Chronological

Ahaz rules Judah as king

28 Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king. He ruled Judah as king in Jerusalem for 16 years. He did not do the things that the Lord said were good. So he was not like his ancestor, King David.^[a]

² He lived in the same bad way that the kings of Israel did. He also used metal to make images of the god Baal. ³ He offered sacrifices in Ben-Hinnom Valley. He even caused his sons to walk through fire.^[b] In this way he copied the terrible sins of the other nations in Canaan. Those were the nations that the Lord had chased out so that the Israelites could live there. ⁴ Ahaz offered sacrifices and he burned incense on altars on the hills, as well as under all the big trees.

God punishes King Ahaz

⁵ Because of this, the Lord his God put Ahaz under the power of the king of Syria. Syria's army won a battle against Ahaz's men. The king of Syria took many of Ahaz's people to Damascus as his prisoners.^[c]

The Lord also allowed the king of Israel to attack Ahaz. Israel's soldiers completely won the battle against Ahaz. ⁶ In one day, King Pekah of Israel, Remaliah's son, killed 120,000 of Judah's best soldiers. God punished the people of Judah because they had turned away from the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

⁷ Zikri, a brave soldier from Ephraim's tribe, killed Maaseiah, King Ahaz's son. He also killed Azrikam, the officer with authority over the king's palace, and Elkanah, the king's most important officer. ⁸ The Israelites took hold of 200,000 wives, sons and daughters of Judah's soldiers. They took them as their prisoners, even though they were their relatives. They also carried away to Samaria a lot of valuable things.

⁹ Oded, a prophet of the Lord, lived there. He went to meet Israel's soldiers when they arrived back in Samaria. He said to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah's people. So he let you have power over them to punish them. But you have killed them in a very cruel way. God in heaven has seen what you have done. ¹⁰ Now you want to use the men and women from Judah and Jerusalem as your slaves. So you yourselves are guilty of sins against the Lord your God. ¹¹ Now listen to me! The Lord is very angry with you. So you must send back the prisoners that you have brought here from Judah. Remember that they are your relatives.’

¹² Then some family leaders of Ephraim warned the soldiers who were returning from the battle against Judah. The leaders' names were: Jehohanan's son Azariah, Meshillemoth's son Berekiah, Shallum's son Jehizkiah and Hadlai's son Amasa. ¹³ They said to the soldiers, ‘You must not bring your prisoners here! If you do, we will be guilty of even more sins against the Lord. The Lord is already angry with us people of Israel because we are guilty. Do not make it worse.’

¹⁴ So the soldiers let their prisoners go free. They gave the people and the things that they had brought from Judah to the leaders and the other people. ¹⁵ The leaders found clothes for each of the prisoners who had no clothes. They gave the prisoners clothes, shoes, food and drink, as well as oil to put on their skin. They took all these things from the things that the soldiers had brought from Judah. They put the prisoners who were too weak to walk on donkeys. Then they took them back to their relatives in Jericho, the city with many palm trees. After that, the Israelite leaders returned to Samaria.

Ahaz asks the king of Assyria for help

¹⁶ At that time, King Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help. ¹⁷ Soldiers from Edom had attacked Judah again. They had taken people away as their prisoners. ¹⁸ Philistine soldiers had also attacked towns in the low hills in the west of Judah and in the Negev in the south. They took these towns for themselves and they lived in them:

¹⁹ The Lord caused a lot of trouble for Judah's people because of their king, Ahaz. He turned away from the Lord and he allowed his people to do wicked things.

²⁰ King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria came to Ahaz. But he did not help Ahaz. Instead, he caused trouble. ²¹ Ahaz took valuable things from the Lord's temple, from the king's palace and from his officers. He gave those things to the king of Assyria. But the king of Assyria still did not help him.

King Ahaz's sins

²² During this time of trouble, King Ahaz did even more bad things against the Lord. ²³ He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus. He thought that those gods had helped the kings of Syria to win the wars against him. He thought, ‘If I offer sacrifices to them, perhaps they will help me too.’ But that sin caused a lot of trouble for King Ahaz and for his nation.

²⁴ Ahaz took away all the things that were in God's temple. He broke them into pieces. He shut the doors of the temple so that nobody could go in. He built altars for himself at the corner of every street in Jerusalem. ²⁵ He built altars in every town in Judah to offer sacrifices to other gods. In that way he made the Lord, the God of his ancestors, very angry.

Ahaz dies

²⁶ All the other things that happened while Ahaz was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of the kings of Judah and Israel’. It tells about all the things that Ahaz did. ²⁷ Ahaz died and his people buried him in the City of David. But they did not bury him near the graves of Israel's kings.

His son Hezekiah became king after him.

