Ahaz gathered the items in God’s temple and removed them. He shut the doors of the Lord’s temple and erected altars on every street corner in Jerusalem.

When he prayed to the Lord, ¹  the Lord ²  responded to him ³  and answered favorably ⁴  his cry for mercy. The Lord ⁵  brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh realized that the Lord is the true God.

(Now David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim to the place he had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem. ¹ 

Now, Lord God, may your promise ¹  to my father David be realized, ²  for you have made me king over a great nation as numerous as the dust of the earth.

“God does not really live with humankind on the earth! ¹  Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!

He erected the altar of the Lord and offered on it peace offerings and thank offerings. He told the people of ¹  Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹  He did evil in the sight of ²  the Lord his God.

(Wicked Athaliah and her sons had broken into God’s temple and used all the holy items of the Lord’s temple in their worship of the Baals.)

Oded, a prophet of the Lord, was there. He went to meet the army as they arrived in Samaria and said to them: “Look, because the Lord God of your ancestors was angry with Judah he handed them over to you. You have killed them so mercilessly that God has taken notice. ¹ 

The king refused to listen to the people, because God was instigating this turn of events ¹  so that he might bring to pass the prophetic announcement he had made ²  through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

But as for us, the Lord is our God and we have not rejected him. Aaron’s descendants serve as the Lord’s priests and the Levites assist them with the work. ¹ 

So the king of Israel assembled 400 prophets and asked them, “Should we attack Ramoth Gilead or not?” ¹  They said, “Attack! God ²  will hand it over to the king.”

When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “He must be the king of Israel!” So they turned and attacked him, but Jehoshaphat cried out. The Lord helped him; God lured them away from him.

Jehoshaphat lived in Jerusalem. ¹  He went out among the people from Beer Sheba to the hill country of Ephraim and encouraged them to follow ²  the Lord God of their ancestors. ³ 

Our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless against this huge army that attacks us! We don’t know what we should do; we look to you for help.” ¹ 

So Edom has remained free from Judah’s control to this very day. ¹  At that same time Libnah also rebelled and freed themselves from Judah’s control ²  because Jehoram ³  rejected the Lord God of his ancestors.

Jehoram ¹  received this letter from Elijah the prophet: “This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: ‘You ²  have not followed in the footsteps ³  of your father Jehoshaphat and of ⁴  King Asa of Judah,

and the whole assembly made a covenant with the king in the temple of God. Jehoiada ¹  said to them, “The king’s son will rule, just as the Lord promised David’s descendants.

An edict was sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem requiring the people to bring to the Lord the tax that Moses, God’s servant, imposed on Israel in the wilderness. ¹ 

But once he became powerful, his pride destroyed him. ¹  He disobeyed ²  the Lord his God. He entered the Lord’s temple to offer incense on the incense altar.