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Azariah’s message to Asa

¹The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded. ²He went out to meet Asa and spoke to him: “Hear me, Asa, and all of Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you as long as you are with him. If you seek him, he will let you find him; but if you abandon him, he will abandon you.

³Israel went a long time without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without law.^{a 4}But in their distress they turned back to the LORD the God of Israel; they sought him, and he let them find him. ⁵In those times there was no peace for anyone who went out or came in, because great turmoil troubled all who lived in those lands. ⁶Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, because God troubled them with every kind of distress. ⁷But as for you, be strong and do not let your hands go slack, for your work will be rewarded.”

Asa renews the covenant

⁸When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he gathered his courage. He removed the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the LORD that stood in front of the porch of the LORD’s temple.^{b 9}He assembled all Judah and Benjamin, and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who were living among them as outsiders. Great numbers had deserted to him from Israel, because they saw that the LORD his God was with him.

¹⁰They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of Asa’s fifteenth year as king. ¹¹On that day they sacrificed to the LORD from the plunder they had brought back: 700 cattle and 7,000 sheep. ¹²They entered into the covenant: they would seek the LORD, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and with all their soul, ¹³and anyone, young or old, man or woman, who refused to seek the LORD, the God of Israel, would be put to death. ¹⁴They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice, with shouts of joy, and with trumpets and rams’ horns. ¹⁵All Judah rejoiced over the oath, because they had sworn it with all their heart and had sought him with all their desire, and he let them find him. So the LORD gave them rest on every side. ¹⁶King Asa even deposed his mother Maacah as queen mother, because she had made a horrid image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.^{cd 17}The high places, however, were not taken away from Israel. Even so, Asa’s heart was undivided all his life.^{e 18}He brought into the house of God the gifts his father had dedicated and the gifts he himself had dedicated: silver, gold and utensils. ¹⁹There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.^f