Ahaz Reigns in Judah

1In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done, 3but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering,16:3 Or made his son pass through the fire according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. 4And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

5Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. 6At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. 7So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” 8Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king's house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. 9And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.

10When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. 11And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. 12And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it 13and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. 14And the bronze altar that was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of his 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, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to enquire by.” 16Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.

17And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea16:17 Compare 1 Kings 7:23 from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. 18And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king he caused to go round the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria. 19Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 20And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.