1. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he ruled for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn’t do what was right in the Lord’s eyes, unlike his ancestor David.
2. Instead, he walked in the ways of Israel’s kings, making images of the Baals
3. and burning incense in the Ben-hinnom Valley. He even burned his own sons alive, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
4. He also sacrificed and burned incense at the shrines on every hill and beneath every shady tree.
5. So the Lord his God handed him over to Aram’s king, who defeated him and carried off many prisoners, bringing them to Damascus. Ahaz was also handed over to Israel’s king, who defeated him with a severe beating.
6. In Judah, Pekah, Remaliah’s son, killed one hundred twenty thousand warriors in the course of a single day because they had abandoned the Lord, God of their ancestors.
7. An Ephraimite warrior named Zichri killed the king’s son Maaseiah, the palace administrator Azrikam, and Elkanah, the king’s second in command.
8. The Israelites took captive two hundred thousand women, boys, and girls from their Judean relatives and seized enormous amounts of plunder, which they took back to Samaria.
9. One of the Lord’s prophets named Oded lived in Samaria. When the army arrived there, he went to meet them and said, "Don’t you see that the Lord God of your ancestors was angry with Judah and let you defeat them? But look what you’ve done! Your merciless slaughter of them stinks to high heaven!