Beginning

Abijah, King of Judah^(A)

13 In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king of Judah. ² He reigned for three years in Judah, and his mother’s name was Micaiah,^[a] the granddaughter of Uriel of Gibeah.

And there was a war between Abijah and Jeroboam. ³ Abijah set the battle in order with an army of valiant men of war, four hundred thousand choice men. Jeroboam also drew up battle lines against him with an army of eight hundred thousand men, mighty men of valor.

⁴ Then Abijah went up to Mount Zemaraim that is in the hills of Ephraim, and he said, “Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel! ⁵ Do you all not know that the Lord God of Israel has perpetually given the kingdom of Israel to David, even to him and to his sons with a covenant of salt? ⁶ And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon son of David, stood up and rebelled against his lord Rehoboam. ⁷ Then vain, worthless men gathered together around him and defied Rehoboam son of Solomon. And Rehoboam was young and timid in heart and was not strong before them.

⁸ “And now you think that you can withstand before the kingdom of the Lord by the hand of the sons of David. And you all are a great multitude, and with you are the golden calves that Jeroboam has made for you to be gods. ⁹ Have you all not driven out the priests of the Lord, even the Levites and sons of Aaron, and made for yourselves priests from the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to be dedicated and has in his hand a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest to what is not a god.

¹⁰ “But for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not abandoned Him. And our priests serve the Lord and are sons of Aaron, Levites with their service. ¹¹ They sacrifice burnt offerings to the Lord every morning and evening and put out an incense of spices. They also set the showbread in place on the ritual table and set the golden lampstand with its lamps to burn every evening. For we keep the duty of the Lord our God, but you all have abandoned Him. ¹² God is with us as a leader, and His priests with their battle trumpets to call for battle against you all. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the Lord the God of your fathers because you will not find success.”

¹³ So Jeroboam went around them with an ambush to come from behind them. Those from Israel were in front of Judah, while the ambush was behind them. ¹⁴ Then Judah turned and saw that the battle was both in front of and behind them. Then they cried out to the Lord, and the priests sounded their trumpets. ¹⁵ Then the men from Judah shouted out; and it happened when Judah shouted out, God struck down Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. ¹⁶ The men of Israel fled before Judah, and God gave them into their hand. ¹⁷ Abijah and his people struck them down with a great slaughter, and the slain from Israel who fell that day were five hundred thousand choice men. ¹⁸ So the sons of Israel were subdued at that time, and the people of Judah were strong for they depended on the Lord God of their fathers.

¹⁹ And Abijah chased after Jeroboam and captured cities from him: Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron with their surrounding villages. ²⁰ And Jeroboam did not again recover his strength in the days of Abijah, and the Lord struck down Jeroboam, and he died.

²¹ So Abijah grew strong and took fourteen wives and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²² And the remainder of the acts of Abijah, both his ways and words, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.

14 And Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David. Asa his son then reigned in his place. In his days the land was quiet for ten years.

Asa, King of Judah^(B)

² Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. ³ He took down the foreign altars and high places, and he shattered the pillars and cut down the images of Asherah. ⁴ Then he urged Judah to seek the Lord the God of their fathers and to keep the law and commandments. ⁵ And he also removed all the high places and incense altars in the cities in Judah. And the kingdom was at rest under Asa. ⁶ He built fortified cities in Judah because the land was quiet; and there was no war in these years, for the Lord gave peace to him.

⁷ And he said to Judah, “Let us build up these cities and let us surround them with walls, towers, gates, and bars for the land before us is still ours because we have sought after the Lord our God. We have sought Him, and He has given us peace all around.” So they built and had success.

⁸ And it happened that Asa had an army from Judah carrying large shields and spears numbering three hundred thousand. And from Benjamin he had an army carrying shields and bows numbering two hundred eighty thousand. All of these were mighty men of valor.

⁹ But Zerah the Ethiopian Cushite came out against them with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots. And he came up to Mareshah. ¹⁰ Then Asa went out to engage him, and they arranged for battle in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.

¹¹ And Asa cried out the Lord his God, and said, “Lord, it is nothing with You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power. Help us, O Lord our God; for we trust in You, and in Your name we come against this multitude. O Lord, You are our God. Let no man prevail against You.”

¹² So the Lord struck down the Ethiopian Cushites before Asa and Judah, and the Cushites fled. ¹³ Then Asa and those with him pursued them until Gerar. And the Cushites fell till there was not one left alive because they were struck down before the Lord and His army. And those in Judah carried off a very great plunder. ¹⁴ And they struck down all the cities surrounding Gerar because the terror of the Lord was on them. And they plundered all the cities because there was a great amount of possessions in them. ¹⁵ And they also struck the tents holding livestock, and they carried off sheep and a great amount of camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

The Reforms of Asa^(C)

15 Then the Spirit of God came on Azariah the son of Oded, ² and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you all seek Him, He will be found with you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. ³ For a long time Israel has been without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, ⁴ but when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found by them. ⁵ And at that time there was no peace to the one traveling in or out because there was a great panic on all those who dwelt in the land. ⁶ They were broken to pieces, nation against nation and city against city, because God confused them with every type of distress. ⁷ But you all must be strong and not lose heart, for there is a reward for your deeds.”

