Bible Time

¹AND the Spirit of Yahvah came on Azariah the son of Azor; ²And he went out to meet Asa and said to him, Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Yahvah is with you forever and ever; and if you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. ³Now for a long time Israel has not served their God in truth and has not accepted the teaching of their priests and would not obey their laws; therefore they were delivered into the hand of their enemies. ⁴But when in their distress they prayed to Yahvah God of Israel and sought him, he was found by them. ⁵And in those early times when we did not worship our God, there was no peace to him who went out, nor to him who came in, because of great misfortune that came on all the inhabitants of the land. ⁶And we were scattered in every nation and people, and in towns and cities, ⁷Because we had forsaken our God and would not listen to the voice of his servants, the prophets; so he rewarded us according to our works. ⁸And when Asa heard these words of Azariah the son of Azor the prophet, he took courage and removed the idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken in the land of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of Yahvah that was in the front of the porch of Yahvah. ⁹And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin and the proselytes with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh and out of Simeon; for they gathered together and came to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that Yahvah his God was with him. ¹⁰So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the 3rd month, in the 15th year of the reign of Asa. ¹¹And the same day they offered to Yahvah of the spoil which they had brought, 700 oxen and 6,000 sheep. ¹²And they entered into a contract to pray to Yahvah God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; ¹³And that whoever would not pray to Yahvah God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. ¹⁴And they swore to Yahvah with a loud voice, and with sounding of curved and straight trumpets. ¹⁵And all Judah rejoiced at this report which they heard; for they sought him with all their heart and prayed to him with all their soul; and he was found by them, and he delivered them from all their enemies around.

¹⁶And Maachah the mother of Asa he also removed from being queen mother, because she had a feast to her idols; and Asa cut down her idols and burned them at the Kidron brook. ¹⁷But the altars on the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect in the worship of Yahvah his God all the days of his life.

¹⁸And he brought into the house of Yahvah the things that his father had dedicated and that he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and vessels. ¹⁹And there was no more war until the 35th year of the reign of Asa.