Asa’s reforms
15
📚And the Spirit of God 📖 came on Azariah, the son of Oded, 2 📚and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when 📖 you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found by you 📖; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 📚Now for a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without the law.15:3 The priests had failed in their duties to teach the Word of God (Lev 10:10-11). For a considerable portion of Judah’s history there was a dearth of the word of God, written or spoken. Compare 1 Sam 3:1; Amos 8:11-12.⚜
4 📚But when they in their trouble turned to the LORD God of Israel and sought him, he was found by them. 5 📚And in those times there was no peace to anyone who went out, or to anyone who came in, but there were great troubles to all the inhabitants of the countries. 6 📚And nation was destroyed by nation, and city by city; for God troubled them with every kind of distress 📖. 7 📚Be strong therefore, and do not let your hands be weak; for your work will be rewarded”.
8 📚And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols 📖 out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim, and repaired the altar 📖 of the LORD that was before the portico of the LORD.
9 📚And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim and Manasseh and from Simeon who had settled among them; for many defected to him out of Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
10 📚So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 📚And at that time they offered to the LORD seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep from the plunder which they had brought. 12 📚And they entered into a covenant 📖 to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul, 13 📚that whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death 📖, whether small or great, whether man or woman. 14 📚And they swore to the LORD with a loud voice, and with shouting and with trumpets and with cornets. 15 📚And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.
16 📚And he also removed Maachah, the mother of Asa the king, from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove. And Asa cut down her idol, and crushed it and burned it at the brook Kidron. 17 📚But the high places were not taken away out of Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was blameless 📖 all his days. 18 📚And he brought the things that his father had dedicated, and that he himself had dedicated, silver, and gold, and vessels into the house of God.
19 📚And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.