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¹When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the law of the LORD.

²And it came about in King Rehoboam's fifth year, because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem

³with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen. The people who came with him from Egypt were beyond counting—the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians.

⁴Shishak took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem.

⁵Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, "Thus says the LORD: 'You have abandoned (turned away from) Me, so I have abandoned you into the hands of Shishak.'"

⁶Then the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, "The LORD is righteous."

⁷When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, "They have humbled themselves so I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some measure of a remnant [that escapes]; and My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by means of Shishak.

⁸Nevertheless they will become his slaves, so that they may know [the difference between] My service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries."

⁹So Shishak king of Egypt went up against Jerusalem; he took the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king's house (palace). He took everything. He even took the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

¹⁰In their place King Rehoboam made shields of bronze and entrusted them to the care of the officers of the guard who guarded the door of the king's house.

¹¹And whenever the king entered the house of the LORD, the guards came and carried the shields and then brought them back into the guards' room.

¹²When Rehoboam humbled himself, the wrath of the LORD turned away from him, so as not to destroy him completely; and also conditions were good in Judah.

¹³So King Rehoboam established himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city in which the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put His Name. And his mother was Naamah the Ammonitess.

¹⁴He did evil because he did not set his heart to seek and worship and honor the LORD.

¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, from the first to the last, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer, according to genealogical enrollment? There were wars between Rehoboam [of Judah] and Jeroboam [of Israel] continually.

¹⁶And Rehoboam slept with his fathers [in death] and was buried in the City of David; and Abijah his son became king in his place.

¹In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.

²He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam [of Israel].

³Abijah began the battle with an army of brave soldiers, 400,000 chosen men. Jeroboam drew up in battle formation against him with 800,000 chosen men, valiant men.

⁴Then Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, "Listen to me, Jeroboam and all Israel:

⁵Do you not know that the LORD God of Israel, gave rule over Israel forever to David and to his sons by a covenant of salt [a permanent pact, extending to each generation of Israel]?

⁶Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, a servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord [the king],

⁷and worthless (unprincipled, unethical) men gathered around him, useless and wicked men, who proved too strong for Rehoboam the son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young and timid, and could not assert himself against them.

⁸"And now you intend to assert yourselves against the kingdom of the LORD which is in the hands of the sons of David, since you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves (idols) which Jeroboam made for you as gods.

⁹Have you not driven out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? So whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams, even he may become a priest of non-existent gods (idols).

¹⁰But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not abandoned (turned away from) Him. The sons of Aaron are ministering to the LORD as priests, and the Levites attend to their service.

¹¹Every morning and every evening they offer the burnt offerings and the fragrant incense to the LORD; and the showbread is set on the clean table [of pure gold], and the golden lampstand with its lamps is ready to light every evening; for we keep the charge of the LORD our God [that is, the obligation we have to Him], but you have abandoned (turned away from) Him.

¹²Behold, God is with us at our head, and His priests [are here] with their signal trumpets to sound an alarm against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed."

¹³But Jeroboam had set an ambush to come from the rear, so that Israel was in front of Judah and the ambush was behind them.

¹⁴When [the men of] Judah turned around, they were attacked from both front and rear; so they cried out to the LORD [for help], and the priests blew the trumpets.

¹⁵Then the men of Judah raised a war cry; and as they shouted, God struck Jeroboam and all Israel [with defeat] before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶And the sons of Israel fled before Judah, and God handed over the sons of Israel to them.

¹⁷Abijah and his people inflicted on them a great defeat, so that 500,000 chosen men of Israel fell slain.

¹⁸Thus the sons of Israel were subdued (humbled) at that time, and the sons of Judah prevailed because they relied on the LORD, the God of their fathers.

¹⁹Abijah pursued Jeroboam and captured [several] cities from him: Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim (Ephron), with their villages.

²⁰Jeroboam did not recover strength again during the time of [the reign of] Abijah. And the LORD struck him and he died.

²¹But Abijah became powerful. He took fourteen wives for himself and fathered twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²²Now the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the writing of the prophet Iddo.

¹So Abijah slept with his fathers [in death], and they buried him in the City of David; and Asa his son became king in his place. The land was at peace for ten years during his days.

²Asa did what was good and right in the sight of the LORD his God.

³He removed the foreign altars and high places and tore down the [pagan] pillars (obelisks, memorial stones), and cut to pieces the Asherim [the symbols of the goddess Asherah].

