⁵Amaziah called the people of Judah together. He arranged them by families under commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. He did it for all of the people of Judah and Benjamin. Then he brought together the men who were 20 years old or more. He found out there were 300,000 men who were able to serve in the army. They could handle spears and shields. ⁶He also hired 100,000 fighting men from Israel. He had to pay them almost four tons of silver.

⁷But a man of God came to him. He said, “King Amaziah, these troops from Israel must not march out with you. The Lord is not with Israel. He isn’t with any of the people of Ephraim. ⁸Go and fight bravely in battle if you want to. But God will destroy you right in front of your enemies. God has the power to help you or destroy you.”

⁹Amaziah asked the man of God, “But what about all of that silver I paid for these Israelite troops?”

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

¹⁰So Amaziah let the troops go who had come to him from Ephraim. He sent them home. They were very angry with Judah. In fact, they were burning with anger when they went home.

¹¹Then Amaziah showed how strong he was. He led his army to the Valley of Salt. There he killed 10,000 men of Seir. ¹²The army of Judah also captured 10,000 men alive. They took them to the top of a cliff. Then they threw them down. All of them were smashed to pieces.

¹³The troops Amaziah had sent back attacked some towns in Judah. He hadn’t allowed the troops to take part in the war. They attacked towns from Samaria to Beth Horon. They killed 3,000 people. They carried off huge amounts of goods.

¹⁴Amaziah returned from killing the men of Edom. He brought back the statues of the gods of Seir. He set them up as his own gods. He bowed down to them. He burned sacrifices to them.

¹⁵The Lord’s anger burned against Amaziah. He sent a prophet to him. The prophet said, “Why do you ask the gods of those people for advice? They couldn’t even save their own people from your power!”

¹⁶While the prophet was still speaking, the king spoke to him. He said, “Did I ask you for advice? Stop! If you don’t, you will be struck down.”

So the prophet stopped. But then he said, “I know that God has decided to destroy you. That’s because you have worshiped other gods. You haven’t listened to my advice.”

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