1In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.
2Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of Yahweh his God, as David his father had done.
3He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and he even made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that Yahweh had driven out from before the sons of Israel.
4He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.
5Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem for war, and they besieged Ahaz, but they were not able to overcome him in battle.
6At that time Rezin king of Aram restored Elath to Aram, and he drove out the Judeans from Elath; and the Edomites came to Elath and dwelt there to this day.
7So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, ‘I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.’
8And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and he sent a bribe to the king of Assyria.
9And the king of Assyria listened to him; the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured it, and he exiled its people to Kir, and he put Rezin to death.
10Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and he saw the altar that was in Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.
11And Uriah the priest built the altar; according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz came back from Damascus.
12When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king drew near to the altar and went up upon it.
13And he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, and he poured out his drink offering, and he sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings on the altar.
14And the bronze altar that was before Yahweh — he brought it forward from the front of the house, from between the altar and the house of Yahweh, and he set it on the north side of the altar.
15And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, ‘On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land and their grain offering and their drink offerings; and all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice you shall sprinkle upon it. But the bronze altar shall be mine to inquire by.’
16And Uriah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz had commanded.
17And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the stands and removed from them the basin; and the Sea he took down from off the bronze oxen that were beneath it, and he set it upon a stone pavement.
18And the covered walkway for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, and the outer entrance for the king, he turned aside from the house of Yahweh, because of the king of Assyria.
19Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did — are they not written on the scroll of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20And Ahaz lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son became king in his place.
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