Second Book of Kings 16

¹ In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham became king of Judah.

² Ahaz was twenty years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what is pleasing to Yahweh his God, as his ancestor David had done.

³ He followed the example of the kings of Israel, even causing his son to pass through fire, copying the shameful practices of the nations which Yahweh had dispossessed for the sons of Israel.

⁴ He offered sacrifices and incense on the high places, on the hills and under every spreading tree.

⁵ It was then that Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, launched their campaign against Jerusalem. They besieged it but could not reduce it.

⁶ (At that time, the king of Edom recovered Elath for Edom; he drove out the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites occupied it and live there to this present day.)

⁷ Then Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria to say, ‘I am your servant and your son. Come and rescue me from the king of Aram and the king of Israel who are making war against me.’

⁸ And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the Temple of Yahweh and in the treasury of the royal palace, and sent this as a present to the king of Assyria.

⁹ The king of Assyria granted his request and, going up against Damascus, captured it; he deported its population to Kir, and put Rezin to death.

¹⁰ When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was in Damascus. He then sent the measurements and a model of the altar with the detail of its workmanship to Uriah the priest.

¹¹ Uriah the priest constructed the altar; all the instructions sent by King Ahaz from Damascus were carried out by Uriah the priest before King Ahaz returned from Damascus.

¹² When the king arrived from Damascus, he inspected the altar, he approached it and ascended it.

¹³ He burned his holocaust and his oblation; he poured out his libation and sprinkled the blood of his communion sacrifice.

¹⁴ The altar that used to stand before Yahweh he removed from the front of the Temple, where it had stood between the new altar and the Temple of Yahweh, and placed it at the north side of the new altar.

¹⁵ King Ahaz gave this order to Uriah the priest: ‘In future you will burn the morning holocaust, the evening oblation, the king’s holocaust and his oblation, the holocaust, the oblation and the libations of all people on the great altar; on it you will pour out all the blood of the holocausts and sacrifices. As regards the altar of bronze, I shall see to that.’

¹⁶ Uriah the priest did everything that King Ahaz had ordered.

¹⁷ King Ahaz dismantled the wheeled stands, removed the crosspieces and the basins from them, and took the bronze Sea off the oxen supporting it, and rested it on the stone pavement.

¹⁸ In deference to the king of Assyria, he removed from the Temple of Yahweh the dais for the throne, which had been set up there, and the royal entry on the outside.

¹⁹ The rest of the history of Ahaz, his entire career, is not all this recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰ Then Ahaz slept with his ancestors, and was buried in the Citadel of David; his son Hezekiah succeeded him.