²Asa did what the Lord his God said was good and right. ³He removed the foreign altars and the places where gods were worshiped. He smashed the stone pillars that honored other gods, and he tore down the Asherah idols. ⁴Asa commanded the people of Judah to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his teachings and commandments. ⁵He also removed the places where gods were worshiped and the incense altars from every town in Judah. So the kingdom had peace while Asa was king. ⁶Asa built strong, walled cities in Judah during the time of peace. He had no war in these years, because the Lord gave him peace.

⁷Asa said to the people of Judah, “Let’s build up these towns and put walls around them. Let’s make towers, gates, and bars in the gates. This country is ours, because we have obeyed the Lord our God. We have followed him, and he has given us peace all around.” So they built and had success.

⁸Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men from Judah and two hundred eighty thousand men from Benjamin. The men from Judah carried large shields and spears. The men from Benjamin carried small shields and bows and arrows. All of them were brave fighting men.

⁹Then Zerah from Cush came out to fight them with an enormous army and three hundred chariots. They came as far as the town of Mareshah. ¹⁰So Asa went out to fight Zerah and prepared for battle in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

¹¹Asa called out to the Lord his God, saying, “Lord, only you can help weak people against the strong. Help us, Lord our God, because we depend on you. We fight against this enormous army in your name. Lord, you are our God. Don’t let anyone win against you.”

¹²So the Lord defeated the Cushites when Asa’s army from Judah attacked them, and the Cushites ran away. ¹³Asa’s army chased them as far as the town of Gerar. So many Cushites were killed that the army could not fight again; they were crushed by the Lord and his army. Asa and his army carried many valuable things away from the enemy. ¹⁴They destroyed all the towns near Gerar, because the people living in these towns were afraid of the Lord. Since these towns had many valuable things, Asa’s army took them away. ¹⁵Asa’s army also attacked the camps where the shepherds lived and took many sheep and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

Asa’s Changes

15The Spirit of God entered Azariah son of Oded. ²Azariah went to meet Asa and said, “Listen to me, Asa and all you people of Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you obey him, you will find him, but if you leave him, he will leave you. ³For a long time Israel was without the true God and without a priest to teach them and without the teachings. ⁴But when they were in trouble, they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel. They looked for him and found him. ⁵In those days no one could travel safely. There was much trouble in all the nations. ⁶One nation would destroy another nation, and one city would destroy another city, because God troubled them with all kinds of distress. ⁷But you should be strong. Don’t give up, because you will get a reward for your good work.”

⁸Asa felt brave when he heard these words and the message from Azariah son of Oded the prophet. So he removed the hateful idols from all of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the Lord’s altar that was in front of the porch of the Temple of the Lord.

⁹Then Asa gathered all the people from Judah and Benjamin and from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living in Judah. Many people came to Asa even from Israel, because they saw that the Lord, Asa’s God, was with him.

¹⁰Asa and these people gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s rule. ¹¹At that time they sacrificed to the Lord seven hundred bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats from the valuable things Asa’s army had taken from their enemies. ¹²Then they made an agreement to obey the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with their whole being. ¹³Anyone who refused to obey the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be killed. It did not matter if that person was important or unimportant, a man or woman. ¹⁴Then Asa and the people made a promise before the Lord, shouting with a loud voice and blowing trumpets and sheep’s horns. ¹⁵All the people of Judah were happy about the promise, because they had promised with all their heart. They looked for God and found him. So the Lord gave them peace in all the country.

¹⁶King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother, from being queen mother, because she had made a terrible Asherah idol. Asa cut down that idol, smashed it into pieces, and burned it in the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷But the places of worship to gods were not removed from Judah. Even so, Asa was faithful all his life.

¹⁸Asa brought into the Temple of God the gifts he and his father had given: silver, gold, and utensils.

¹⁹There was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s rule.

Asa’s Last Years

16In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s rule, Baasha king of Israel attacked Judah. He made the town of Ramah strong so he could keep people from leaving or entering Judah, Asa’s country.

²Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of the Temple of the Lord and out of his own palace. Then he sent it with messengers to Ben-Hadad king of Aram, who lived in Damascus. Asa said, ³“Let there be a treaty between you and me as there was between my father and your father. I am sending you silver and gold. Break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so he will leave my land.”

⁴Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies to attack the towns of Israel. They defeated the towns of Ijon, Dan, and Abel Beth Maacah, and all the towns in Naphtali where treasures were stored. ⁵When Baasha heard about this, he stopped building up Ramah and left his work. ⁶Then King Asa brought all the people of Judah to Ramah, and they carried away the rocks and wood that Baasha had used. And they used them to build up Geba and Mizpah.

⁷At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “You depended on the king of Aram to help you and not on the Lord your God. So the king of Aram’s army escaped from you. ⁸The Cushites and Libyans had a large and powerful army and many chariots and horsemen. But you depended on the Lord to help you, so he handed them over to you. ⁹The Lord searches all the earth for people who have given themselves completely to him. He wants to make them strong. Asa, you did a foolish thing, so from now on you will have wars.”

¹⁰Asa was angry with Hanani the seer because of what he had said; he was so angry that he put Hanani in prison. And Asa was cruel to some of the people at the same time.

¹¹Everything Asa did as king, from the beginning to the end, is written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ¹²In the thirty-ninth year of his rule, Asa got a disease in his feet. Though his disease was very bad, he did not ask for help from the Lord, but only from the doctors. ¹³Then Asa died in the forty-first year of his rule. ¹⁴The people buried Asa in the tomb he had made for himself in Jerusalem. They laid him on a bed filled with spices and different kinds of mixed perfumes, and they made a large fire to honor him.

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