Chronological

Ahaz’s Sin in the Valley of Ben-hinnom

28 Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. But he did not do what was right in the eyes of Adonai as his father David had done, ² but followed the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made molten images for the Baalim. ³ Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom and burned his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Adonai had driven out before Bnei-Yisrael. ⁴ He offered sacrifices and burned incense in the high places, on the hills and under every leafy tree.

⁵ Therefore Adonai his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram who defeated him and took away from him many prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who inflicted many casualties on him. ⁶ In one day, Pekah the son of Remaliah killed 120,000 valiant soldiers of Judah—because they had forsaken Adonai, the God of their fathers.

Mercy Shown to Judah’s Captives

⁷ Also Zichri, a warrior from Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king’s son, Azrikam the official in charge of the palace and Elkanah the second to the king. ⁸ Men of Israel carried away captive 200,000 of their kinsmen, women, sons and daughters. They also took away a great deal of plunder from them that they brought to Samaria.

⁹ But a prophet of Adonai named Oded was there and he went out to meet the army on its return to Samaria. He said to them, “Behold, because Adonai, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, He has given them into your hand and you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven. ¹⁰ So now you intend to bring into bondage the children of Judah and Jerusalem as your male and female slaves? Are you not also guilty of transgressions against Adonai your God? ¹¹ So now, listen to me. Send back the prisoners you have captured from your kinsmen—for the fierce wrath of Adonai is upon you!”

¹² Then some of the leaders of the sons of Ephraim—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—confronted those coming from the campaign, ¹³ and said to them, “Do not bring the captives in here, for that would cause us to trespass against Adonai. Do you intend to add to our sins and our guilt? For our guilt is already great, and his fierce anger is already against Israel.”

¹⁴ So the soldiers released the captives and the plunder in the presence of the chieftains and the entire congregation. ¹⁵ Then the men designated by name stood up and took the captives, and they clothed all who were naked from the plunder. They gave them clothes and sandals, food and drink, anointed them, led all the feeble ones on donkeys, and brought them back to their kinsmen at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

Ahaz Leads Judah Into Idolatry

¹⁶ About that time King Ahaz sent to the kings of Assyria for help. ¹⁷ Once again the Edomites had come and invaded Judah and taken captives, ¹⁸ while the Philistines had raided the towns in the foothills and in the South of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth-shemesh, Aijalon and Gederot, as well as Soho, Timnah and Gimzo with their villages. ¹⁹ For Adonai humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he threw off restraint in Judah and trespassed against Adonai. ²⁰ Tilgat-pilneser king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him— ²¹ even though Ahaz plundered the House of Adonai, the house of the king and the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria—it did not help him.

²² In his time of distress, this same King Ahaz acted even more unfaithfully to Adonai. ²³ He even sacrificed to the gods of Damascus after he had been defeated, for he said, “Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them and they will help me.” But they caused the downfall of him and all Israel.

²⁴ Ahaz even collected the utensils of the House of God and cut the utensils of the House of God into pieces. He shut the doors of the House of Adonai and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵ In every town of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods—provoking Adonai, the God of his fathers.

²⁶ Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, the first and the last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷ Then Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not brought into the tombs of the kings of Israel. Hezekiah his son became king in his place.

16 In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of King Jotham of Judah, began to reign. ² Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 16 years in Jerusalem. But he did not do what was right in the eyes of Adonai his God, as his father David had done. ³ Instead he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire, like the abominations of the nations whom Adonai had dispossessed before Bnei-Yisrael. ⁴ He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree.

⁵ Then King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of King Remaliah of Israel marched against Jerusalem to wage war. They besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. ⁶ At that time King Rezin of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, and drove the Jews out of Elath. Then the Edomites came to Elath and settled there to this day.

⁷ So Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and deliver me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.” ⁸ Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the House of Adonai and in the treasuries of the royal palace, and sent them as a present to the king of Assyria. ⁹ So the king of Assyria responded to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and captured it, and deported its inhabitants as captives to Kir and put Rezin to death.

Ahaz Remodels the Temple

¹⁰ Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria and saw the altar that was at Damascus. So King Ahaz sent to Urijah the kohen the pattern of the altar and its model needed for its construction. ¹¹ Then Urijah the kohen built an altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, and Urijah the kohen finished it by the time King Ahaz returned from Damascus. ¹² When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, the king approached the altar and went up to it. ¹³ Then he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar. ¹⁴ As for the bronze altar that was before Adonai, he moved it from the forefront of the House, from between his altar and the House of Adonai, and put it on the north side of his own altar.

¹⁵ Then King Ahaz commanded Urijah the kohen saying, “Upon the great altar you will burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering and their drink offering. Also sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifices. But the bronze altar will be for me to inquire by.”

