1. Pekah, son of Remaliah, was in his seventeenth year as king of Israel when King Ahaz, son of Jotham, began to rule as king of Judah.
2. Ahaz was 20 years old when he began to rule. He ruled for 26 years in Jerusalem. He didn’t do what the Lord his God considered right, as his ancestor David had done.
3. He followed the example of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son by burning him alive. Sacrificing ⌊children⌋ was one of the disgusting things done by the nations that the Lord had forced out of the Israelites’ way.
4. He offered sacrifices and burned incense as an offering at the illegal worship sites, which were on hills and under every large tree.
5. Then King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah, son of Remaliah of Israel, came to wage war against Jerusalem. They blockaded Ahaz but couldn’t get him to fight.
6. At that time King Rezin of Aram drove the Judeans out of Elath and gave it back to Edom. The Edomites came to Elath and still live there today.
7. Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath Pileser of Assyria to say, “I’m your servant, your son. Come and save me from the kings of Aram and Israel who are attacking me.”
8. Ahaz took the silver and gold he found in the Lord’s temple and in the treasury in the royal palace and sent them to the king of Assyria as a present.
9. The king of Assyria listened to him and attacked Damascus. He captured it, took the people to Kir as captives, and killed Rezin.
10. Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet King Tiglath Pileser of Assyria. He saw an altar there in Damascus. So King Ahaz sent the priest Urijah a model of the altar and a set of detailed plans.