The Living Bible (123 page)

2 Kings
16

New king of Judah: Ahaz

    
Father’s name: Jotham

    
His age at the beginning of his reign: 20 years old

    
Length of reign: 16 years, in Jerusalem

    
Character of his reign: evil

    
Reigning in Israel at that time: King Pekah (son of Remaliah), who had been the king there for 17 years

    
²
 But he did not follow the Lord as his ancestor David had;
³
 he was as wicked as the kings of Israel. He even killed his own son by offering him as a burnt sacrifice to the gods, following the heathen customs of the nations around Judah—nations that the Lord destroyed when the people of Israel entered the land.
⁴
 He also sacrificed and burned incense at the shrines on the hills and at the numerous altars in the groves of trees.

    
⁵
 Then King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah (son of Remaliah) of Israel declared war on Ahaz and besieged Jerusalem; but they did not conquer it.
⁶
 However, at that time King Rezin of Syria recovered the city of Elath for Syria; he drove out the Jews and sent Syrians to live there, as they do to this day.
⁷
 King Ahaz sent a messenger to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, begging him to help him fight the attacking armies of Syria and Israel.
*
⁸
 Ahaz took the silver and gold from the Temple and from the royal vaults and sent it as a payment to the Assyrian king.
⁹
 So the Assyrians attacked Damascus, the capital of Syria. They took away the population of the city as captives, resettling them in Kir, and King Rezin of Syria was killed.

    
¹⁰
 King Ahaz now went to Damascus to meet with King Tiglath-pileser, and while he was there he noticed an unusual altar in a heathen temple.
*
He jotted down its dimensions and made a sketch and sent it back to Uriah the priest with a detailed description.
^11-12
 Uriah built one just like it by following these directions and had it ready for the king, who, upon his return from Damascus, inaugurated it with an offering.
¹³
 The king presented a burnt offering and a grain offering, poured a drink offering over it, and sprinkled the blood of peace offerings upon it.
¹⁴
 Then he removed the old bronze altar from the front of the Temple (it had stood between the Temple entrance and the new altar), and placed it on the north side of the new altar.
¹⁵
 He instructed Uriah the priest to use the new altar for the sacrifices of burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and grain offering, and the offerings of the people, including their drink offerings. The blood from the burnt offerings and sacrifices was also to be sprinkled over the new altar. So the old altar was used only for purposes of divination.

    
“The old bronze altar,” he said, “will be only for my personal use.”

    
¹⁶
 Uriah the priest did as King Ahaz instructed him.
¹⁷
 Then the king dismantled the wheeled stands in the Temple, removed their crosspieces and the water vats they supported, and removed the great tank from the backs of the bronze oxen and placed it upon the stone pavement.
¹⁸
 In deference to the king of Assyria he also removed the festive passageway he had constructed between the palace and the Temple.
*

    
¹⁹
 The rest of the history of the reign of King Ahaz is recorded in
The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
²⁰
 When Ahaz died he was buried in the royal cemetery, in the City of David sector of Jerusalem, and his son Hezekiah became the new king.

2 Kings
17

New king of Israel: Hoshea

    
Father’s name: Elah

    
Length of reign: 9 years, in Samaria

    
Character of his reign: evil—but not as bad as some of the other kings of Israel

    
Reigning in Judah at that time: King Ahaz, who had been the king there for 12 years

    
³
 King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked and defeated King Hoshea, so Israel had to pay heavy annual taxes to Assyria.
⁴
 Then Hoshea conspired against the king of Assyria by asking King So of Egypt to help him shake free of Assyria’s power, but this treachery was discovered. At the same time he refused to pay the annual tribute to Assyria. So the king of Assyria put him in prison and in chains for his rebellion.

    
⁵
 Now the land of Israel was filled with Assyrian troops for three years besieging Samaria, the capital city of Israel.
⁶
 Finally, in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign, Samaria fell and the people of Israel were exiled to Assyria. They were placed in colonies in the city of Halah and along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and among the cities of the Medes.