⁸ And when Asa heard these words of the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he was encouraged and removed the detestable idols from the entire land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities that he captured in the hills of Ephraim. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord.

⁹ And he gathered together all of Judah and Benjamin and those who had settled among them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, for these had come down to him from Israel in a great number when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

¹⁰ These were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month in the fifteenth year in the reign of Asa. ¹¹ They sacrificed to the Lord that day from the plunder that they brought in, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. ¹² And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and soul. ¹³ But whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel would be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. ¹⁴ They swore an oath to the Lord in a loud voice, with shouting, trumpets, and horns. ¹⁵ And all Judah rejoiced over this oath because they swore with their whole heart and they sought Him with all their desire; and He was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.

¹⁶ King Asa even removed his mother Maakah from being queen mother because she had made a detestable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it in the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷ But they did not remove the high places from Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly committed all his days. ¹⁸ He brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts—silver, gold, and utensils.

¹⁹ And there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.

Asa’s Last Years^(D)

16 But in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Ramah and did not allow anyone to come in or go out to Asa king of Judah.

² Then Asa removed silver and gold from the storehouses of the house of the Lord and palace of the king, and he sent it to Ben-Hadad king of Aram in Syria, who lived in Damascus, saying, ³ “There is a covenant between me and you as between my father and your father. I am sending you silver and gold. Go and break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel so that he might leave me.”

⁴ And Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa, and he sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. They struck down Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the depot cities of Naphtali. ⁵ And it happened when Baasha heard this, that he stopped building Ramah and he ceased his work. ⁶ Then King Asa took all of Judah, and they took the stones of Ramah and its timber that Baasha had used to build, and he built with them Geba and Mizpah.

⁷ And at that time Hanani the seer came to King Asa of Judah saying, “Because you depended on the king of Aram and did not depend on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram escaped from your hand. ⁸ Were not the Cushites and Libyans a very large army with chariots and horses, but when you depended on the Lord, He gave them to your hand. ⁹ For the eyes of the Lord move about on all the earth to strengthen the heart that is completely toward Him. You have acted foolishly in this, and from this point forward you will have wars.”

¹⁰ Then Asa was angry with the seer and placed him in prison stocks, for he was enraged by these words. Asa even oppressed some of the people during this time.

The Death of Asa

¹¹ The events of Asa from beginning to end are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ¹² In the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Asa, he had a sickness in his feet until his sickness became grave. Even in his disease he did not seek after the Lord, but the physicians. ¹³ So Asa slept with his fathers; he died in the forty-first year of his reign. ¹⁴ And they buried him in the tomb that he cut for himself in the City of David. And they placed him on a place filled with all types of spices mixed with ointments, and then they burned him up with a very great conflagration.

Jehoshaphat, King of Judah

17 Then Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place, and he grew strong against Israel. ² He put an army in all the fortified cities of Judah and set military garrisons in the land of Judah, even in the cities of Ephraim that Asa his father had captured.

³ Now the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, for he walked in the previous ways of David his father, and he did not seek out the Baal cult. ⁴ For he sought out the God of his fathers and walked in his commandments, rather than the deeds of Israel. ⁵ So the Lord made firm the kingdom in his hand, and all Judah gave a tribute to Jehoshaphat. So he had an abundance of riches and honor. ⁶ His heart was raised up for the ways of the Lord. He even removed the high places and Asherah poles from Judah.

⁷ In the third year of his reign he sent officials, Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah, to teach in the cities of Jerusalem, ⁸ and with them were also the Levites: Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tob-Adonijah, who were Levites. And with these were also Elishama and Jehoram, who were priests. ⁹ They taught the people in Judah, and they used the Book of the Law of the Lord and they traveled about all the cities of Judah and taught the people.

¹⁰ The terror of the Lord came on all the kingdoms of the land that surrounded Judah, and they did not bring war against Jehoshaphat. ¹¹ Some from the Philistine peoples brought gifts to Jehoshaphat such as silver for tribute. The Arabians even brought seven thousand seven hundred rams and seven thousand seven hundred goats to him.

¹² Jehoshaphat continued to increase in greatness, and he built citadels and storehouses in Judah. ¹³ And he had much property in the cities of Judah, and the men of war, mighty men of valor, were in Jerusalem. ¹⁴ This was their divisions by the houses of their father:

¹⁹ These were serving the king in addition to those the king placed in the fortified cities throughout Judah.