Ahaz, king of Judah
1 In the seventeenth year of the reign of Pekah, son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 Ahaz was then twenty years old and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what pleased Yahweh, his God, as his father David had done.
3 He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even sacrificed his son in the fire, according to the hate ful practices of those nations which Yahweh had expelled from the land, so the children of Israel could occupy their place.
4 He offered sacrifices in the sanctuaries on the hills, on the slopes and under every green tree.
5 Then Rezin, king of Aram, and Pe kah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to fight Jerusalem. They surrounded it, but could not conquer it.
6 At that time Rezin, king of Aram, recovered Elath for the Edomites, expelling the Jews from there. The Edomites then entered Elath and lived there until now.
7 Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, king of Asshur, to tell him, “I am your servant and your son. Come then and rescue me from the hands of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who wage war against me.”
8 Ahaz took the silver and gold that was in the House of Yahweh and the treasures from the house of the king, and sent them as a gift to the king of Asshur.
9 The king of Asshur paid heed to him and went to attack Damas cus; he seized that city and exiled its inhabitants to Kir, then he killed Rezin.
10 So King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet with Tiglath-pileser, king of Asshur. And when he saw the altar in Damascus, he sent to Uriah the priest, the measurement of that altar together with the design which he copied exact ly in all its details.
11 The priest Uriah built the altar according to the design the king had sent him from Damascus. He finished it before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus.
12 When the king returned from Damas cus, he saw the altar, approached it and went up to it.
13 He burned on that altar his holocausts and sacrifices. There he made his libation and shed the blood of his peace offer ings.
14 He removed the altar of bronze that was before Yahweh, from the front of the House, from between the new altar and the House of Yahweh, and he placed it on the north side of his new altar.
King Ahaz ordered the priest Uriah,
15 “Upon this great altar you shall burn the morning holocaust and the evening sacrifice, the king’s holocaust and his sacrifice, the holocausts of the people of the land, their sacrifices and libations. You shall shed upon it all the blood of the holo causts and sacrifices. As for the bronze altar, I will deal with it.”
16 The priest Uriah did as the king had commanded him.
17 The king dismantled the paneling of the stands, removed the washbasins from on top of them, took down the big bronze basin from the top of the oxen that supported it, and placed it upon the stone pavement. Now, about the throne which had been built within the House of Yahweh and the outer entrance for the king,
18 he removed them from the House of Yah weh because of the king of Asshur.
19 The rest regarding Ahaz and all that he did is written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
20 When Ahaz died, they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah succeeded him.