    
⁷
 This disaster came upon the nation of Israel because the people worshiped other gods, thus sinning against the Lord their God who had brought them safely out of their slavery in Egypt.
⁸
 They had followed the evil customs of the nations which the Lord had cast out from before them.
⁹
 The people of Israel had also secretly done many things that were wrong, and they had built altars to other gods throughout the land.
*
¹⁰
 They had placed obelisks and idols at the top of every hill and under every green tree;
¹¹
 and they had burned incense to the gods of the very nations which the Lord had cleared out of the land when Israel came in. So the people of Israel had done many evil things, and the Lord was very angry.
¹²
 Yes, they worshiped idols, despite the Lord’s specific and repeated warnings.

    
¹³
 Again and again the Lord had sent prophets to warn both Israel and Judah to turn from their evil ways; he had warned them to obey his commandments which he had given to their ancestors through these prophets,
¹⁴
 but Israel wouldn’t listen. The people were as stubborn as their ancestors and refused to believe in the Lord their God.
¹⁵
 They rejected his laws and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and despised all his warnings. In their foolishness they worshiped heathen idols despite the Lord’s stern warnings.
¹⁶
 They defied all the commandments of the Lord their God and made two calves from molten gold. They made detestable, shameful idols and worshiped Baal and the sun, moon, and stars.
¹⁷
 They even burned their own sons and daughters to death on the altars of Molech; they consulted fortune-tellers and used magic and sold themselves to evil. So the Lord was very angry.
¹⁸
 He swept them from his sight until only the tribe of Judah remained in the land.

    
¹⁹
 But even Judah refused to obey the commandments of the Lord their God; they too walked in the same evil paths as Israel had.
²⁰
 So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Jacob.
*
He punished them by delivering them to their attackers until they were destroyed.
²¹
 For Israel split off from the kingdom of David and chose Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat) as its king. Then Jeroboam drew Israel away from following the Lord. He made them sin a great sin,
²²
 and the people of Israel never quit doing the evil things that Jeroboam led them into,
²³
 until the Lord finally swept them away, just as all his prophets had warned would happen. So Israel was carried off to the land of Assyria where they remain to this day.

    
²⁴
 And the king of Assyria transported colonies of people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and resettled them in the cities of Samaria, replacing the people of Israel. So the Assyrians took over Samaria and the other cities of Israel.
²⁵
 But since these Assyrian colonists did not worship the Lord when they first arrived, the Lord sent lions among them to kill some of them.

    
²⁶
 Then they sent a message to the king of Assyria: “We colonists here in Israel don’t know the laws of the god of the land, and he has sent lions among us to destroy us because we have not worshiped him.”

    
^27-28
 The king of Assyria then decreed that one of the exiled priests from Samaria should return to Israel and teach the new residents the laws of the god of the land. So one of them returned to Bethel and taught the colonists from Babylon how to worship the Lord.

    
²⁹
 But these foreigners also worshiped their own gods. They placed them in the shrines on the hills near their cities.
³⁰
 Those from Babylon worshiped idols of their god Succoth-benoth; those from Cuth worshiped their god Nergal; and the men of Hamath worshiped Ashima.
³¹
 The gods Nibhaz and Tartak were worshiped by the Avvites, and the people from Sephar even burned their own children on the altars of their gods Adrammelech and Anammelech.

    
³²
 They also worshiped the Lord, and they appointed from among themselves priests to sacrifice to the Lord on the hilltop altars.
³³
 But they continued to follow the religious customs of the nations from which they came.
³⁴
 And this is still going on among them today—they follow their former practices instead of truly worshiping the Lord or obeying the laws he gave to the descendants of Jacob (whose name was later changed to Israel).
^35-36
 For the Lord had made a contract with them—that they were never to worship or make sacrifices to any heathen gods. They were to worship only the Lord who had brought them out of the land of Egypt with such tremendous miracles and power.
³⁷
 The descendants of Jacob were to obey all of God’s laws and
never
worship other gods.

    
³⁸
 For God had said,
“You must never forget the covenant I made with you; never worship other gods.
³⁹
 
You must worship only the Lord; he will save you from all your enemies.”

    
⁴⁰
 But Israel didn’t listen, and the people continued to worship other gods.
⁴¹
 These colonists from Babylon worshiped the Lord, yes—but they also worshiped their idols. And to this day their descendants do the same thing.