2 Chronicles 26–32

Uzziah King of Judah

26Then all the people of Judah made Uzziah ⁿ king in place of his father Amaziah. Uzziah was sixteen years old. ²He rebuilt the town of Elath and made it part of Judah again after Amaziah died.

³Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he ruled fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah, and she was from Jerusalem. ⁴He did what the Lord said was right, just as his father Amaziah had done. ⁵Uzziah obeyed God while Zechariah was alive, because he taught Uzziah how to respect and obey God. And as long as Uzziah obeyed the Lord, God gave him success.

⁶Uzziah fought a war against the Philistines. He tore down the walls around their towns of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod and built new towns near Ashdod and in other places among the Philistines. ⁷God helped Uzziah fight the Philistines, the Arabs living in Gur Baal, and the Meunites. ⁸Also, the Ammonites made the payments Uzziah demanded. He was very powerful, so his name became famous all the way to the border of Egypt.

⁹Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, the Valley Gate, and where the wall turned, and he made them strong. ¹⁰He also built towers in the desert and dug many wells, because he had many cattle on the western hills and in the plains. He had people who worked his fields and vineyards in the hills and in the fertile lands, because he loved the land.

¹¹Uzziah had an army of trained soldiers. They were counted and put in groups by Jeiel the royal secretary and Maaseiah the officer. Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders, was their leader. ¹²There were twenty-six hundred leaders over the soldiers. ¹³They were in charge of an army of three hundred seven thousand five hundred men who fought with great power to help the king against the enemy. ¹⁴Uzziah gave his army shields, spears, helmets, armor, bows, and stones for their slings. ¹⁵In Jerusalem Uzziah made cleverly designed devices. These devices on the towers and corners of the city walls were used to shoot arrows and large rocks. So Uzziah became famous in faraway places, because he had much help until he became powerful.

¹⁶But when Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his ruin. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God; he went into the Temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar for incense. ¹⁷Azariah and eighty other brave priests who served the Lord followed Uzziah into the Temple. ¹⁸They told him he was wrong and said to him, “You don’t have the right to burn incense to the Lord. Only the priests, Aaron’s descendants, should burn the incense, because they have been made holy. Leave this holy place. You have been unfaithful, and the Lord God will not honor you for this.”

¹⁹Uzziah was standing beside the altar for incense in the Temple of the Lord, and in his hand was a pan for burning incense. He was very angry with the priests. As he was standing in front of the priests, a skin disease broke out on his forehead. ²⁰Azariah, the leading priest, and all the other priests looked at him and saw the skin disease on his forehead. So they hurried him out of the Temple. Uzziah also rushed out, because the Lord was punishing him. ²¹So King Uzziah had the skin disease until the day he died. He had to live in a separate house and could not enter the Temple of the Lord. His son Jotham was in charge of the palace, and he governed the people of the land.

²²The other things Uzziah did as king, from beginning to end, were written down by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ²³Uzziah died and was buried near his ancestors in a graveyard that belonged to the kings. This was because people said, “He had a skin disease.” And his son Jotham became king in his place.

Jotham King of Judah

27Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok. ²Jotham did what the Lord said was right, just as his father Uzziah had done. But Jotham did not enter the Temple of the Lord to burn incense as his father had. But the people continued doing wrong. ³Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the Temple of the Lord, and he added greatly to the wall at Ophel. ⁴He also built towns in the hill country of Judah, as well as walled cities and towers in the forests.

⁵Jotham also fought the king of the Ammonites and defeated them. So each year for three years they gave Jotham about seventy-five hundred pounds of silver, about sixty-two thousand bushels of wheat, and about sixty-two thousand bushels of barley. ⁶Jotham became powerful, because he always obeyed the Lord his God.

⁷The other things Jotham did while he was king and all his wars are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. ⁸Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled sixteen years in Jerusalem. ⁹Jotham died and was buried in Jerusalem, the city of David. Then Jotham’s son Ahaz became king in his place.

