The king of Israel summoned an officer and said, “Quickly bring Micaiah son of Imlah.”

However, the high places were not eliminated; the people were still not devoted to the God of their ancestors. ¹ 

He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my permanent home.” ¹ 

Preparations were made, ¹  and the priests stood at their posts and the Levites in their divisions as prescribed by the king.

then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Certainly ¹  you will then teach them the right way to live ²  and send rain on your land that you have given your people to possess. ³ 

Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than his other wives and concubines. ¹  He had eighteen wives and sixty concubines; he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

But the Lord was unwilling to destroy David’s dynasty ¹  because of the promise ²  he had made to give David a perpetual dynasty. ³ 

But you banished ¹  the Lord’s priests, Aaron’s descendants, and the Levites, and appointed your own priests just as the surrounding nations do! Anyone who comes to consecrate himself with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of these fake gods! ² 

Jehoshaphat and his men ¹  went to gather the plunder; they found a huge amount of supplies, clothing ²  and valuable items. They carried away everything they could. ³  There was so much plunder, it took them three days to haul it off. ⁴ 

King Uzziah suffered from a skin disease until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, ¹  afflicted by a skin disease and banned from the Lord’s temple. His son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

King Hezekiah ¹  stationed the Levites in the Lord’s temple with cymbals and stringed instruments, just as David, Gad the king’s prophet, ²  and Nathan the prophet had ordered. (The Lord had actually given these orders through his prophets.)

In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his ancestor ¹  David. In his twelfth year he began ridding ²  Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, Asherah poles, idols, and images.

I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law, the rules and regulations given to Moses.”

Don’t you realize that the Lord God of Israel has given David and his dynasty lasting dominion over Israel by a formal agreement? ¹ 

Our God, you drove out ¹  the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it as a permanent possession ²  to the descendants of your friend ³  Abraham.

And now you are planning ¹  to enslave ²  the people ³  of Judah and Jerusalem. Yet are you not also guilty before the Lord your God?

King Asa also removed Maacah his grandmother ¹  from her position as queen mother ²  because she had made a loathsome Asherah pole. Asa cut down her Asherah pole and crushed and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

Amaziah asked the prophet: ¹  “But what should I do about the hundred talents of silver I paid the Israelite troops?” The prophet ²  replied, “The Lord is capable of giving you more than that.”

Solomon acquired his horses from Egypt ¹  and from Que; the king’s traders purchased them from Que.

The gold nails weighed 50 shekels; he also plated the upper areas with gold.