Chronological
Reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah
Chapter 28
The Impiety of Ahaz. 1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he ascended the throne, and he reigned in Jerusalem for sixteen years. Unlike what his ancestor David had done, he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord. 2 Rather, he followed the example of the kings of Israel and even cast molten idols of the Baals.
3 Furthermore, Ahaz offered burnt sacrifices in the Valley of Ben-hinnom[a] and even went so far as to immolate his sons by fire according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. 4 He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
Retribution. 5 Therefore, the Lord his God delivered him over into the hands of the king of Aram. After the Arameans defeated him, they took large numbers of captives and brought them to Damascus. He was also given over into the power of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.[b] 6 In a single day, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, killed one hundred and twenty thousand valiant warriors.
7 Zichri, an Ephraimite warrior, killed Maaseiah, the king’s son, Azrikam, the commander of the palace, and Elkanah, who was second only to the king in authority. 8 The Israelites took captive from their kinsmen two hundred thousand women, sons and daughters. They also took immense quantities of booty from them and brought it all back to Samaria.
The Prophecy of Oded. 9 In Samaria there was a prophet of the Lord by the name of Oded. He went out to meet the army when it returned to Samaria, and he said: “It was because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah that he delivered them into your hands. However, you have slaughtered them with an intense rage that has reached up to heaven.
10 “And now you have decided to force the people of Judah and Jerusalem to be your slaves. However, have you yourselves not been guilty of sins against the Lord, your God? 11 Now listen to me! Release the captives you have taken from your kinsmen, for the fierce anger of the Lord has been aroused against you.”
12 On hearing this, some of the Ephraimite leaders—Azariah, son of Jehohanan; Berechiah, son of Meshillemoth; Jehizkiah, son of Shallum; and Amasa, son of Hadlai—confronted those who were returning from the war 13 and said to them: “Do not bring these captives here, for what you are proposing will only increase our sins and our guilt. For our guilt is already substantial, and fierce anger threatens the security of Israel.”
14 Therefore, in the presence of the officials and the entire assembly, the soldiers surrendered the captives and the booty. 15 Then those Ephraimite leaders proceeded to help those who had been led away captive. From the booty they clothed those who were naked. They gave them clothing and sandals and gave them food, drink, and healing balm. All those who were weak they mounted on donkeys and took them to their brethren in Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they themselves returned to Samaria.
16 Other Sins of Ahaz. At that time King Ahaz sent a plea to the king of Assyria asking for help. 17 The Edomites had once again invaded and defeated Judah, and carried away captives.
18 Meanwhile, the Philistines had raided the towns in the foothills and the Negeb of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, as well as Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages, and settled there. 19 For the Lord had brought Judah low because of Ahaz, king of Israel,[c] who had behaved without restraint in Judah and had proved to be totally unfaithful to the Lord.
20 After that, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, came to Ahaz, but rather than assisting him, he oppressed him instead. 21 Then Ahaz plundered the temple of the Lord, the palace of the king, and the house of his officials. He proceeded to give the plunder to the king of Assyria, but no help from him was forthcoming.
22 During this period of distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord. 23 He proceeded to offer sacrifices to the gods of Damascus who had defeated him, thinking: “Since the gods of the king of Aram have supported them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may decide to help me.” However, they only caused further disaster to him and to all of Israel. 24 Then Ahaz gathered up the vessels of the house of God and broke them into pieces. After he shut up the doors of the house of the Lord he made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem. 25 In every city of Judah he built high places to offer sacrifices to other gods, thus provoking the anger of the Lord, the God of his ancestors.
26 The rest of his deeds and all his activities, from first to last, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 27 Ahaz slept with his ancestors, and he was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not laid to rest in the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah succeeded him.
Chapter 16[a]
Ahaz of Judah. 1 Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the king of Judah, began to reign during the seventeenth year of the reign of Pekah, the son of Remaliah. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for sixteen years.
He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord as David, his father, had done. 3 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, even sacrificing his son in fire. He practiced the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the Israelites. 4 He performed sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hilltops, and under every green tree.
5 Then Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, attacked Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz, but they could not defeat him. 6 It was at this time that Rezin, the king of Aram, reconquered Elath, and the Arameans drove the Judahites out of Elath. The Edomites then settled in Elath and they have dwelt there up to the present.
7 Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come and save me from the hands of the king of Aram and the hands of the king of Israel who have risen up against me.”
8 Ahaz took the silver and the gold from the temple of the Lord and the treasury of the royal palace, and he sent it to the king of Assyria as a gift. 9 The king of Assyria consented to his request, and the king of Assyria attacked Damascus and captured it. He deported its people to Kir.
10 Then King Ahaz traveled to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus, and King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest to Damascus to make a drawing of the altar along with a complete description of its construction. 11 Uriah the priest built an altar according to everything for which King Ahaz had sent him to Damascus. Uriah finished it before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. 12 When the king returned from Damascus, the king saw the altar. The king approached the altar and made an offering on it. 13 He offered up burnt offerings and cereal offerings. He poured out drink offerings and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. 14 He brought the bronze altar that was before the Lord from the front of the temple, from between the altar and the temple of the Lord, and he placed it on the north side of the altar.
