But respond favorably to ¹  your servant’s prayer and his request for help, O Lord my God. Answer ²  the desperate prayer ³  your servant is presenting to you. ⁴ 

He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord’s spokesman.

King Rehoboam solidified his rule in Jerusalem; ¹  he ²  was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. ³  Rehoboam’s ⁴  mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.

When they withdrew, they left Joash ¹  badly wounded. His servants plotted against him because of what he had done to ²  the son ³  of Jehoiada the priest. They murdered him on his bed. Thus ⁴  he died and was buried in the City of David, ⁵  but not in the tombs of the kings.

Uzziah, who had an incense censer in his hand, became angry. While he was ranting and raving ¹  at the priests, a skin disease ²  appeared on his forehead right there in front of the priests in the Lord’s temple near the incense altar.

Now the king of Syria had ordered his chariot commanders, “Do not fight common soldiers or high ranking officers; ¹  fight only the king of Israel!”

The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign, including his prayer to his God and the words the prophets ¹  spoke to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, are recorded ²  in the Annals of the Kings of Israel.

Who among all the gods of these nations whom my predecessors annihilated was able to rescue his people from my power? ¹ 

He did what the Lord approved ¹  and followed in his ancestor David’s footsteps; ²  he did not deviate to the right or the left.

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.

King Joash disregarded ¹  the loyalty his father Jehoiada had shown him and killed Jehoiada’s ²  son. As Zechariah ³  was dying, he said, “May the Lord take notice and seek vengeance!” ⁴ 

King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served ¹  his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them, ²  “How do you advise me to answer these people?”

Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. ¹  His mother’s name was Jecholiah, who was from Jerusalem.

The Levites even left their pasturelands and their property behind and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons prohibited them from serving as the Lord’s priests.

He placed troops in all of Judah’s fortified cities and posted garrisons ¹  throughout the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had seized.

Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. ¹  His mother was Jehoaddan, who was from Jerusalem.

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.

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.

He looked for Ahaziah, who was captured while hiding in Samaria. ¹  They brought him to Jehu and then executed him. They did give him a burial, for they reasoned, ²  “He is the son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with his whole heart.” There was no one in Ahaziah’s family strong enough to rule in his place. ³ 

Solomon had made a bronze platform and had placed it in the middle of the enclosure. It was seven and one-half feet ¹  long, seven and one-half feet ²  wide, and four and one-half feet ³  high. He stood on it and then got down on his knees in front of the entire assembly of Israel. He spread out his hands toward the sky,