1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.
2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. He did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done.
3 He walked in the way of the kings of Israel; he even made his son pass through the fire, copying the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the children of Israel.
4 He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and beneath every leafy tree.
5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, marched up to make war on Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz but were unable to defeat him.
6 At that time Rezin king of Syria won back Elath for Syria and drove the Judeans out of Elath. The Edomites came into Elath, and they have lived there to this day.
7 Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria to say, "I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the power of the king of Syria and the king of Israel, who are attacking me."
8 Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the LORD's house and in the palace treasuries and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.
9 The king of Assyria agreed. He marched against Damascus and captured it, deported its people to Kir and put Rezin to death.
10 King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria. When he saw the altar in Damascus, King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar and its pattern, with every detail of its construction.
11 Uriah the priest built an altar following all the instructions King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, and Uriah the priest finished it before King Ahaz got back from Damascus.
12 On returning from Damascus, the king saw the altar. He approached it and went up onto it,
13 and he burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured out his drink offering and splashed the blood of his peace offerings against the altar.
14 The bronze altar that stood before the LORD he brought from the front of the house, from between his new altar and the LORD's house, and set it on the north side of his altar.
15 King Ahaz then gave Uriah the priest these orders: "On the great altar, burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king's burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land with their grain offering and drink offerings. Splash against it all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. The bronze altar will be for me to seek guidance."
16 Uriah the priest did everything King Ahaz ordered.
17 King Ahaz cut away the side panels of the stands and took the basins off them. He also lowered the Sea from the bronze oxen beneath it and set it on a stone base.
18 Out of deference to the king of Assyria, he removed from the LORD's house the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built at the house and the king's outer entrance.
19 As for 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 lay down with his fathers and was buried with them in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah became king in his place.