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The Prophet Azariah Warns Asa

^1 (C1)Now the Spirit of God came on Azariah the son of Oded,² and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: ^(C1)the LORD is with you while you are with Him. ^(C2)If you seek Him inquiring for and of Him, as your soul's first necessity, He will let you find Him; but if you abandon (turn away from) Him, He will abandon (turn away from) you.³ "Now ^(C1)for a long time Israel was without the true God and without ^(C2)a teaching priest, and without God's law.⁴ "But when they were ^(C1)in their trouble and distress they turned to the LORD God of Israel, and in desperation earnestly sought Him, and He let them find Him.⁵ "^(C1)In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, for great suffering came on all the inhabitants of the lands.⁶ "^(C1)Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress.⁷ "But as for you, ^(C1)be strong and do not lose courage, for there is ^(C2)reward for your work."

Asa's Reforms

⁸ And when Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the repulsive idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from ^(C1)the cities which he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. Then ^(C2)he restored the altar of burnt offering of the LORD which was in front of the porch of the temple of the LORD.⁹ He gathered all Judah and Benjamin and ^(C1)the strangers who were with them out of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, for they came over to Asa from Israel in large numbers when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.¹⁰ So they assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.^11 (C1)They sacrificed to the LORD on that day from the spoil they had brought—700 oxen and 7,000 sheep.^12 (C1)They entered into a covenant (solemn agreement) to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and soul;¹³ and that whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel, ^(C1)was to be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.¹⁴ They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice, with jubilant shouting, with trumpets, and with horns.¹⁵ All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought Him with their whole heart, and He let them find Him. So ^(C1)the LORD gave them rest on every side.

^16 (C1)He also removed Maacah, King Asa's mother, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the goddess ^(C2)Asherah. ^(C3)Asa cut down her idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Brook Kidron.¹⁷ But the high places of pagan worship were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless Asa's heart was blameless all his days.¹⁸ He brought the things that his father Abijah had dedicated and those things that he had dedicated into the house of God—silver and gold and utensils.¹⁹ And there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign.