2 Kings 14-17

New Catholic Bible

Kings of Israel and Judah

Chapter 14

Amaziah of Judah. ¹ Amaziah, the son of Joash, the king of Judah, began to reign during the second year of the reign of Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, the king of Israel. ² He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin, and she was from Jerusalem.

³ He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, but not like David, his father. He did everything like his father Joash had done. ⁴ He did not eliminate the high places, and the people continued to sacrifice and burn incense upon the high places.

⁵ As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his hands, he killed the servants of his father, the king. ⁶ He did not put to death the sons of the murderers for it is written in the book of the law of Moses, “You shall not put the fathers to death on account of the sons, nor shall you put to death the sons on account of the fathers. Each man is to be put to death for his own sins.”^[a]

⁷ He slew ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt, and he captured Sela in battle. He named it Joktheel, which is its name up to the present.

⁸ Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, the king of Israel saying, “Come, let us meet face to face.” ⁹ Jehoash, the king of Israel, replied to Amaziah, the king of Judah, saying, “A thistle in Lebanon sent to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ A wild beast in Lebanon passed by and trampled on the thistle. ¹⁰ You have defeated Edom, and now you have become arrogant. Stay at home in your glory. Why should you stir up trouble and cause the downfall of yourself and of Judah as well?”

¹¹ But Amaziah would not listen, so Jehoash, the king of Israel, attacked him. He and Amaziah, the king of Judah, met face to face at Beth-shemesh in Judah. ¹² Judah was defeated by Israel, and each man fled to his own tent.

¹³ Jehoash, the king of Israel, captured Amaziah, the king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh. He then went to Jerusalem and broke down the walls of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate up to the Corner Gate, a distance of four hundred cubits. ¹⁴ He took all of the gold and all of the silver and all of the utensils from the temple of the Lord and from the treasury of the royal palace. He also took hostages and returned to Samaria.

¹⁵ As for the other deeds of Jehoash, what he did, his achievements, and how he defeated Amaziah, the king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

¹⁶ Jehoash slept with his fathers, and he was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel, and Jeroboam, his son, reigned in his stead.

¹⁷ Amaziah, the king of Judah, the son of Joash, lived for another fifteen years after the death of Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, the king of Israel. ¹⁸ As for the other deeds of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

¹⁹ They plotted against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. They sent for him in Lachish and they killed him there. ²⁰ They brought him back by horse and they buried him in Jerusalem with his fathers in the City of David.

²¹ The people of Judah then took Azariah who was sixteen years old, and they made him king in the place of his father Amaziah. ²² He rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah after the king was sleeping with his fathers.

²³ Jeroboam II of Israel.^[b] Jeroboam, the son of Joash, became the king of Israel in Samaria during the fifteenth year of the reign of Amaziah, the son of Joash, the king of Judah. He reigned for forty-one years.

²⁴ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

²⁵ He restored the boundaries of Israel from the entrance of Lebo-hamath to the Sea of Arabah. This fulfilled the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, that had been proclaimed by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.^[c]

²⁶ The Lord saw how terribly everyone in Israel was suffering, whether they were slave or free, for there was no one to help them in Israel. ²⁷ He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, for the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under the heavens.

²⁸ As for the other deeds of Jeroboam, what he did, his achievements, how he fought and recovered Damascus and Hamath for Israel which had previously belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

²⁹ Jeroboam slept with his fathers, with the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son, reigned in his stead.

Chapter 15

Azariah of Judah.^{[d] 1} Azariah, the son of Amaziah, the king of Judah, began to reign during the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Jeroboam, the king of Israel. ² He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecholiah who was from Jerusalem.

³ He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, doing everything as Amaziah, his father, had done. ⁴ However, he did not eliminate the high places, and the people still offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

⁵ The Lord struck down the king so that he was a leper until the day of his death. He lived in a separate house while Jotham, the king’s son, took charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

⁶ As for the other deeds of Azariah, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

⁷ Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Jotham, his son, then reigned in his stead.

Zechariah of Israel. ⁸ Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, became the king of Israel in Samaria during the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Azariah, the king of Judah. He reigned for six months.

⁹ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as his fathers had done. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

¹⁰ Shallum, the son of Jabesh, plotted against him. He attacked him in front of the people and killed him, reigning in his stead.

¹¹ The other deeds of Zechariah are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. ¹² This fulfilled the word of the Lord that had been spoken to Jehu: “Your sons to the fourth generation will sit upon the throne of Israel.”

¹³ Shallum of Israel. Shallum, son of Jabesh, began to reign during the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Uzziah, the king of Judah, and he reigned for a full month in Samaria. ¹⁴ Then Menahem, the son of Gadi, from Tirzah, went up to Samaria. He attacked Shallum, the son of Jabesh, in Samaria and he killed him. He then reigned in his stead.

