2 Chronicles 13-18

II Chronicles 13

¹In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.

²He was king in Jerusalem for three years; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³And Abijah went out to the fight with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand of his best men; and Jeroboam put his forces in line against him, eight hundred thousand of his best men of war.

⁴And Abijah took up his position on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Give ear to me, O Jeroboam and all Israel:

⁵Is it not clear to you that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the rule over Israel to David and to his sons for ever, by an agreement made with salt?

⁶But Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, took up arms against his lord.

⁷And certain foolish and good-for-nothing men were joined with him, and made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and untested and not able to keep them back.

⁸And now it is your purpose to put yourselves against the authority which the Lord has put into the hands of the sons of David, and you are a very great number, and you have with you the gold oxen which Jeroboam made to be your gods.

⁹And after driving out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, have you not made priests for yourselves as the people of other lands do? so that anyone who comes to make himself priest by offering an ox or seven sheep, may be a priest of those who are no gods.

¹⁰But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not been turned away from him; we have priests who do the work of the Lord, even the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their places;

¹¹By whom burned offerings and perfumes are sent up in smoke before the Lord every morning and every evening; and they put out the holy bread on its table and the gold support for the lights with its lights burning every evening; for we keep the orders given to us by the Lord our God, but you have gone away from him.

¹²And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.

¹³But Jeroboam had put some of his men to make a surprise attack on them from the back, so some were facing Judah and others were stationed secretly at their back.

¹⁴And Judah, turning their faces, saw that they were being attacked in front and at the back; and they gave a cry for help to the Lord, while the priests were sounding their horns.

¹⁵And the men of Judah gave a loud cry; and at their cry, God put fear into Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶And the children of Israel went in flight before Judah, and God gave them up into their hands.

¹⁷And Abijah and his people put them to death with great destruction: five hundred thousand of the best of Israel were put to the sword.

¹⁸So at that time the children of Israel were overcome, and the children of Judah got the better of them, because they put their faith in the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁹And Abijah went after Jeroboam and took some of his towns, Beth-el with its small towns and Jeshanah with its small towns and Ephron with its small towns.

²⁰And Jeroboam did not get back his power again in the life-time of Abijah; and the Lord sent death on him.

²¹But Abijah became great, and had fourteen wives, and became the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²²And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are recorded in the account of the prophet Iddo.

II Chronicles 14

¹So Abijah went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David, and Asa his son became king in his place; in his time the land was quiet for ten years.

²And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God;

³For he took away the altars of strange gods and the high places, and had the upright stones broken and the wood pillars cut down;

⁴And he made Judah go after the Lord, the God of their fathers, and keep his laws and his orders.

⁵And he took away the high places and the sun-images from all the towns of Judah; and the kingdom was quiet under his rule.

⁶He made walled towns in Judah, for the land was quiet and there were no wars in those years, because the Lord had given him rest.

⁷He said to Judah, Let us make these towns, building walls round them with towers and doors and locks. The land is still ours, because we have been true to the Lord our God; we have been true to him and he has given us rest on every side. So they went on building and all went well for them.

⁸And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men of Judah armed with body-covers and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand of Benjamin armed with body-covers and bows; all these were men of war.

⁹And Zerah the Ethiopian, with an army of a million, and three hundred war-carriages, came out against them to Mareshah.

¹⁰And Asa went out against him, and they put their forces in position in the valley north of Mareshah.

¹¹And Asa made prayer to the Lord his God and said, Lord, you only are able to give help against the strong to him who has no strength; come to our help, O Lord our God, for our hope is in you, and in your name we have come out against this great army. O Lord, you are our God; let not man's power be greater than yours.

¹²So the Lord sent fear on the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; and the Ethiopians went in flight.

¹³And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

¹⁴And they overcame all the towns round Gerar, because the Lord sent fear on them; and they took away their goods from the towns, for there were stores of wealth in them.

¹⁵And they made an attack on the tents of the owners of the cattle, and took away great numbers of sheep and camels and went back to Jerusalem.

II Chronicles 15

¹And the spirit of God came on Azariah, the son of Oded;

²And he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.

³Now for a long time Israel has been without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without the law;

⁴But when in their trouble they were turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, searching after him, he let their search be rewarded.

⁵In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

⁶And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

⁷But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your work will be rewarded.

⁸And Asa, hearing these words of Azariah, the son of Oded the prophet, took heart and put away all the disgusting things out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the towns which he had taken from the hill-country of Ephraim; and he made new again the altar of the Lord in front of the covered way of the Lord's house.

⁹And he got together all Judah and Benjamin and those of Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who were living with them; for numbers of them came to him out of Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

¹⁰So they came together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule of Asa.

¹¹And that day they made offerings to the Lord of the things they had taken in war, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.

¹²And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul;

¹³And that anyone, small or great, man or woman, who was not true to the Lord, the God of Israel, would be put to death.

¹⁴And they made an oath to the Lord, with a loud voice, sounding wind-instruments and horns.

¹⁵And all Judah was glad because of the oath, for they had taken it with all their heart, turning to the Lord with all their desire; and he was with them and gave them rest on every side.

¹⁶And Asa would not let Maacah, his mother, be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had her image cut down and broken up and burned by the stream Kidron.

¹⁷But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

¹⁸He took into the house of God all the things which his father had made holy and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.

¹⁹And there was no more war till the thirty-fifth year of the rule of Asa.

II Chronicles 16

¹In the thirty-sixth year of the rule of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

²Then Asa took silver and gold out of the stores of the Lord's house and of the king's store-house, and sent to Ben-hadad, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying,

³Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

⁴And Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-maim, and all the store-towns of Naphtali.

⁵Then Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and let his work come to an end.

⁶Then King Asa, with all Judah, took away the stones and wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and he made use of them for building Geba and Mizpah.

