Study Desk

In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ^(a)Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

^(b)Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.

But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, ^(c)and even made his son pass through the fire, ^(d)according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had ^[a]driven out from before the sons of Israel.

He ^(e)sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

Then ^(f)Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war; and they besieged Ahaz, ^(g)but could not ^[b]overcome him.

At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered ^(h)Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of ^[c]Elath entirely; and the ^[d]Arameans came to Elath and have lived there to this day.

⁽ⁱ⁾So Ahaz sent messengers to ^(j)Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son; come up and deliver me from the ^[e]hand of the king of Aram and from the ^[f]hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."

^(k)Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, and sent a present to the king of Assyria.

^(l)So the king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and ^(m)captured it, and carried the people of it away into exile to ⁽ⁿ⁾Kir, and put Rezin to death.