5. In those days no one could travel safely, for total chaos had overtaken all the people of the surrounding lands.
6. One nation was crushed by another, and one city by another, for God caused them to be in great turmoil.
7. But as for you, be strong and don’t get discouraged, for your work will be rewarded.”
8. When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he was encouraged. He removed the detestable idols from the entire land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had seized in the Ephraimite hill country. He repaired the altar of the Lord in front of the porch of the Lord’s temple.
9. He assembled all Judah and Benjamin, as well as the settlers from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had come to live with them. Many people from Israel had come there to live when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.
10. They assembled in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign.
11. At that time they sacrificed to the Lord some of the plunder they had brought back, including 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep.