[1] And the spirit of God came on Azariah, the son of Oded; [2] And 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. [3] Now for a long time Israel has been without the true God,
and without a teaching priest and without the law; [4] But when in their
trouble they were turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, searching after
him, he let their search be rewarded. [5] In 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. [6] And they were broken by divisions, nation
against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble
on them. [7] But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your
work will be rewarded. [8] And 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. [9] And 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. [10] So they came
together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule
of Asa. [11] And that day they made offerings to the Lord of the things
they had taken in war, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. [12]
And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their
fathers, with all their heart and all their soul; [13] And that anyone,
small or great, man or woman, who was not true to the Lord, the God of
Israel, would be put to death. [14] And they made an oath to the Lord, with
a loud voice, sounding wind-instruments and horns. [15] And 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. [16] And 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. [17] But the
high places were not taken away out of Israel; but still the heart of Asa
was true to the Lord all his life. [18] He 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. [19] And there was no more war till
the thirty-fifth year of the rule of Asa.