⁴And he commanded Judah to seek the LORD God of their fathers [to inquire of and for Him and seek Him as a vital necessity], and to observe the law [given to Moses] and the commandment.

⁵Asa also removed the [idolatrous] high places and the incense altars from all the cities of Judah. The kingdom was at rest and undisturbed under his reign.

⁶He built fortified cities in Judah, since the land was at rest, and there was no one at war with him in those years, because the LORD had given him rest.

⁷So he said to Judah, "Let us build these cities and surround them with walls, towers, gates and bars [to secure the doors]. The land is still ours because we have sought the LORD our God; we have sought Him [longing for Him with all our heart] and He has given us peace on every side." So they built and prospered.

⁸Now Asa had an army of 300,000 men from Judah, who carried large shields and spears, and 280,000 from Benjamin, who carried shields and drew bows, all courageous men.

⁹Now Zerah the Ethiopian (Cushite) came out against Judah with an army of a million men and three hundred chariots, and he came as far as Mareshah.

¹⁰Then Asa went out against him, and they drew up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

¹¹Asa called out to the LORD his God, saying, "O LORD, there is no one besides You to help in the battle between the powerful and the weak; so help us, O LORD our God, for we trust in and rely on You, and in Your name we have come against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; let not man prevail against You."

¹²So the LORD struck the Ethiopians [with defeat] before Asa and Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.

¹³Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar; and so many Ethiopians fell that none of them were found alive; for they were destroyed before the LORD and His army. And they carried away a very large amount of spoil.

¹⁴They attacked and destroyed all the cities around Gerar, for the dread of the LORD had fallen on them. They plundered all the cities, for there was a large amount of spoil in them.

¹⁵They also struck down the people [living] in tents who had livestock, and took captive large numbers of sheep and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

¹Now the Spirit of God came on Azariah the son of Oded,

²and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: the LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him, as your soul's first necessity], He will let you find Him; but if you abandon (turn away from) Him, He will abandon (turn away from) you.

³Now for a long time Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest, and without [God's] law.

⁴But when they were in their trouble and distress they turned to the LORD God of Israel, and [in desperation earnestly] sought Him, and He let them find Him.

⁵In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, for great suffering came on all the inhabitants of the lands.

⁶Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress.

⁷But as for you, be strong and do not lose courage, for there is reward for your work."

⁸And when Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the repulsive idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. Then he restored the altar [of burnt offering] of the LORD which was in front of the porch [of the temple] of the LORD.

⁹He gathered all Judah and Benjamin and the strangers who were with them out of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, for they came over to Asa from Israel in large numbers when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.

¹⁰So they assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.

¹¹They sacrificed to the LORD on that day from the spoil they had brought—700 oxen and 7,000 sheep.

¹²They entered into a covenant (solemn agreement) to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and soul;

¹³and that whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.

¹⁴They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice, with [jubilant] shouting, with trumpets, and with horns.

¹⁵All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought Him with their whole heart, and He let them find Him. So the LORD gave them rest on every side.

¹⁶He also removed Maacah, King Asa's mother, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa cut down her idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Brook Kidron.

¹⁷But the high places [of pagan worship] were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless Asa's heart was blameless all his days.

¹⁸He brought the things that his father [Abijah] had dedicated and those things that he had dedicated into the house of God—silver and gold and utensils.

¹⁹And there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa's reign.

¹In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to [meet with] Asa king of Judah.

²Then Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and from the king's house, and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram (Syria), who lived in Damascus, saying,

³"Let there be a treaty between you and me, as there was between my father and your father. Look, I am sending you silver and gold; go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me."

⁴Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they attacked and conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali.

⁵When Baasha heard about it, he ceased fortifying Ramah and stopped his work.

⁶Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah.

⁷At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, "Because you relied on the king of Aram (Syria) and did not rely on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram (Syria) has escaped out of your hand.

⁸Were not the Ethiopians and Lubim a huge army with a great number of chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the LORD, He placed them in your hand.

⁹For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth so that He may support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this; therefore, from now on you will have wars."

¹⁰Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison [in the stocks], for he was enraged with him because of this. And at the same time Asa oppressed some of the people.

¹¹Now the acts of Asa, from the first to the last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

¹²In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa developed a disease in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his illness he did not seek the LORD, but [relied only on] the physicians.

¹³So Asa slept with his fathers [in death], dying in the forty-first year of his reign.

¹⁴They buried him in his own tomb which he had cut out for himself in the City of David, and they laid him on a bier which he had filled with various kinds of spices blended by the perfumers' art; and they made a very great fire in his honor.