¹⁵ As for the rest of the deeds of Shallum, and his plot, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

¹⁶ Menahem then started out from Tirzah and he attacked Tappuah and everyone in it and its environs because they would not open up its gates. He killed everyone in it, even ripping open the bellies of the pregnant women.

¹⁷ Menahem of Israel. Menahem, son of Gadi, began to reign over Israel during the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Azariah, the king of Judah. He reigned in Samaria for ten years.

¹⁸ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. During his entire reign he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

¹⁹ Then Pul, the king of Assyria, attacked Israel, and Menahem gave Pul one thousand talents of silver so that he might have his support and strengthen his hold upon the kingdom. ²⁰ Menahem took the money from Israel. Every wealthy man had to give fifty shekels of silver to be given to the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria therefore withdrew and did not remain in the land any longer.

²¹ As for the other deeds of Menahem and what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

²² Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah, his son, reigned in his stead.

²³ Pekahiah of Israel. Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, began to reign over Israel in Samaria during the fiftieth year of the reign of Azariah, the king of Judah. He reigned for two years.

²⁴ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

²⁵ Pekah, the son of Remaliah, one of his captains, plotted against him. He attacked him in Samaria, in the citadel of the royal palace. Taking fifty Gileadites with him, he killed him, Argob, and Arieh. He then reigned in his stead.

²⁶ The other deeds of Pekahiah and what he did are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

²⁷ Pekah of Israel. Pekah, the son of Remaliah, began to reign over Israel in Samaria during the fifty-second year of the reign of Azariah, the king of Judah. He reigned for twenty years.^[e]

²⁸ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin.

²⁹ During the reign of Pekah, the king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, and Hazor. He captured Gilead and Galilee, including all of the land of Naphtali, and he took them captive into Assyria.

³⁰ Then Hoshea, the son of Elah, plotted against Pekah, the son of Remaliah. He attacked him and killed him and reigned in his stead during the twentieth year of the reign of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.

³¹ As for the rest of the deeds of Pekah and what he did, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

³² Jotham of Judah. Jotham, the son of Uzziah, the king of Judah, began to reign during the second year of the reign of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel. ³³ He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok.

³⁴ He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, everything just as his father Uzziah had done. ³⁵ The high places were not eliminated, though, and the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense on the high places. He rebuilt the upper gate to the temple of the Lord.

³⁶ As for the other deeds of Jotham, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

³⁷ In those days, the Lord began to send Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, against Judah.

³⁸ Jotham slept with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David, his father. Ahaz, his son, reigned in his stead.

Chapter 16^[f]

Ahaz of Judah. ¹ Ahaz, the son of Jotham, the king of Judah, began to reign during the seventeenth year of the reign of Pekah, the son of Remaliah. ² Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for sixteen years.

He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord as David, his father, had done. ³ He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, even sacrificing his son in fire. He practiced the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the Israelites. ⁴ He performed sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hilltops, and under every green tree.

⁵ Then Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, attacked Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz, but they could not defeat him. ⁶ It was at this time that Rezin, the king of Aram, reconquered Elath, and the Arameans drove the Judahites out of Elath. The Edomites then settled in Elath and they have dwelt there up to the present.

⁷ Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come and save me from the hands of the king of Aram and the hands of the king of Israel who have risen up against me.”

⁸ Ahaz took the silver and the gold from the temple of the Lord and the treasury of the royal palace, and he sent it to the king of Assyria as a gift. ⁹ The king of Assyria consented to his request, and the king of Assyria attacked Damascus and captured it. He deported its people to Kir.

¹⁰ Then King Ahaz traveled to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus, and King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest to Damascus to make a drawing of the altar along with a complete description of its construction. ¹¹ Uriah the priest built an altar according to everything for which King Ahaz had sent him to Damascus. Uriah finished it before King Ahaz returned from Damascus. ¹² When the king returned from Damascus, the king saw the altar. The king approached the altar and made an offering on it. ¹³ He offered up burnt offerings and cereal offerings. He poured out drink offerings and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings upon the altar. ¹⁴ He brought the bronze altar that was before the Lord from the front of the temple, from between the altar and the temple of the Lord, and he placed it on the north side of the altar.

¹⁵ King Ahaz gave orders to Uriah the priest, saying, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offerings and the evening cereal offerings, the king’s burnt offerings and his cereal offerings, along with the burnt offerings, cereal offerings, and drink offerings of all of the people of the land. Sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices on it, but I will use the bronze altar when I make inquiries.” ¹⁶ Uriah the priest did everything that King Ahaz had commanded.

¹⁷ King Ahaz cut off the side panels and he removed the basins from the moveable carts, he removed the sea from the bronze oxen underneath it and he placed it on a stone base. ¹⁸ He took away the Sabbath canopy^[g] that had been built on the temple and the royal entrance outside the temple of the Lord on account of the king of Assyria.

