2 Kings
Summary
The reign of Ahaz in Judah marks a period of extreme spiritual decline and apostasy. Ahaz introduces pagan practices into the heart of the nation, including the horrific act of child sacrifice and the modification of the Temple to accommodate a pagan altar seen in Damascus. Desperate for protection against his neighbours, he makes a fateful alliance with Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria, effectively making Judah a vassal state and stripping the Temple of its gold to pay tribute.
In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; but he did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done.
Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, even making his son pass through the fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD had driven out before the children of Israel.
He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem for war; they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him.
At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram and drove the men of Judah from Elath; the Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.
So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and save me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."
Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house, and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.
The king of Assyria listened to him; he went up against Damascus, captured it, carried its people away to Kir, and executed Rezin.
Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw the altar that was at Damascus, and King Ahaz sent a pattern and a detailed model of the altar to Urijah the priest.
Urijah the priest built an altar exactly according to the pattern King Ahaz had sent from Damascus; so Urijah the priest made it before King Ahaz returned from Damascus.
When the king arrived from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and offered sacrifices on it.
He burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
He also brought the bronze altar, which was before the LORD, from the front of the temple, from between his new altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of the new altar.
King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, "On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But the bronze altar shall be for me to use for seeking guidance."
Urijah the priest did exactly as King Ahaz commanded.
King Ahaz cut off the side panels of the stands and removed the basins from them; he took the bronze Sea down from the bronze oxen that were under it and set it on a stone pavement.
He also removed the Sabbath canopy that had been built in the temple and the king's outer entrance from the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria.
Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz and what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
So Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David; and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.