  2. 25:4 Deut 24:16.