2 Chronicles 26

Revised Geneva Translation

26 Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the place of his father, Amaziah.

² He built Eloth and restored it to Judah after the king slept with his fathers.

³ Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign. And he reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.

⁴ And he did uprightly in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah did.

⁵ And he sought God in the days of Zechariah (who understood the visions of God). And when he sought the LORD, God made him prosper.

⁶ For he went forth and fought against the Philistines and broke down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities in Ashdod and among the Philistines.

⁷ And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians who dwelt in Gur Baal and Hammeunim.

⁸ And the Ammonites gave gifts to Uzziah. And his name spread to the entrance of Egypt. For he did most valiantly.

⁹ Moreover, Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate and at the valley gate and at the corner and made them strong.

¹⁰ And he built towers in the wilderness and dug many cisterns; for he had many cattle, both in the valleys and plains, and plowmen and dressers of vines in the mountains and in Carmel. For he loved the land.

¹¹ Uzziah also had an army of fighting men who went out to war by bands, according to the count of their number prepared by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains.

¹² The whole number of the chief of the families of the valiant men was two thousand six hundred.

¹³ And under their hand, the army for war was three hundred seven thousand, and five hundred who fought valiantly to help the king against the enemy.

¹⁴ And throughout all the camp, Uzziah prepared shields and spears and helmets and armor and bows and stones to sling.

¹⁵ He also made engines in Jerusalem, devised by cunning men, to be upon the towers and upon the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his name spread far and wide, because God helped him marvelously until he was mighty.

¹⁶ But after he became strong, his heart was lifted up, to his destruction. For he transgressed against the LORD his God and went into the Temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the Altar of incense.

¹⁷ And Azariah the Priest went in after him, and with him eighty priests of the LORD, valiant men.

¹⁸ And they stood before Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to offer incense. Go forth from the Sanctuary. For you have transgressed. And you shall have no honor from the LORD God.”

¹⁹ Then Uzziah was angry. And he had incense in his hand, to burn it. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy rose up in his forehead in front of the priests, in the House of the LORD, beside the incense Altar.

²⁰ And when Azariah, the High Priest, looked upon him with all the priests, behold, he was leprous in his forehead. And they had him quickly depart from there. And he was compelled to go out, because the LORD had stricken him.

²¹ And Uzziah the king was a leper until the day of his death, and dwelt as a leper in a separate house, because he was cut off from the House of the LORD. And Jotham, his son, ruled over the king’s House and judged the people of the land.

²² Concerning the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, wrote Isaiah the Prophet, the son of Amoz.

²³ So, Uzziah slept with his fathers. And they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings. For they said, “He is a leper.” And Jotham, his son, reigned in his place.