1
And the Spirit of God has been on Azariah son of Oded,
2
and he goes out before Asa and says to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; YHWH [is] with you—in your being with Him, and if you seek Him, He is found by you, and if you forsake Him, He forsakes you;
3
and many days [are] to Israel without [the] true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law,
4
and it turns back in its distress to YHWH, God of Israel, and they seek Him, and He is found by them,
5
and in those times there is no peace for him who is going out, and for him who is coming in, for many troubles [are] on all the inhabitants of the lands,
6
and they have been beaten down, nation by nation, and city by city, for God has troubled them with every adversity;
7
and you, be strong, and do not let your hands be feeble, for there is a reward for your work.”
Asa’s Reforms
(1 Kings 15:9–15)
8
And at Asa’s hearing these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he has strengthened himself, and causes the abominations to pass away out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities that he has captured from the hill-country of Ephraim, and renews the altar of YHWH that [is] before the porch of YHWH,
9
and gathers all Judah and Benjamin, and the sojourners with them out of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and out of Simeon—for they have defected to him from Israel in abundance, in their seeing that his God YHWH [is] with him.
10
And they are gathered to Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa,
11
and sacrifice to YHWH on that day from the spoil they have brought in—seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep,
12
and they enter into a covenant to seek YHWH, God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul,
13
and everyone who does not seek for YHWH, God of Israel, is put to death, from small to great, from man to woman.
14
And they swear to YHWH with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with horns,
15
and all Judah rejoices concerning the oath, for they have sworn with all their heart, and they have sought Him with all their goodwill, and He is found by them, and YHWH gives rest to them all around.
16
And also Maachah, mother of Asa the king—he has removed her from [being] mistress, in that she has made for an Asherah a horrible thing, and Asa cuts down her horrible thing, and beats [it] small, and burns [it] by the Brook of Kidron:
17
yet the high places have not been removed from Israel; only, the heart of Asa has been perfect all his days.
18
And he brings in the sanctified things of his father, and his own sanctified things, to the house of God: silver, and gold, and vessels.
19
And war has not been until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.
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