2 Kings 16

Chapter 16

Ahaz Reigns over Judah

¹In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ^aAhaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

^2aAhaz 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 the Lord his God, as his father David had done.

³But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ^aand even made his son pass through the fire, ^baccording to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had ¹driven out from before the sons of Israel.

⁴He ^asacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵Then ^aRezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged Ahaz, ^bbut could not ¹overcome him.

⁶At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered ^aElath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of ¹Elath entirely; and the ²Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

Ahaz Seeks Help of Aram

^7aSo Ahaz sent messengers to ^bTiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me from the ¹hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.”

^8aAhaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

^9aSo the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ^bcaptured it, and carried the people of it away into exile to ^cKir, and put Rezin to death.

Damascus Falls

¹⁰Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ^aTiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to ^bUrijah the priest the ¹pattern of the altar and its model, according to all its workmanship.

¹¹So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, ¹before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus.

¹²When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; then ^athe king approached the altar and ¹went up to it,

¹³and ¹burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.

^14aThe bronze altar, which was before the Lord, ¹he brought from the front of the house, from between ^bhis altar and the house of the Lord, and he put it on the north side of his altar.

¹⁵Then King Ahaz ¹commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “Upon the great altar ²burn ^athe morning burnt offering and the evening meal offering and the king’s burnt offering and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their meal offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But ^bthe bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.”

¹⁶So Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷Then King Ahaz ^acut off the borders of the stands, and removed the laver from them; he also ^btook down the sea from the bronze oxen which were under it and put it on a pavement of stone.

¹⁸The 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 the Lord because of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written ^ain the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰So ^aAhaz slept with his fathers, and ^bwas buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.