⁷At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, Because you have put your faith in the king of Aram and not in the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has got away out of your hands.

⁸Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a very great army, with war-carriages and horsemen more than might be numbered? but because your faith was in the Lord, he gave them up into your hands.

⁹For the eyes of the Lord go this way and that, through all the earth, letting it be seen that he is the strong support of those whose hearts are true to him. In this you have done foolishly, for from now you will have wars.

¹⁰Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, burning with wrath against him because of this thing. And at the same time Asa was cruel to some of the people.

¹¹Now the acts of Asa, first and last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

¹²In the thirty-ninth year of his rule, Asa had a very bad disease of the feet; but he did not go to the Lord for help in his disease, but to medical men.

¹³So Asa went to rest with his fathers, and death came to him in the forty-first year of his rule.

¹⁴And they put him into the resting-place which he had made for himself in the town of David, in a bed full of sweet perfumes of all sorts of spices, made by the perfumer's art, and they made a great burning for him.

II Chronicles 17

¹And Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place, and made himself strong against Israel.

²He put forces in all the walled towns of Judah, and responsible chiefs in the land of Judah and in the towns of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

³And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he went in the early ways of his father, not turning to the Baals,

⁴But turning to the God of his father and keeping his laws, and not doing as Israel did.

⁵So the Lord made his kingdom strong; and all Judah gave offerings to Jehoshaphat, and he had great wealth and honour.

⁶His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord; and he went so far as to take away the high places and the wood pillars out of Judah.

⁷In the third year of his rule he sent Benhail and Obadiah and Zechariah and Nethanel and Micaiah, his captains, as teachers into the towns of Judah;

⁸And with them, Shemaiah and Nethaniah and Zebadiah and Asahel and Shemiramoth and Jehonathan and Adonijah and Tobijah and Tob-adonijah, the Levites; and Elishama and Jehoram the priests.

⁹And they gave teaching in Judah and had the book of the law of the Lord with them; they went through all the towns of Judah teaching the people.

¹⁰And the fear of the Lord was on all the kingdoms of the lands round Judah, so that they made no wars against Jehoshaphat.

¹¹And some of the Philistines took offerings to Jehoshaphat, and made him payments of silver; and the Arabians gave him flocks, seven thousand, seven hundred sheep, and seven thousand, seven hundred he-goats.

¹²Jehoshaphat became greater and greater, and made strong towers and store-towns in Judah.

¹³He had much property in the towns of Judah; he had forces of armed men, great and strong, in Jerusalem.

¹⁴This is the number of them, listed by their families, the captains of thousands of Judah: Adnah, the captain, and with him three hundred thousand men of war;

¹⁵Second to him Jehohanan, the captain, and with him two hundred and eighty thousand;

¹⁶After him Amasiah, the son of Zichri, who freely gave himself to the Lord, and with him two hundred thousand men of war;

¹⁷And the captains of Benjamin: Eliada, a great man of war, and with him two hundred thousand armed with bows and body-covers;

¹⁸And after him Jehozabad, and with him a hundred and eighty thousand trained for war.

¹⁹These were the men who were waiting on the king, in addition to those placed by the king in the walled towns through all Judah.

II Chronicles 18

¹Now Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honour, and his son was married to Ahab's daughter.

²And after some years he went down to Samaria to see Ahab. And Ahab made a feast for him and the people who were with him, putting to death great numbers of sheep and oxen; and he got Jehoshaphat to go with him to Ramoth-gilead.

³For Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he said, I am as you are, and my people as your people; we will be with you in the war.

⁴Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

⁵So the king of Israel got together all the prophets, four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for God will give it into the hands of the king.

⁶But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

⁷And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, but I have no love for him, because he has never been a prophet of good to me, but only of evil: he is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

⁸Then the king of Israel sent for one of his unsexed servants and said, Go quickly and come back with Micaiah, the son of Imla.

⁹Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

¹⁰And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself iron horns and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

¹¹And all the prophets said the same thing, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and it will go well for you, for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹²Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs, and say good things.

¹³And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

¹⁴When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and they will be given up into your hands.

¹⁵And the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

¹⁶Then he said, I saw all Israel wandering on the mountains like sheep without a keeper; and the Lord said, These have no master: let them go back, every man to his house in peace.

¹⁷And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good to me, but of evil?

¹⁸Then he said, Give ear now to the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord seated on his seat of power, and all the army of heaven in their places, at his right hand and at his left.

¹⁹And the Lord said, How may Ahab, king of Israel, be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

²⁰Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?

²¹And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

²²And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of these prophets of yours; and the Lord has said evil against you.

²³Then Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, came near and gave Micaiah a blow on the side of his face, saying, Where is the spirit of the Lord whose word is in you?

²⁴And Micaiah said, Truly, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to keep yourself safe.

²⁵And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the town, and to Joash, the king's son;

²⁶And say, By the king's order this man is to be put in prison, and given prison food till I come back in peace.

²⁷And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

²⁸So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-gilead.

²⁹And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress, and they went to the fight.

³⁰Now the king of Aram had given orders to the captains of his war-carriages, saying, Make no attack on small or great, but only on the king of Israel.

³¹So when the captains of the war-carriages saw Jehoshaphat, they said, It is the king of Israel. And turning about, they came round him, but Jehoshaphat gave a cry, and the Lord came to his help, and God sent them away from him.

³²Now when the captains of the war-carriages saw that he was not the king of Israel, they went back from going after him.

³³And a certain man sent an arrow from his bow without thought of its direction, and gave the king of Israel a wound where his breastplate was joined to his clothing; so he said to the driver of his war-carriage, Go to one side and take me away out of the army, for I am badly wounded.

³⁴But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king of Israel was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans till the evening; and by sundown he was dead.