⁸Asa heard that prophecy. He paid attention to the words of the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded. So Asa became bolder than ever. He removed the statues of gods from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin. He also removed them from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He did it because he hated those gods. He repaired the altar of the Lord. It was in front of the porch of the Lord’s temple.

⁹Then he gathered all of the people of Judah and Benjamin together. He also gathered together the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them. Large numbers of people had come over to him from Israel. They came because they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

¹⁰They gathered in Jerusalem. It was the third month of the 15th year of Asa’s rule. ¹¹At that time they sacrificed to the Lord 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep and goats. The animals were among the things they had taken after the battle.

¹²They made a covenant to look to the Lord, the God of their people. They looked to him with all their heart and soul. ¹³All those who wouldn’t look to the Lord, the God of Israel, would be killed. It wouldn’t matter how important they were. It wouldn’t matter whether they were men or women.

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