2 Chronicles 14–16

King Asa Defeats the Ethiopians

14King Abijah died and was buried in the royal tombs in David’s City. His son Asa succeeded him as king, and under Asa the land enjoyed peace for ten years. ²Asa pleased the Lord, his God, by doing what was right and good. ³He removed the foreign altars and the pagan places of worship, broke down the sacred stone columns, and cut down the symbols of the goddess Asherah. ⁴He commanded the people of Judah to do the will of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his teachings and commands. ⁵Because he abolished the pagan places of worship and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah, the kingdom was at peace under his rule. ⁶He built fortifications for the cities of Judah during this time, and for several years there was no war, because the Lord gave him peace. ⁷He said to the people of Judah, “Let us fortify the cities by building walls and towers, and gates that can be shut and barred. We have control of the land because we have done the will of the Lord our God. He has protected us and given us security on every side.” And so they built and prospered. ⁸King Asa had an army of 300,000 men from Judah, armed with shields and spears, and 280,000 men from Benjamin, armed with shields and bows. All of them were brave, well-trained men.

⁹An Ethiopian^v named Zerah invaded Judah with an army of a million men and 300 chariots and advanced as far as Mareshah. ¹⁰Asa went out to fight him, and both sides took up their positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. ¹¹Asa prayed to the Lord his God, “O Lord, you can help a weak army as easily as a powerful one. Help us now, O Lord our God, because we are relying on you, and in your name we have come out to fight against this huge army. Lord, you are our God; no one can hope to defeat you.”

¹²The Lord defeated the Ethiopian^w army when Asa and the Judean arm attacked them. They fled, ¹³and Asa and his troops pursued them as far as Gerar. So many of the Ethiopians^x were killed that the army was unable to rally and fight.^y They were overpowered by the Lord and his army, and the army took large amounts of loot. ¹⁴Then they were able to destroy the cities in the area around Gerar, because the people there were terrified of the Lord. The army plundered all those cities and captured large amounts of loot. ¹⁵They also attacked the camps of some shepherds, capturing large numbers of sheep and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

Asa’s Reforms

15The spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded, ²and he went to meet King Asa. He called out, “Listen to me, King Asa, and all you people of Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you as long as you are with him. If you look for him, he will let you find him, but if you turn away, he will abandon you. ³For a long time Israel lived without the true God, without priests to teach them, and without a law. ⁴But when trouble came, they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel. They searched for him and found him. ⁵In those days no one could come and go in safety, because there was trouble and disorder in every land. ⁶One nation oppressed another nation, and one city oppressed another city, because God was bringing trouble and distress on them. ⁷But you must be strong and not be discouraged. The work that you do will be rewarded.”

⁸When Asa heard the prophecy that Azariah son of^z Oded had spoken, he was encouraged. He did away with all the idols in the land of Judah and Benjamin and all the idols in the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He also repaired the altar of the Lord that stood in the temple courtyard.

⁹Many people had come over to Asa’s side from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, and were living in his kingdom, because they had seen that the Lord was with him. Asa summoned all of them and the people of Judah and Benjamin. ¹⁰They assembled in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year that Asa was king. ¹¹On that day they offered sacrifices to the Lord from the loot they had brought back: 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep. ¹²They made a covenant in which they agreed to worship the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul. ¹³Anyone, young or old, male or female, who did not worship him was to be put to death. ¹⁴In a loud voice they took an oath in the Lord’s name that they would keep the covenant, and then they shouted and blew trumpets. ¹⁵All the people of Judah were happy because they had made this covenant with all their heart. They took delight in worshipping the Lord, and he accepted them and gave them peace on every side.

¹⁶King Asa 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, chopped it up, and burnt the pieces in the valley of the Kidron. ¹⁷Even though Asa did not destroy all the pagan places of worship in the land, he remained faithful to the Lord all his life. ¹⁸He placed in the Temple all the objects his father Abijah had dedicated to God, as well as the gold and silver objects that he himself dedicated. ¹⁹There was no more war until the 35th year of his reign.

Troubles with Israel

16In the 36th year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, King Baasha of Israel invaded Judah and started to fortify Ramah in order to cut off all traffic in and out of Judah. ²So Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the Temple and the palace and sent it to Damascus, to King Benhadad of Syria, with this message: ³“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.”

⁴Benhadad 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, and all the cities of Naphtali where supplies were stored. ⁵When King Baasha heard what was happening, he stopped fortifying Ramah and abandoned the work. ⁶Then King Asa gathered men from throughout Judah and ordered them to carry off the stones and timber that Baasha had been using at Ramah, and they used them to fortify the cities of Geba and Mizpah.

The Prophet Hanani

⁷At that time the prophet Hanani went to King Asa and said, “Because you relied on the king of Syria instead of relying on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Israel^a has escaped from you. ⁸Didn’t the Ethiopians^b and the Libyans have large armies with many chariot and horsemen? But because you relied on the Lord, he gave you victory over them. ⁹The Lord keeps close watch over the whole world, to give strength to those whose hearts are loyal to him. You have acted foolishly, and so from now on you will always be at war.” ¹⁰This made Asa so angry with the prophet that he had him put in chains. It was at this same time that Asa began treating some of the people cruelly.

The End of Asa’a Reign

¹¹All the events of Asa’s reign from beginning to end are recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ¹²In the 39th year that Asa was king, he was crippled by a severe foot disease; but even then he did not turn to the Lord for help, but to doctors. ¹³Two years later he died ¹⁴and was buried in the rock tomb which he had carved out for himself in David’s City. They used spices and perfumed oils to prepare his body for burial, and they built a huge bonfire to mourn his death.