Ahaz King of Judah

28Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he ruled sixteen years in Jerusalem. Unlike his ancestor David, he did not do what the Lord said was right. ²Ahaz did the same things the kings of Israel had done. He made metal idols to worship Baal. ³He burned incense in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and made his children pass through the fire. He did the same hateful sins as the nations had done whom the Lord had forced out of the land ahead of the Israelites. ⁴Ahaz offered sacrifices and burned incense at the places where gods were worshiped, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

⁵So the Lord his God handed over Ahaz to the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated Ahaz and took many people of Judah as prisoners to Damascus.

He also handed over Ahaz to Pekah king of Israel, and Pekah’s army killed many soldiers of Ahaz. ⁶The army of Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand brave soldiers from Judah in one day. Pekah defeated them because they had left the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ⁷Zicri, a warrior from Ephraim, killed King Ahaz’s son Maaseiah. He also killed Azrikam, the officer in charge of the palace, and Elkanah, who was second in command to the king. ⁸The Israelite army captured two hundred thousand of their own relatives. They took women, sons and daughters, and many valuable things from Judah and carried them back to Samaria. ⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there. He met the Israelite army when it returned to Samaria and said to them, “The Lord, the God of your ancestors, handed Judah over to you, because he was angry with those people. But God has seen the cruel way you killed them. ¹⁰Now you plan to make the people of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves, but you also have sinned against the Lord your God. ¹¹Now listen to me. Send back your brothers and sisters whom you captured, because the Lord is very angry with you.”

¹²Then some of the leaders in Ephraim—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—met the Israelite soldiers coming home from war. ¹³They warned the soldiers, “Don’t bring the prisoners from Judah here. If you do, we will be guilty of sin against the Lord, and that will make our sin and guilt even worse. Our guilt is already so great that he is angry with Israel.”

¹⁴So the soldiers left the prisoners and valuable things in front of the officers and people there. ¹⁵The leaders who were named took the prisoners and gave those who were naked the clothes that the Israelite army had taken. They gave the prisoners clothes, sandals, food, drink, and medicine. They put the weak prisoners on donkeys and took them back to their families in Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned home to Samaria.

^16–17At that time the Edomites came again and attacked Judah and carried away prisoners. So King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help. ¹⁸The Philistines also robbed the towns in the western hills and in southern Judah. They captured the towns of Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo, and the villages around them. Then the Philistines lived in those towns. ¹⁹The Lord brought trouble on Judah because Ahaz their king led the people of Judah to sin, and he was unfaithful to the Lord. ²⁰Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came to Ahaz, but he gave Ahaz trouble instead of help. ²¹Ahaz took some valuable things from the Temple of the Lord, from the palace, and from the princes, and he gave them to the king of Assyria, but it did not help.

²²During Ahaz’s troubles he was even more unfaithful to the Lord. ²³He offered sacrifices to the gods of the people of Damascus, who had defeated him. He thought, “The gods of the kings of Aram helped them. If I offer sacrifices to them, they will help me also.” But this brought ruin to Ahaz and all Israel.

²⁴Ahaz gathered the things from the Temple of God and broke them into pieces. Then he closed the doors of the Temple of the Lord. He made altars and put them on every street corner in Jerusalem. ²⁵In every town in Judah, Ahaz made places for burning sacrifices to worship other gods. So he made the Lord, the God of his ancestors, very angry.

²⁶The other things Ahaz did as king, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷Ahaz died and was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but not in the graves of the kings of Israel. Ahaz’s son Hezekiah became king in his place.

Hezekiah Purifies the Temple

29Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. ²Hezekiah did what the Lord said was right, just as his ancestor David had done.

³Hezekiah opened the doors of the Temple of the Lord and repaired them in the first month of the first year he was king. ⁴Hezekiah brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the courtyard on the east side of the Temple. ⁵Hezekiah said, “Listen to me, Levites. Make yourselves ready for the Lord’s service, and make holy the…