2 Kings 16

¹In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliʹah, Ahaz the 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. 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, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ⁴And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

⁵Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliʹah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. ⁶At that time the king of Edom recovered Elath for Edom, and drove the men of Judah from Elath; and the Eʹdomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. ⁷So Ahaz sent messengers to Tigʹlath-pileʹser 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 hearkened 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 Tigʹlath-pileʹser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriʹah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. ¹¹And Uriʹah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriʹah 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 cereal offering, and poured his drink offering, and threw the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. ¹⁴And the bronze altar which 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 Uriʹah the priest, saying, “Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, and the evening cereal offering, and the king’s burnt offering, and his cereal offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their cereal offering, and their drink offering; and throw upon 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.” ¹⁶Uriʹah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.

¹⁷And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands, and removed the laver from them, and he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pediment of stone. ¹⁸And the covered way for the sabbath which had been built inside the palace, and the outer entrance for the king he removed from the house of the Lord, because of the king of Assyria. ¹⁹Now the 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 Hezekiʹah his son reigned in his stead.