2 Chronicles 15
2 Chronicles 15:1 The Breath of God came on Azariah, son of Oded.
2 Chronicles 15:2 So he went to meet Asa and said, “Asa and all Judah and Benjamin, hear me. Yahveh is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, you will find him, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
2 Chronicles 15:3 For many years, Israel has been without a reliable God, without a teaching priest, and instruction,
2 Chronicles 15:4 But when they turned to Yahveh, God of Israel, in their distress and sought him, he was found by them.
2 Chronicles 15:5 In those times, there was no peace for those who went about their daily activities because the residents of the lands had many conflicts.
2 Chronicles 15:6 Nation was crushed[1] by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every possible distress.
2 Chronicles 15:7 But as for you, be strong; don’t give up, because your work has a reward.”
2 Chronicles 15:8 When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he became stronger. He removed the abhorrent idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He renovated the altar of Yahveh that was in the face of the portico of Yahveh’s temple.
2 Chronicles 15:9 Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, as well as those from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing[2] among them, because they had defected to him from Israel in great numbers when they saw that Yahveh his God was with him.
2 Chronicles 15:10 They were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign.
2 Chronicles 15:11 At that time, they sacrificed to Yahveh seven hundred cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from all the plunder they had brought.
2 Chronicles 15:12 Then they entered into a covenant to seek Yahveh, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and all their throat.
2 Chronicles 15:13 Whoever would not seek Yahveh, God of Israel, would be put to death, young or old, man or woman.
2 Chronicles 15:14 They took an oath to Yahveh in a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets, and with rams’ horns.
2 Chronicles 15:15 All Judah enjoyed the oath, for they had sworn it with all their mind. They had sought him with all their heart, and they found him. So, Yahveh allowed them rest on every side.
2 Chronicles 15:16 King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother, from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa cut down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
2 Chronicles 15:17 The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholeheartedly devoted for his entire life.
2 Chronicles 15:18 He brought his father’s and his own consecrated gifts, silver, gold, and utensils, into God’s house.
2 Chronicles 15:19 There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.
[1] כָּתַת = crush (by beating). 2 Chronicles 15:6; 34:7.
[2] גּוּר = reside as a guest. 2 Chronicles 15:9.
links:
courage without compromise
courageous and uncompromised – Devotions
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