[1] In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remali'ah, Ahaz the son of
Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. [2] Ahaz was twenty years old when
he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did
not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David
had done, [3] but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even
burned his son as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the
nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. [4] And he
sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, and on the hills, and
under every green tree. [5] Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of
Remali'ah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they
besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. [6] At that time the king of Edom
recovered Elath for Edom, and drove the men of Judah from Elath; and the
E'domites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. [7] So Ahaz sent
messengers to Tig'lath-pile'ser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant
and your son. Come up, and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and
from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me." [8] Ahaz also
took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the
treasures of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.
[9] And the king of Assyria hearkened to him; the king of Assyria marched
up against Damascus, and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and
he killed Rezin. [10] When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet
Tig'lath-pile'ser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus.
And King Ahaz sent to Uri'ah the priest a model of the altar, and its
pattern, exact in all its details. [11] And Uri'ah the priest built the
altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so
Uri'ah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. [12] And
when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king
drew near to the altar, and went up on it, [13] and burned his burnt
offering and his cereal offering, and poured his drink offering, and threw
the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. [14] And the bronze altar
which was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the
place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north
side of his altar. [15] And King Ahaz commanded Uri'ah the priest, saying,
"Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening
cereal offering, and the king's burnt offering, and his cereal offering,
with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their cereal
offering, and their drink offering; and throw upon it all the blood of the
burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice; but the bronze altar
shall be for me to inquire by." [16] Uri'ah the priest did all this, as
King Ahaz commanded. [17] And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands,
and removed the laver from them, and he took down the sea from off the
bronze oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pediment of stone. [18]
And the covered way for the sabbath which had been built inside the palace,
and the outer entrance for the king he removed from the house of the LORD,
because of the king of Assyria. [19] Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which
he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of
Judah? [20] And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with his
fathers in the city of David; and Hezeki'ah his son reigned in his stead.
