1 Kings / Asa's Reforms and Early Reign

Asa's Reforms and Early Reign

1 Kings 15:9-24

Chapter 15

⁹ And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa reigned as king of Judah. ¹⁰ And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother was Maacah daughter of Abishalom. ¹¹ And Asa did what was upright in the eyes of the LORD, like David his father. ¹² And he banished the cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. ¹³ He also removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother, because she had made a cultic object for the Asherah. And Asa cut down her cultic object and burned it in the Wadi Kidron. ¹⁴ And the high places did not depart; only the heart of Asa was complete with the LORD all his days. ¹⁵ And he brought the holy things of his father and the holy things of the house of the LORD—silver and gold and cultic vessels. ¹⁶ There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. ¹⁷ Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Ramah, to not give an outgoing and incoming to Asa king of Judah. ¹⁸ Asa took all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the treasuries of the house of the king. He gave them into the hand of his servants, and King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion king of Aram, who sat in Damascus, saying: ¹⁹ A covenant between me and you, between my father and your father—behold, I have sent to you a bribe of silver and gold. To you—break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, and he will go up from me. ²⁰ Ben-hadad heard of King Asa and sent the chiefs of the forces which he had against the cities of Israel. He struck Ijon and Dan and Abel Beth-maacah and all Chinnereths, all the land of Naphtali. ²¹ When Baasha heard it, he ceased from building Ramah, and he dwelt in Tirzah. ²² King Asa made all Judah hear; there was no one exempt. They carried away the stones of Ramah and the trees of Ramah that Baasha had built, and King Asa built with them Gibeah of Benjamin and Mizpah. ²³ The rest of all the words of Asa and all his divine power and all that he did and the cities that he built—are they not written in the scriptural book of the words of the days for the kings of Judah? Only in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. ²⁴ Asa lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father, and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place.