Dual Panel1The spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.
2He went out to meet Asa and said, “Hear me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him; if you seek him, he will let himself be found, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
3For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to interpret the law, and without law.
4But when, in their distress, they turned to the LORD the God of Israel and sought him, he let himself be found by them.
5At those times there was no safety for people as they went about their business; the inhabitants of every land had their fill of trouble;
6there was ruin on every side, nation at odds with nation, city with city, for God harassed them with every kind of distress.
7But now you must be strong and not let your courage fail; for your work will be rewarded.”
8When Asa heard these words, this prophecy of Oded the prophet, he resolutely suppressed the loathsome idols in all Judah and Benjamin and in the towns which he had captured in the hill-country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the LORD which stood before the vestibule of the LORD's house.
9Then he assembled all the people of Judah and Benjamin and all who had come from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon to reside among them, for great numbers had come over to him from Israel, when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
10They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign,
11and that day they sacrificed to the LORD seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep from the spoil which they had brought.
12They entered wholeheartedly into a covenant to seek guidance of the LORD the God of their fathers;
13all who would not seek the LORD the God of Israel were to be put to death, whether young or old, men and women alike.
14Then they bound themselves by an oath to the LORD, with loud shouts of acclamation while trumpets and horns sounded.
15All Judah rejoiced at the oath, because they had bound themselves with all their heart and had sought the LORD earnestly; he had let himself be found by them, and he gave them security on every side.
16King Asa even deprived Maacah his grandmother of her rank as queen mother because she had an obscene object made for the worship of Asherah; Asa cut it down, ground it to powder, and burnt it in the wadi of the Kidron.
17Although the shrines were allowed to remain in Israel, Asa himself remained faithful all his life.
18He brought into the house of God all his father's votive offerings and his own, gold and silver and sacred vessels.
19And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign.