Study Desk

Asa cried to the Lord his God, "O Lord , there is no difference for you between helping the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord , you are our God; let no mortal prevail against you."

Asa and the army with him pursued them as far as Gerar, and the Ethiopians fell until no one remained alive; for they were broken before the Lord and his army. The people of Judah carried away a great quantity of booty.

He gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing as aliens with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the Wadi Kidron.

But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was true all his days.

He brought into the house of God the votive gifts of his father and his own votive gifts—silver, gold, and utensils.

Ben-hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. They conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali.

When Baasha heard of it, he stopped building Ramah, and let his work cease.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe; yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord , but sought help from physicians.

Then Asa slept with his ancestors, dying in the forty-first year of his reign.

They buried him in the tomb that he had hewn out for himself in the city of David. They laid him on a bier that had been filled with various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumer's art; and they made a very great fire in his honor.

His son Jehoshaphat succeeded him, and strengthened himself against Israel.

He placed forces in all the fortified cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had taken.

The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the earlier ways of his father; he did not seek the Baals,

but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments, and not according to the ways of Israel.

Therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand. All Judah brought tribute to Jehoshaphat, and he had great riches and honor.

His heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord ; and furthermore he removed the high places and the sacred poles from Judah.

In the third year of his reign he sent his officials, Ben-hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah, to teach in the cities of Judah.

Then Micaiah said, "Therefore hear the word of the Lord : I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing to the right and to the left of him.

He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then the Lord said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.'