15 King Ahaz gave orders to Uriah the priest, saying, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offerings and the evening cereal offerings, the king’s burnt offerings and his cereal offerings, along with the burnt offerings, cereal offerings, and drink offerings of all of the people of the land. Sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices on it, but I will use the bronze altar when I make inquiries.” 16 Uriah the priest did everything that King Ahaz had commanded.
17 King Ahaz cut off the side panels and he removed the basins from the moveable carts, he removed the sea from the bronze oxen underneath it and he placed it on a stone base. 18 He took away the Sabbath canopy[b] that had been built on the temple and the royal entrance outside the temple of the Lord on account of the king of Assyria.
19 Now the rest of the deeds of Ahaz, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 Ahaz slept with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his stead.
Chapter 17
Hoshea of Israel. 1 Hoshea, the son of Elah, began to reign over Israel in Samaria during the twelfth year of the reign of Ahaz, the king of Judah. 2 He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.
3 Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and gave him tribute. 4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was involved in a conspiracy, for he had sent messengers to the king of Egypt, and he had not given tribute to the king of Assyria as he had in previous years. The king of Assyria therefore shut him up, throwing him in prison. 5 [c]The king of Assyria occupied the entire land, and he went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.
6 The king of Assyria captured Samaria in the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea. He carried Israel away into Assyria, settling them in Halah, near Habor, on the River Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. 7 This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They had revered other gods 8 and they had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before them and that the kings of Israel had introduced.
9 The people of Israel secretly did what was wrong against the Lord, their God. They built high places for themselves in all of their cities, whether it be a simple watchtower or fortified city. 10 They set up pillars and Asherahs for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. 11 They burned incense on all of the high places like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the anger of the Lord. 12 They served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You are not to do this thing.”
13 The Lord had testified against Israel and against Judah through every prophet and every seer saying, “Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my statutes according to the law that I gave your fathers and which I sent you by my servants, the prophets.” 14 But they would not listen. They hardened their necks to make them just like the necks of their fathers who had not believed in the Lord, their God. 15 They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and the warnings by which he bore witness against them. They followed after vain idols, becoming foolish. They also followed after the nations that surrounded them, the ones of whom the Lord had told them that they should not do what they did. 16 They abandoned the commandments of the Lord, their God, and they made molten images of two calves for themselves. They made Asherah, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served the Baals.[d] 17 They burned their sons and their daughters in fire, and they practiced divination and sorcery. They sold themselves to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord and to provoke him to anger.
18 The Lord was thus very angry with Israel. He removed them from out of his sight, so that there were none of them left except for the tribe of Judah.
19 Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord, their God, but they walked in the practices that Israel had introduced. 20 The Lord rejected all of the descendants of Israel, punishing them and delivering them into the hands of those who plundered them until he had cast them out of his sight.
21 When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, their king. Jeroboam misled Israel, causing them to turn away from following the Lord, making them commit a great sin. 22 The Israelites walked in all of the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not turn away from them 23 until the Lord had removed them from out of his sight as he had predicted through all of his servants, the prophets. Israel was exiled out of their own land into Assyria where they are up until the present.
24 Foreigners Deported to Samaria.[e] The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the cities of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.
25 When they first began to dwell there, they did not fear the Lord, so the Lord sent lions among them which killed some of them. 26 The king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. This is why he sent lions among them to kill them, because they did not know the law of the God of the land.”
27 The king of Assyria commanded, “Carry one of the priests there whom you deported. Let him go and dwell there to teach them the law of the God of the land.”
28 One of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria went and dwelt in Bethel. He taught them how to fear the Lord. 29 But all the nations still made their own gods, and they placed their shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, each nation in their own cities where they dwelt. 30 The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31 and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak. The Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of the Sepharvaim.
32 They also feared the Lord, and they appointed priests for the high places from their lowliest classes. They performed sacrifices for them in the shrines on the high places. 33 So they feared the Lord but they also served their own gods in the tradition of the nations from which they had been carried away. 34 Up to the present they still follow their previous traditions. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not observe the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord had given to the children of Jacob to whom he gave the name Israel.
35 The Lord made a covenant with them and ordered them, “You shall not fear other gods,[f] nor shall you bow yourselves down to them, nor shall you serve them, nor shall you offer sacrifices to them. 36 You shall fear the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. You are to fear him, and you are to worship him, and you are to offer sacrifice to him. 37 You will always carefully observe the statutes, the ordinances, the laws, and the commandments that he wrote for you. You are not to fear other gods. 38 You will not forget the covenant that I made with you, and you are not to fear other gods. 39 You will fear the Lord, your God. He will deliver you out of the hands of all of your enemies.”
40 However, they would not listen; they practiced their previous traditions. 41 The nations thus feared the Lord, but they also served their graven images. Their children and their grandchildren did what their fathers had done, up to the present day.
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