Ahaz Reigns over Judah

16 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, ^(A)Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king. ^2 (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. ³ 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. ⁴ He ^(E)sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

⁵ 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. ⁶ 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.

Ahaz Seeks Help of Aram

^7 (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.” ^8 (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. ^9 (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.

Damascus Falls

¹⁰ Now King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet ^(O)Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to ^(P)Urijah the priest the ^[g]pattern of the altar and its model, according to all its workmanship. ¹¹ So Urijah the priest built an altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, thus Urijah the priest made it, ^[h]before the coming of King Ahaz from Damascus. ¹² When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; then ^(Q)the king approached the altar and ^[i]went up to it, ¹³ and ^[j]burned his burnt offering and his meal offering, and poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. ^14 (R)The bronze altar, which was before the Lord, ^[k]he brought from the front of the house, from between ^(S)his altar and the house of the Lord, and he put it on the north side of his altar. ¹⁵ Then King Ahaz ^[l]commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “Upon the great altar ^[m]burn ^(T)the morning burnt offering and the evening meal offering and the king’s burnt offering and his meal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their meal offering and their drink offerings; and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. But ^(U)the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” ¹⁶ So Urijah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷ Then King Ahaz ^(V)cut off the borders of the stands, and removed the laver from them; he also ^(W)took down the sea from the bronze oxen which were under it and put it on a pavement of stone. ¹⁸ The covered way for the sabbath which they had built in the house, and the outer entry of the king, he removed from the house of the Lord because of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah

¹⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz which he did, are they not written ^(X)in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰ So ^(Y)Ahaz slept with his fathers, and ^(Z)was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.

Ahaz Succeeds Jotham in Judah

28 ^(A)Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and ^(B)he did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done. ^2 (C)But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel; he also ^(D)made molten images for the Baals. ³ Moreover, ^(E)he burned incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom and ^(F)burned his sons in fire, ^(G)according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel. ⁴ He sacrificed and ^(H)burned incense on the high places, on the hills and under every green tree.

Judah Is Invaded

⁵ Wherefore, ^(I)the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Aram; and they ^[a]defeated him and carried away from him a great number of captives and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who ^[b]inflicted him with heavy casualties. ⁶ For ^(J)Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah 120,000 in one day, all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. ⁷ And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king’s son and Azrikam the ruler of the house and Elkanah the second to the king.

^8 (K)The sons of Israel carried away captive of ^(L)their brethren 200,000 women, sons and daughters; and they ^[c]took also a great deal of spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. ⁹ But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded; and ^(M)he went out to meet the army which came to Samaria and said to them, “Behold, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, ^(N)was angry with Judah, He has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage ^(O)which has even reached heaven. ¹⁰ Now you are proposing to ^(P)subjugate for yourselves the people of Judah and Jerusalem for male and female slaves. Surely, do you not have transgressions of your own against the Lord your God? ¹¹ Now therefore, listen to me and return the captives ^(Q)whom you captured from your brothers, ^(R)for the burning anger of the Lord is against you.” ¹² Then some of the heads of the sons of Ephraim—Azariah the son of Johanan, Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai—arose against those who were coming from the battle, ¹³ and said to them, “You must not bring the captives in here, for you are proposing to bring upon us guilt against the Lord adding to our sins and our guilt; for our guilt is great so that His burning anger is against Israel.” ¹⁴ So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the officers and all the assembly. ¹⁵ Then ^(S)the men who were designated by name arose, took the captives, and they clothed all their naked ones from the spoil; and they gave them clothes and sandals, fed them and ^(T)gave them drink, anointed them with oil, led all their feeble ones on donkeys, and brought them to Jericho, ^(U)the city of palm trees, to their brothers; then they returned to Samaria.

Compromise with Assyria

^16 (V)At that time King Ahaz sent to the ^[d]kings of Assyria for help. ^17 (W)For again the Edomites had come and attacked Judah and carried away captives. ^18 (X)The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the ^[e]lowland and of the Negev of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, and Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages, and they settled there. ¹⁹ For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of ^(Y)Israel, for he had brought about a lack of restraint in Judah and was very unfaithful to the Lord. ²⁰ So ^(Z)Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him. ^21 (AA)Although Ahaz took a portion out of the house of the Lord and out of the palace of the king and of the princes, and gave it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

²² Now in the time of his distress this same King Ahaz ^(AB)became yet more unfaithful to the Lord. ^23 (AC)For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had ^[f]defeated him, and said, “^(AD)Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me.” But they became the ^[g]downfall of him and all Israel. ²⁴ Moreover, when Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, he ^(AE)cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces; and he ^(AF)closed the doors of the house of the Lord and ^(AG)made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵ In every city of Judah he made high places to burn incense to other gods, and provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers, to anger. ^26 (AH)Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ^27 (AI)So Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem, for they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of ^(AJ)Israel; and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

Rebellion of God’s People

1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning ^(A)Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the ^[a]reigns of ^(B)Uzziah, ^(C)Jotham, ^(D)Ahaz and ^(E)Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

War against Jerusalem

7 Now it came about in the days of ^(A)Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that ^(B)Rezin the king of Aram and ^(C)Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but ^(D)could not ^[a]conquer it. ² When it was reported to the ^(E)house of David, saying, “The Arameans ^[b](F)have camped in ^(G)Ephraim,” his heart and the hearts of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake ^[c]with the wind.

³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son ^[d]Shear-jashub, at the end of the ^(H)conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the ^[e]fuller’s field, ⁴ and say to him, ‘Take care and be ^(I)calm, have no ^(J)fear and ^(K)do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering ^(L)firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the ^(M)son of Remaliah. ⁵ Because ^(N)Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned evil against you, saying, ⁶ “Let us go up against Judah and ^[f]terrorize it, and make for ourselves a breach in ^[g]its walls and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,” ⁷ thus says the Lord ^[h]God: “^(O)It shall not stand nor shall it come to pass. ⁸ For the head of Aram is ^(P)Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin (now within another 65 years Ephraim will be shattered, so that it is no longer a people), ⁹ and the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. ^(Q)If you will not believe, you surely shall not ^[i]last.”’”

The Child Immanuel

¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ¹¹ “Ask a ^(R)sign for yourself from the Lord your God; ^[j]make it deep as Sheol or high as ^[k]heaven.” ¹² But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!” ¹³ Then he said, “Listen now, O ^(S)house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will ^(T)try the patience of ^(U)my God as well? ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, ^(V)a ^[l]virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name ^[m](W)Immanuel. ¹⁵ He will eat ^(X)curds and honey ^[n]at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. ^16 (Y)For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, ^(Z)the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

Trials to Come for Judah

¹⁷ The Lord will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have never come since the day that ^(AA)Ephraim separated from Judah, the ^(AB)king of Assyria.”

Destruction in Israel and Judah

1 The ^(A)word of the Lord which came to ^(B)Micah of Moresheth in the days of ^(C)Jotham, ^(D)Ahaz and ^(E)Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.