1 The Spirit of God came on Azariah son of Oded,
2 and he went out to meet Asa and told him, "Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin! The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will let himself be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without law.
4 But in their trouble they turned back to the LORD God of Israel and sought him, and he let himself be found by them.
5 In those days no one could go out or come in safely, for great confusion troubled everyone living in those lands.
6 Nation was beaten down by nation and city by city, because God harassed them with all kinds of trouble.
7 But as for you, be strong and do not lose heart, for your work will be rewarded."
8 When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took heart. He got rid of the abominations from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he renewed the LORD's altar that stood in front of the LORD's porch.
9 He called together all Judah and Benjamin, along with the people of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living among them, for many had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
10 They came together in Jerusalem in the third month of Asa's fifteenth year.
11 That day they sacrificed to the LORD seven hundred cattle and seven thousand sheep from the plunder they had brought.
12 They made a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and all their soul,
13 and that anyone, young or old, man or woman, who would not seek the LORD God of Israel must die.
14 They took an oath to the LORD in a loud voice, with shouting and with trumpets and horns.
15 All Judah was glad about the oath, because they had sworn it wholeheartedly and had sought him with all their desire, and he let himself be found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side.
16 King Asa also deposed his mother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a horrid image for Asherah. Asa cut her image down, crushed it, and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
17 The high places, though, were not taken away from Israel; yet Asa's heart was undivided all his life.
18 He brought into God's house what his father had consecrated and what he himself had consecrated: silver, gold, and vessels.
19 There was no further war until Asa's thirty-fifth year.