Ahaz becomes the king of Judah

16 Jotham's son Ahaz became the king of Judah when Remaliah's son Pekah had been king of Israel for 17 years. ² Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king. He ruled Judah as king in Jerusalem for 16 years. He did not do the things that the Lord his God said were good. So he was not like his ancestor, King David. ³ He lived in the same bad way that the kings of Israel did. He even caused his son to walk through fire.^[a] In this way he copied the terrible sins of the other nations in Canaan. Those were the nations that the Lord had chased out so that the Israelites could live there. ⁴ Ahaz offered sacrifices and he burned incense on altars on the hills, as well as under all the big trees.

⁵ At that time, King Rezin of Syria and Remaliah's son, King Pekah of Israel, attacked Jerusalem. Their armies made a camp all around the city while Ahaz was there. But they could not win the battle against him. ⁶ (At the same time, King Rezin got Elath town back for Syria. He chased out the people of Judah who were living there. People from Edom then moved into Elath, and they are still living there.)

⁷ King Ahaz sent a message to Tiglath-Pileser, the king of Assyria. He said, ‘I am your servant and I need your help. The king of Syria and the king of Israel have brought their armies to attack me in Jerusalem. Please come here to rescue me.’^{[b] 8} Ahaz took the silver and gold things that were stored in the Lord's temple and in the palace. He sent them all as a gift to the king of Assyria. ⁹ So the king of Assyria agreed to do what Ahaz had asked him to do. He attacked Damascus and he took the city for himself.^[c] He sent the people who had lived there to Kir as his prisoners. He punished King Rezin with death.

¹⁰ King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria. When he was there, he saw an altar. He sent a picture and a plan of the altar to Uriah, the priest, so that someone could build one for him. ¹¹ So Uriah built an altar that copied the plan that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. Uriah finished it before King Ahaz returned. ¹² When the king arrived in Jerusalem from Damascus, he saw the new altar. He went near it to offer sacrifices on it.

¹³ He made a burnt offering and a grain offering. He poured wine as a drink offering. He splashed the blood from his peace offerings onto the altar.

¹⁴ A bronze altar stood in front of the Lord's temple to bring sacrifices to him. Now it stood between the new altar and the front of the temple. So Ahaz moved it away from there. He put it on the north side of the new altar. ¹⁵ Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, ‘On the large new altar, offer these gifts:

Splash the blood from all these sacrifices on the new altar. But I will use the bronze altar myself, to find out about my future times.’

¹⁶ So Uriah the priest did what King Ahaz had commanded him to do.

¹⁷ King Ahaz also removed the pieces on the sides of the carts which carried the buckets for water. He also removed the buckets. He took the large bath called ‘the Sea’ from the top of the bronze bulls that it stood on. He stood it on a big flat stone instead.^{[d] 18} He removed the roof that gave shade for people in the temple yard on the Sabbath days. He also removed the king's special entrance into the temple yard. He did these things to please the king of Assyria.

¹⁹ The other things that happened while Ahaz was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about the things that Ahaz did. ²⁰ Ahaz died and they buried him beside his ancestors in the City of David. His son Hezekiah became king after him.

Hoshea becomes the last king of Israel

17 Elah's son Hoshea became the king of Israel when Ahaz had been king of Judah for 12 years. Hoshea ruled Israel as king in Samaria for nine years. ² Hoshea did things that the Lord said were evil. But he was not as wicked as the kings of Israel who lived before him. ³ Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, came to attack Hoshea in Samaria. Hoshea agreed to accept Shalmaneser's authority. Israel had to pay a lot of money as taxes to Shalmaneser each year.

⁴ Then King Shalmaneser discovered that Hoshea had decided to turn against him. Hoshea had sent a message to So, the king of Egypt, to ask for his help. He had also refused to send the taxes for that year to the king of Assyria. So King Shalmaneser took hold of Hoshea and he put him in prison. ⁵ The king of Assyria took his army and he marched through all the land of Israel. He attacked Samaria. His army made their camp around the city for three years.

⁶ When Hoshea had been king of Israel for nine years, the king of Assyria won the war against Samaria. He took the Israelites away to Assyria as his prisoners. He caused them to live in Halah, in Gozan beside the River Habor and in towns in Media.

Why the Lord punished Israel

⁷ All this happened because the Israelites did bad things against the Lord, their God. The Lord had brought them safely out of Egypt. He had rescued them from the power of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. But now they worshipped other gods. ⁸ They did the same bad things that the nations that lived in Canaan did. The Lord had chased those nations out of Canaan so that the Israelites could live there. The Israelites copied the bad things that the kings of Israel were doing. ⁹ They secretly did things that the Lord their God said were not right. In all their towns, they built altars to worship false gods. They built them everywhere, in small villages and in strong cities. ¹⁰ They put up stone pillars and Asherah poles to worship their gods. They put them on top of all the high hills and under all the big trees. ¹¹ At all those places they burned incense to worship their gods, as the nations in Canaan had done. The Lord had chased those nations out of Canaan so that the Israelites could live there. The Israelites did evil things that made the Lord very angry. ¹² They refused to obey the Lord's command and they worshipped useless idols.