¹⁹ Now the rest of the deeds of Ahaz, what he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁰ Ahaz slept with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Hezekiah, his son, reigned in his stead.

Chapter 17

Hoshea of Israel. ¹ Hoshea, the son of Elah, began to reign over Israel in Samaria during the twelfth year of the reign of Ahaz, the king of Judah. ² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.

³ Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, attacked him, and Hoshea became his vassal and gave him tribute. ⁴ The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was involved in a conspiracy, for he had sent messengers to the king of Egypt, and he had not given tribute to the king of Assyria as he had in previous years. The king of Assyria therefore shut him up, throwing him in prison. ^5 [h]The king of Assyria occupied the entire land, and he went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.

⁶ The king of Assyria captured Samaria in the ninth year of the reign of Hoshea. He carried Israel away into Assyria, settling them in Halah, near Habor, on the River Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. ⁷ This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. They had revered other gods ⁸ and they had walked in the statutes of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before them and that the kings of Israel had introduced.

⁹ The people of Israel secretly did what was wrong against the Lord, their God. They built high places for themselves in all of their cities, whether it be a simple watchtower or fortified city. ¹⁰ They set up pillars and Asherahs for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. ¹¹ They burned incense on all of the high places like the nations whom the Lord had carried away before them. They did wicked things, provoking the anger of the Lord. ¹² They served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You are not to do this thing.”

¹³ The Lord had testified against Israel and against Judah through every prophet and every seer saying, “Turn from your evil ways. Keep my commandments and my statutes according to the law that I gave your fathers and which I sent you by my servants, the prophets.” ¹⁴ But they would not listen. They hardened their necks to make them just like the necks of their fathers who had not believed in the Lord, their God. ¹⁵ They despised his statutes and his covenant that he had made with their fathers and the warnings by which he bore witness against them. They followed after vain idols, becoming foolish. They also followed after the nations that surrounded them, the ones of whom the Lord had told them that they should not do what they did. ¹⁶ They abandoned the commandments of the Lord, their God, and they made molten images of two calves for themselves. They made Asherah, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served the Baals.^{[i] 17} They burned their sons and their daughters in fire, and they practiced divination and sorcery. They sold themselves to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord and to provoke him to anger.

¹⁸ The Lord was thus very angry with Israel. He removed them from out of his sight, so that there were none of them left except for the tribe of Judah.

¹⁹ Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord, their God, but they walked in the practices that Israel had introduced. ²⁰ The Lord rejected all of the descendants of Israel, punishing them and delivering them into the hands of those who plundered them until he had cast them out of his sight.

²¹ When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, their king. Jeroboam misled Israel, causing them to turn away from following the Lord, making them commit a great sin. ²² The Israelites walked in all of the sins that Jeroboam committed; they did not turn away from them ²³ until the Lord had removed them from out of his sight as he had predicted through all of his servants, the prophets. Israel was exiled out of their own land into Assyria where they are up until the present.

²⁴ Foreigners Deported to Samaria.^[j] The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the cities of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.

²⁵ When they first began to dwell there, they did not fear the Lord, so the Lord sent lions among them which killed some of them. ²⁶ The king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of the land. This is why he sent lions among them to kill them, because they did not know the law of the God of the land.”

²⁷ The king of Assyria commanded, “Carry one of the priests there whom you deported. Let him go and dwell there to teach them the law of the God of the land.”

²⁸ One of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria went and dwelt in Bethel. He taught them how to fear the Lord. ²⁹ But all the nations still made their own gods, and they placed their shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, each nation in their own cities where they dwelt. ³⁰ The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, ³¹ and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak. The Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of the Sepharvaim.

³² They also feared the Lord, and they appointed priests for the high places from their lowliest classes. They performed sacrifices for them in the shrines on the high places. ³³ So they feared the Lord but they also served their own gods in the tradition of the nations from which they had been carried away. ³⁴ Up to the present they still follow their previous traditions. They do not fear the Lord, and they do not observe the statutes or the ordinances or the law or the commandment that the Lord had given to the children of Jacob to whom he gave the name Israel.

³⁵ The Lord made a covenant with them and ordered them, “You shall not fear other gods,^[k] nor shall you bow yourselves down to them, nor shall you serve them, nor shall you offer sacrifices to them. ³⁶ You shall fear the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm. You are to fear him, and you are to worship him, and you are to offer sacrifice to him. ³⁷ You will always carefully observe the statutes, the ordinances, the laws, and the commandments that he wrote for you. You are not to fear other gods. ³⁸ You will not forget the covenant that I made with you, and you are not to fear other gods. ³⁹ You will fear the Lord, your God. He will deliver you out of the hands of all of your enemies.”

⁴⁰ However, they would not listen; they practiced their previous traditions. ⁴¹ The nations thus feared the Lord, but they also served their graven images. Their children and their grandchildren did what their fathers had done, up to the present day.