Study Desk

When they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set liers-in-wait against the children of `Ammon, Mo'av, and Mount Se`ir, who had come against Yehudah; and they were struck.

For the children of `Ammon and Mo'av stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Se`ir, utterly to kill and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Se`ir, everyone helped to destroy another.

However the LORD would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always.

behold, the LORD will strike with a great plague your people, and your children, and your wives, and all your substance;

But he didn't put their children to death, but did according to that which is written in the law in the book of Moshe, as the LORD commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers; but every man shall die for his own sin.

But there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, don't let the army of Yisra'el go with you; for the LORD is not with Yisra'el, [to wit], with all the children of Efrayim.

Amatzyah took courage, and led forth his people, and went to the Valley of Salt, and struck of the children of Se`ir ten thousand.

[other] ten thousand did the children of Yehudah carry away alive, and brought them to the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, so that they all were broken in pieces.

Now it happened, after that Amatzyah was come from the slaughter of the Edom, that he brought the gods of the children of Se`ir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense to them.

He fought also with the king of the children of `Ammon, and prevailed against them. The children of `Ammon gave him the same year one hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. So much did the children of `Ammon render to him, in the second year also, and in the third.

Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD cast out before the children of Yisra'el.

The children of Yisra'el carried away captive of their brothers two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Shomron.

Now you purpose to keep under the children of Yehudah and Yerushalayim for bondservants and bondmaids to you: [but] aren't there even with you trespasses of your own against the LORD your God?

Then certain of the heads of the children of Efrayim, `Azaryah the son of Yochanan, Berekhyah the son of Meshillemot, and Yechizkiyahu the son of Shallum, and `Amasa the son of Hadlai, stood up against those who came from the war,

So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Yisra'el and Yehudah, and according to the mitzvah of the king, saying, You children of Yisra'el, turn again to the LORD, the God of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yisra'el, that he may return to the remnant that have escaped of you out of the hand of the kings of Ashshur.

For if you turn again to the LORD, your brothers and your children shall find compassion before those who led them captive, and shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

The children of Yisra'el who were present at Yerushalayim kept the feast of matzah seven days with great gladness; and the Levites and the Kohanim praised the LORD day by day, [singing] with loud instruments to the LORD.

Now when all this was finished, all Yisra'el who were present went out to the cities of Yehudah, and broke in pieces the pillars, and hewed down the Asherim, and broke down the high places and the altars out of all Yehudah and Binyamin, in Efrayim also and Menashsheh, until they had destroyed them all. Then all the children of Yisra'el returned, every man to his possession, into their own cities.

As soon as the mitzvah came abroad, the children of Yisra'el gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, new wine, and oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly.

The children of Yisra'el and Yehudah, who lived in the cities of Yehudah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of dedicated things which were consecrated to the LORD their God, and laid them by heaps.