King Uzziah
26
📚Then all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah. 2 📚He built Eloth, and restored it to Judah, after the king had slept with his ancestors.3 📚Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jecoliah. She was from Jerusalem. 4 📚And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with all that his father Amaziah did.
5 📚And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought 📖 the LORD, God caused him to prosper.
6 📚And he went out and fought against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities around Ashdod, and among the Philistines 📖. 7 📚And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians who lived in Gurbaal, and the Mehunim. 8 📚And the Ammonites gave tribute to Uzziah. And his fame extended to the border of Egypt, for he strengthened himself exceedingly.
9 📚Moreover, Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate, and at the place where the wall turns, and fortified them. 10 📚Also he built towers in the desert, and dug many wells, for he had much livestock, both in the lowlands and in the plains, and also farmers, and vine dressers in the mountains and in Carmel, for he loved farming.
11 📚Moreover, Uzziah had an army of fighting men who went out to war in bands, according to the number of their enrollment at the hand of Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains. 12 The complete number of the heads of the fathers’ households, of the brave fighters was two thousand six hundred. 13 📚And under their authority there was an army of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who waged war with great power, to help the king against the enemy. 14 📚And Uzziah prepared shields and spears and helmets and armour and bows and slings for hurling stones for them, throughout the whole army. 15 📚And in Jerusalem he made engines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and on the bulwarks, with which to shoot arrows and large stones. And his fame spread far around, for he was marvellously helped, until he became strong.
Uzziah sins, becomes a leper
16 📚But when he became strong, his heart was lifted up 📖 to his destruction, for he transgressed against the LORD his God, and went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense 📖. 17 📚And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him eighty of the LORD’s priests, who were valiant men,
26:17 It took courage to rebuke a very powerful and determined king. God’s servants should have the boldness to stand against any leader who does wrong.⚜
18 📚and they opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, “It does not belong to you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense 📖. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed; and you will not have honour from the LORD God”.
19 📚Then Uzziah was angry. And he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and while he was angry 📖 with the priests, leprosy 📖 broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. 20 📚And Azariah, the chief priest, and all the priests, looked at him, and, see, he had leprosy on his forehead, and they hurried him out of there. Indeed, he himself hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him.
21 📚And Uzziah the king was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house 📖, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. And his son Jotham was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.
22 📚Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, Isaiah 📖 the prophet, the son of Amoz, wrote down.
23 📚So Uzziah slept 📖 with his ancestors, and they buried him with his ancestors in the burial ground which belonged to the kings, for they said, “He is a leper”; and Jotham his son reigned in his place.