1 Kings 15:8–24

⁸Abijah died and was buried in David’s City, and his son Asa succeeded him as king.

King Asa of Judah

⁹In the twentieth year of the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa became king of Judah, ¹⁰and he ruled for 41 years in Jerusalem. His grandmother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. ¹¹Asa did what pleased the Lord, as his ancestor David had done. ^12*He expelled from the country all the male and female prostitutes serving at the pagan places of worship, and he removed all the idols his predecessors had made. ¹³He removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an obscene idol of the fertility goddess Asherah. Asa cut down the idol and burnt it in the valley of the Kidron. ¹⁴Even though Asa did not destroy all the pagan places of worship, he remained faithful to the Lord all his life. ¹⁵He placed in the Temple all the objects his father had dedicated to God, as well as the gold and silver objects that he himself dedicated.

¹⁶King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel were constantly at war with each other as long as they were in power. ¹⁷Baasha invaded Judah and started to fortify Ramah in order to cut off all traffic in and out of Judah. ¹⁸So King Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the Temple and the palace, and sent it by some of his officials to Damascus, to King Benhadad of Syria, the son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hezion, with this message: ¹⁹“Let us be allies, as our fathers were. This silver and gold is a present for you. Now break your alliance with King Baasha of Israel, so that he will have to pull his troops out of my territory.”

²⁰King Benhadad agreed to Asa’s proposal and sent his commanding officers and their armies to attack the cities of Israel. They captured Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, the area near Lake Galilee, and the whole territory of Naphtali. ²¹When King Baasha heard what had happened, he stopped fortifying Ramah and went to Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa sent out an order throughout all Judah requiring everyone, without exception, to help carry away from Ramah the stones and timber that Baasha had been using to fortify it. With this material Asa fortified Mizpah and Geba, a city in the territory of Benjamin.

²³Everything else that King Asa did, his brave deeds and the towns he fortified, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. But in his old age he was crippled by a foot disease. ²⁴Asa died and was buried in the royal tombs in David’s City, and his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him as king.