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Ahaz Reigns over Judah

¹ In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ^(C1)Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.^2 (C1)Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of Yahweh his God, as David his father had done.³ But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ^(C1)and even made his son pass through the fire, ^(C2)according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel.⁴ He also ^(C1)sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵ Then ^(C1)Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged Ahaz, ^(C2)but could not ^(F1)overcome him.⁶ At that time Rezin king of Aram restored ^(C1)Elath for Aram and cleared the Judeans out of ^(F1)Elath entirely; and the ^(F2)Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

Ahaz Sends for Help from Assyria

^7 (C1)So Ahaz sent messengers to ^(C2)Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and save me from the ^(F1)hand of the king of Aram and from the ^(F1)hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."^8 (C1)Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a gift to the king of Assyria.^9 (C1)So the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ^(C2)seized it and took the people of it away into exile to ^(C3)Kir, and put Rezin to death.

Ahaz Has Urijah Build an Altar

¹⁰ Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ^(C1)Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to ^(C2)Urijah the priest the likeness of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.¹¹ So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, ^(F1)before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus.¹² So the king came from Damascus, and the king saw the altar; then ^(C1)the king drew near the altar and ^(F1)made offerings on it,¹³ and offered his burnt offering and his meal offering up in smoke, and poured his drink offering and splashed the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.^14 (C1)Now as for the bronze altar, which was before Yahweh, ^(F1)he drew it away from the front of the house, from between ^(C2)his altar and the house of Yahweh, and he put it on the north side of his altar.¹⁵ Then King Ahaz ^(F1)commanded Urijah the priest, saying, "Upon the great altar offer up in smoke ^(C1)the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and 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 offerings; and splash on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But ^(C2)the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by."¹⁶ So Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷ Then King Ahaz ^(C1)cut off the borders of the stands and removed the laver from them; he also ^(C2)took down the sea from the bronze oxen which were under it and put it on a pavement of stone.¹⁸ And the covered way for the sabbath which they had built in the house, and the outer entry of the king, he removed from the house of Yahweh because of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah