2 Chronicles 25–26

JUDAH’S KING AMAZIAH

25Amaziah^r became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem. ²He did what was right in the Lord’s sight but not wholeheartedly.^s

³As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed his servants who had killed his father the king. ⁴However, he did not put their children to death, because—as it is written in the Law, in the book of Moses,^t where the Lord commanded—“Fathers are not to die because of children, and children are not to die because of fathers, but each one will die for his own sin.”^u

AMAZIAH’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST EDOM

⁵Then Amaziah gathered Judah and assembled them according to ancestral families,^C according to commanders of thousands, and according to commanders of hundreds. He numbered those twenty years old or more^v for all Judah and Benjamin. He found there to be three hundred thousand fit young men who could serve in the army, bearing spear and shield.^{w 6}Then for 7,500 pounds of silver he hired one hundred thousand valiant warriors from Israel.

⁷However, a man of God^x came to him and said, “King, do not let Israel’s army go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—all the Ephraimites. ⁸But if you go with them, do it! Be strong for battle! But God will make you stumble before the enemy,^y for God has the power to help^z or to make one stumble.”

⁹Then Amaziah said to the man of God, “What should I do about the 7,500 pounds of silver I gave to Israel’s division?”

The man of God replied, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.”

¹⁰So Amaziah released the division that came to him from Ephraim to go home. But they got very angry with Judah and returned home in a fierce rage.

¹¹Amaziah strengthened his position and led his people to the Salt Valley. He struck down ten thousand Seirites, ¹²and the Judahites captured ten thousand alive. They took them to the top of a cliff where they threw them off, and all of them were dashed to pieces.

¹³As for the men of the division that Amaziah sent back so they would not go with him into battle, they raided the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon, struck down three thousand of their people, and took a great deal of plunder.

¹⁴After Amaziah came from the attack on the Edomites, he brought the gods of the Seirites and set them up as his gods. He worshiped before them and burned incense to them.^{a 15}So the Lord’s anger was against Amaziah, and he sent a prophet to him, who said, “Why have you sought a people’s gods that could not rescue their own people from you?”^b

¹⁶While he was still speaking to him, the king asked, “Have we made you the king’s counselor? Stop, why should you lose your life?”

So the prophet stopped, but he said, “I know that God intends to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my advice.”

AMAZIAH’S WAR WITH ISRAEL’S KING JEHOASH

¹⁷King Amaziah of Judah took counsel^c and sent word to Jehoash^B son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, and challenged him: “Come, let’s meet face to face.”

¹⁸King Jehoash of Israel sent word to King Amaziah of Judah, saying, “The thistle in Lebanon sent a message to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.^{d 19}You have said, ‘Look, I^C have defeated Edom,’ and you have become overconfident^De that you will get glory. Now stay at home. Why stir up such trouble so that you fall and Judah with you?”

²⁰But Amaziah would not listen, for this turn of events was from God in order to hand them over to their enemies because they went after the gods of Edom. ²¹So King Jehoash of Israel advanced. He and King Amaziah of Judah met face to face at Beth-shemesh that belonged to Judah. ²²Judah was routed before Israel, and each man fled to his own tent. ²³King Jehoash of Israel captured Judah’s King Amaziah son of Joash, son of Jehoahaz,^f at Beth-shemesh. Then Jehoash took him to Jerusalem and broke down two hundred yards^F of Jerusalem’s wall from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate.^{Gg 24}He took all the gold, silver, all the utensils that were found with Obed-edom^h in God’s temple, the treasures of the king’s palace, and the hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.

AMAZIAH’S DEATH

²⁵Judah’s King Amaziahⁱ son of Joash lived fifteen years after the death of Israel’s King Jehoash son of Jehoahaz. ²⁶The rest of the events of Amaziah’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷From the time Amaziah turned from following the Lord, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. However, men were sent after him to Lachish, and they put him to death there. ²⁸They carried him back on horses and buried him with his ancestors in the city of Judah.^Aj

JUDAH’S KING UZZIAH

26All the people^k of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah. ²After Amaziah the king rested with his ancestors, Uzziah rebuilt Eloth^Cl and restored it to Judah.

³Uzziah was sixteen years old^m when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem. ⁴He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his father Amaziah had done. ⁵He sought Godⁿ throughout the lifetime of Zechariah, the teacher of the fear^Do of God. During the time that he sought the Lord, God gave him success.^p

UZZIAH’S EXPLOITS

⁶Uzziah went out to wage war against the Philistines,^q and he tore down the wall of Gath, the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod. Then he built cities in the vicinity of Ashdod and among the Philistines. ⁷God helped him against the Philistines, the Arabs that live in Gur-baal, and the Meunites. ⁸The Ammonites^E paid tribute to Uzziah,^r and his fame spread as far as the entrance of Egypt, for God made him very powerful. ⁹Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate,^s the Valley Gate,^t and the corner buttress, and he fortified them. ¹⁰Since he had many cattle both in the Judean foothills^F and the plain, he built towers in the desert and dug many wells.^a And since he was a lover of the soil, he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands.^G

¹¹Uzziah had an army equipped for combat that went out to war by division according to their assignments, as recorded by Jeiel the court secretary and Maaseiah the officer under the authority of Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders. ¹²The total number of family heads was 2,600 valiant warriors. ¹³Under their authority was an army of 307,500 equipped for combat, a powerful force to help the king against the enemy.^{b 14}Uzziah provided the entire army with shields, spears, helmets, armor, bows, and slingstones. ¹⁵He made skillfully designed devices in Jerusalem to shoot arrows and catapult large stones for use on the towers and on the corners. So his fame spread even to distant places, for he was wondrously helped until he became strong.

UZZIAH’S DISEASE

¹⁶But when he became strong, he grew arrogant,^c and it led to his own destruction. He acted unfaithfully against the Lord his God by going into the Lord’s sanctuary to burn incense on the incense altar.^{d 17}The priest Azariah,^e along with eighty brave priests of the Lord, went in after him. ¹⁸They took their stand^f against King Uzziah and said, “Uzziah, you have no right to offer incense to the Lord^g—only the consecrated priests, the descendants of Aaron, have the right to offer incense.^h Leave the sanctuary, for you have acted unfaithfully! You will not receive honor from the Lord God.”

¹⁹Uzziah, with a firepan in his hand to offer incense, was enraged. But when he became enraged with the priests, in the presence of the priests in the Lord’s temple beside the altar of incense, a skin diseaseⁱ broke out on his forehead. ²⁰Then Azariah the chief priest and all the priests turned to him and saw that he was diseased on his forehead. They rushed him out of there. He himself also hurried to get out because the Lord had afflicted him. ²¹So King Uzziah was diseased to the time of his death.^j He lived in quarantine^Ak with a serious skin disease and was excluded from access to the Lord’s temple, while his son Jotham was over the king’s household governing the people of the land.

²²Now the prophet Isaiah^l son of Amoz wrote about the rest of the events of Uzziah’s reign, from beginning to end. ²³Uzziah rested with his ancestors, and he was buried with his ancestors in the burial ground of the kings’ cemetery,^m for they said, “He has a skin disease.” His son Jotham became king in his place.