¹³ The Lord had used his prophets and his other servants to warn the people of Israel and Judah. He told them, ‘Stop living in an evil way. Obey my Law, with its commands and its rules. I gave my Law to your ancestors so that they would obey it. I also used my servants, the prophets, to teach it to you.’

¹⁴ But the Israelites would not agree to obey God's Law. They were proud and they refused to obey. Like their ancestors, they did not trust in the Lord their God. ¹⁵ They did not obey God's rules. They did not accept the covenant that he had made with their ancestors. They did not listen when he warned them. Instead, they worshipped useless idols, which caused them to become useless themselves. The Lord had commanded them not to live in the same way that the nations around them did. But they did that anyway. ¹⁶ They turned away from all the commands of the Lord their God. They used metal to make images of two calves as their idols. They also made an Asherah pole to worship. They worshipped all the stars in the sky and they served Baal. ¹⁷ They burned their sons and their daughters in fire as offerings to Baal. They used magic to find out what would happen in the future. They chose to do things that the Lord said were evil. That made him very angry.

¹⁸ The Lord was so angry with Israel that he sent them far away from himself. Only the tribe of Judah remained. ¹⁹ But even the people of Judah did not obey the commands of the Lord their God. They did the same bad things that the Israelites had done. ²⁰ So the Lord turned against all the descendants of Israel. He punished them. He put them under the power of robbers. In that way, he chased them far away from himself.

²¹ God made Israel become a separate kingdom from David's family, Judah. Then Israel chose Nebat's son Jeroboam to be their king. Jeroboam caused the Israelites to turn away from the Lord. He led them to do terrible sins. ²² The Israelites continued to live in the bad way that Jeroboam showed them. They did not turn away from those sins. ²³ In the end, the Lord sent the Israelites away from himself. He had used his servants, the prophets, to warn them that this would happen. As a result, the Assyrian army took the Israelites away from their own land as prisoners to Assyria. They still live there, even today.

Foreign people come to live in Israel

²⁴ The king of Assyria brought foreign people to live in the towns of Samaria. They came from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim. They lived in places in Samaria where the Israelites had lived. They took Samaria for themselves and they lived in its towns.^{[e] 25} When those people first lived in Samaria, they did not worship the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them. The lions were killing some of the people. ²⁶ People told the king of Assyria, ‘You sent some nations of people to go and live in the towns of Samaria. But they do not know how to obey the rules of that country's god. So he has sent lions to attack them. The lions are killing them because they do not know the rules of that country's god.’

²⁷ The king of Assyria replied, ‘You took some Israelite priests away from Samaria as prisoners. Send one of them back to live there. Then he can teach the people what the god of that country wants them to do.’

²⁸ So they sent back one of the priests that they had caught and taken away to Assyria. He went to live in Bethel. He taught the people how to worship the Lord properly.

²⁹ But the people of each nation that had gone to live in Samaria made their own idols to worship.^[f] They put them at the altars that the Israelites had built on the hills. They did this in each town where they lived. ³⁰ The people from Babylon made idols of the god called Succoth-Benoth. The people from Cuthah made idols of the god called Nergal. The people from Hamath made idols of the god called Ashima. ³¹ The people from Avva made idols of their gods called Nibhaz and Tartak. The people from Sepharvaim burned their children in fire as offerings to their gods, Adrammelech and Anammelech.

³² The foreign people in Samaria also worshipped the Lord. They chose some of their own people to serve as priests at the altars on the hills. ³³ In this way, they worshipped the Lord, but they also served their own gods. They did that in the way that they had always done in their own countries. That was what they did before the Assyrians sent them to live in Samaria. ³⁴ Even today, they still do things in the same way that they have always done them. They do not truly worship the Lord. They do not obey his rules, his laws or his teaching. They do not obey the commands that the Lord gave to the descendants of Jacob. Jacob was the man that the Lord gave a new name to. He gave him the name ‘Israel’. ³⁵ The Lord made a covenant with the descendants of Israel. He said to them, ‘Do not worship any other gods. Do not bend down low to give them honour. Do not serve them. Do not offer any sacrifices to them. ³⁶ Instead, you must worship only the Lord. He is the one who used his great power to bring you safely out of Egypt. Bend down low to give him honour. Offer sacrifices to him. ³⁷ You must be careful to obey his rules, his teaching, his laws and his commands that he wrote for you. You must not worship other gods. ³⁸ Never forget the covenant that I made with you. Do not worship any other gods. ³⁹ Instead, you must only worship the Lord your God. It is he who will save you from the power of all your enemies.’

⁴⁰ But the foreign people who now lived in Samaria would not accept the Lord's teaching. They continued to live in the way that they always had done. ⁴¹ Even while they were worshipping the Lord, they continued to serve their own idols. Their children and their grandchildren continue to live as their fathers did, even today.