2 Kings 16

1In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.

2Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, 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 even made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out before the sons of Israel.

4He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, 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 fight against him.

6At that time Rezin king of Aram restored Elath to Aram, and drove the Judeans out of Elath; and the Arameans came to Elath and have lived 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.”

8Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent it as a bribe to the king of Assyria.

9So the king of Assyria listened to him, and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured it, and he deported its people to Kir, and he put Rezin to death.

10Then King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria at Damascus, and he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern, according to all its workmanship.

11So Uriah the priest built the altar, according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus; thus Uriah the priest did, until King Ahaz came from Damascus.

12When the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king came near to the altar and went up on it.

13And he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, and he poured out his drink offering, and he threw the blood of the peace offerings that were his against the altar.

14As for the bronze altar that was before Yahweh, he brought it from the front of the house, from between the altar and the house of Yahweh, and put it on the north side of the altar.

15Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar offer up 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 offerings and their drink offerings; 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 inquire by.”

16So Uriah the priest did according to all that King Ahaz had commanded.

17Then King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the Sea from upon the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pavement.

18And the covered way for the Sabbath that they had built in the house, and the outer entrance of the king, he turned away from the house of Yahweh because of the king of Assyria.

19The rest of the acts of Ahaz, which 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.