¹⁶ Thus Urijah the kohen did everything just as King Ahaz commanded. ¹⁷ Then King Ahaz cut off the borders of the stands and removed the laver from them. He also took down the sea from the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pavement. ¹⁸ The covered passageway for Shabbat that they had built in the House as well as the outer entry for the king, he removed from the House of Adonai, because of the king of Assyria.

¹⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰ Then Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. Then his son Hezekiah became king in his place.

The Israelites are Deported to Assyria

17 In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. ² He did what was evil in Adonai’s eyes, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. ³ King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched against him, so Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. ⁴ But the king of Assyria caught Hoshea conspiring—he had sent messengers to King So of Egypt, and had not paid the tribute to the king of Assyria as he had done every year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him and put him in prison. ⁵ Then the king of Assyria invaded the entire country, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He placed them in Halah and Habor, on the Gozan River, and in the towns of the Medes. ⁷ Now it was so because the men of Israel had sinned against Adonai their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods. ⁸ Instead they followed the customs of the nations, whom Adonai had dispossessed before Bnei-Yisrael, yet which the kings of Israel practiced. ⁹ Bnei-Yisrael secretly did things against Adonai their God that were not right. They built shrines for themselves in all their settlements—from watchtowers to fortified cities, ¹⁰ and they set up pillars and Asherah poles for themselves on every high hill and under every leafy tree. ¹¹ There they burned incense on all the high places, like the nations whom Adonai had driven out before them. So they did wicked things to provoke Adonai. ¹² They worshipped idols, about which Adonai had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

¹³ Yet Adonai had forewarned Israel and Judah by the hand of every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep My commandments and My statutes, according to all the Torah which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the hand of My servants the prophets.” ¹⁴ Yet they would not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not trust in Adonai their God. ¹⁵ So they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies that He testified against them. Instead they went after futile things and became futile, following the nations that surrounded them, about whom Adonai had charged them not to emulate. ¹⁶ So they abandoned all the mitzvot of Adonai their God. So they made for themselves molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah pole, and bowed down to all the host of heavens, and worshipped Baal, ¹⁷ and they made their sons and daughters pass through the fire, practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in Adonai’s eyes, to provoke Him.

¹⁸ So Adonai became very angry with Israel, and banished them from His presence. There was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.

¹⁹ Even Judah did not keep the mitzvot of Adonai their God, but followed the customs which Israel had practiced. ²⁰ So Adonai spurned all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight.

²¹ When He had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. Then Jeroboam drew Israel away from following Adonai and made them commit a great sin. ²² The men of Israel kept walking in all the sins that Jeroboam committed. They did not turn away from them, ²³ until Adonai banished Israel from His presence, as He spoke by the hand of all His servants the prophets. So Israel has been exiled from their own land to Assyria to this day.

Origin of the Samaritans

²⁴ Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, instead of the men of Israel. So they possessed Samaria and settled in its cities. ²⁵ When they first began dwelling there, they did not fear Adonai—so Adonai sent lions among them, which killed some of them. ²⁶ Then they spoke to the king of Assyria saying, “The nations that you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know the requirement of the God of the land. Therefore He has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them because they don’t know the requirement of the God of the land.”

²⁷ Then the king of Assyria commanded saying, “Send there one of the kohanim whom you have exiled from there. Let them go and live there and teach them the requirement of the God of the land.” ²⁸ So one of the kohanim that had been deported from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Adonai.

²⁹ However, every nation kept making its own gods, and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made—every nation in their cities where they settled. ³⁰ So the people of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the people of Cuth made Nergal, the people of Hamath made Ashima, ³¹ the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. ³² So they feared Adonai, while they also appointed for themselves from among themselves priests of the shrines, who officiated for them in the shrines of the high places. ³³ They continued to fear Adonai, but worshipped their own gods, after the custom of the nations from which they had been deported.

³⁴ Up to this day, they follow their former customs. Nor do they fear Adonai, or follow the statutes, the ordinances, the Torah or the mitzvot that Adonai commanded the children of Jacob—whom He had renamed Israel. ³⁵ With them Adonai had made a covenant, and charged them saying, “You will not fear other gods, or bow down to them, or serve them, or sacrifice to them, ³⁶ but only Adonai, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm—Him will you fear, and to Him will you bow down and to Him will you sacrifice. ³⁷ The statutes and the ordinances, and the Torah and the mitzvah, which He wrote for you, you will take care to do all the time. You are not to fear other gods. ³⁸ The covenant that I have made with you, you will not forget. Nor will you fear other gods, ³⁹ but Adonai your God will you fear. Then He will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”

⁴⁰ Yet they did not listen, but they continued their former practices. ⁴¹ So while these nations feared Adonai, they also worshipped their idols. Their children and grandchildren do as their fathers did to this day.