⁵Amaziah gathered the people of Judah together. He grouped all the people of Judah and Benjamin by families, and he put commanders over groups of a thousand and over groups of a hundred. He counted the men who were twenty years old and older. In all there were three hundred thousand soldiers ready to fight and skilled with spears and shields. ⁶Amaziah also hired one hundred thousand soldiers from Israel for about seventy-five hundred pounds of silver. ⁷But a man of God came to Amaziah and said, “My king, don’t let the army of Israel go with you. The Lord is not with Israel or the people from the tribe of Ephraim. ⁸You can make yourself strong for war, but God will defeat you. He has the power to help you or to defeat you.”

⁹Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what about the seventy-five hundred pounds of silver I paid to the Israelite army?”

The man of God answered, “The Lord can give you much more than that.”

¹⁰So Amaziah sent the Israelite army back home to Ephraim. They were very angry with the people of Judah and went home angry.

¹¹Then Amaziah became very brave and led his army to the Valley of Salt in the country of Edom. There Amaziah’s army killed ten thousand Edomites. ¹²The army of Judah also captured ten thousand and took them to the top of a cliff and threw them off so that they split open.

¹³At the same time the Israelite troops that Amaziah had not let fight in the war were robbing towns in Judah. From Samaria to Beth Horon they killed three thousand people and took many valuable things.

¹⁴When Amaziah came home after defeating the Edomites, he brought back the idols they worshiped and started to worship them himself. He bowed down to them and offered sacrifices to them. ¹⁵The Lord was very angry with Amaziah, so he sent a prophet to him who said, “Why have you asked their gods for help? They could not even save their own people from you!”

¹⁶As the prophet spoke, Amaziah said to him, “We never gave you the job of advising the king. Stop, or you will be killed.”

The prophet stopped speaking except to say, “I know that God has decided to destroy you because you have done this. You did not listen to my advice.”

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