2 Kings 16

New Catholic Bible

Chapter 16^[a]

Ahaz of Judah. ¹ Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the king of Judah, began to reign during the seventeenth year of the reign of Pekah, the son of Remaliah. ² Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for sixteen years.

He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord as David, his father, had done. ³ He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, even sacrificing his son in fire. He practiced the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the Israelites. ⁴ He performed sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hilltops, and under every green tree.

⁵ Then Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, attacked Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz, but they could not defeat him. ⁶ It was at this time that Rezin, the king of Aram, reconquered Elath, and the Arameans drove the Judahites out of Elath. The Edomites then settled in Elath and they have dwelt there up to the present.

⁷ Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come and save me from the hands of the king of Aram and the hands of the king of Israel who have risen up against me.”

⁸ Ahaz took the silver and the gold from the temple of the Lord and the treasury of the royal palace, and he sent it to the king of Assyria as a gift. ⁹ The king of Assyria consented to his request, and the king of Assyria attacked Damascus and captured it. He deported its people to Kir.

¹⁰ Then King Ahaz traveled to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus, and King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest to Damascus to make a drawing of the altar along with a complete description of its construction. ¹¹ Uriah the priest built an altar according to everything for which King Ahaz had sent him to Damascus. Uriah finished it before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. ¹² When the king returned from Damascus, the king saw the altar. The king approached the altar and made an offering on it. ¹³ He offered up burnt offerings and cereal offerings. He poured out drink offerings and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. ¹⁴ He brought the bronze altar that was before the Lord from the front of the temple, from between the altar and the temple of the Lord, and he placed it on the north side of the altar.

¹⁵ King Ahaz gave orders to Uriah the priest, saying, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offerings and the evening cereal offerings, the king’s burnt offerings and his cereal offerings, along with the burnt offerings, cereal offerings, and drink offerings of all of the people of the land. Sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices on it, but I will use the bronze altar when I make inquiries.” ¹⁶ Uriah the priest did everything that King Ahaz had commanded.

¹⁷ King Ahaz cut off the side panels and he removed the basins from the moveable carts, he removed the sea from the bronze oxen underneath it and he placed it on a stone base. ¹⁸ He took away the Sabbath canopy^[b] that had been built on the temple and the royal entrance outside the temple of the Lord on account of the king of Assyria.

¹⁹ Now the rest of the deeds of Ahaz, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁰ Ahaz slept with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his stead.