1Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for sixteen years; he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like David his father:
2But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel and made images of metal for the Baals.
3More than this, he had offerings burned in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his children go through fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.
4And he made offerings and had perfumes burned in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
5So the Lord his God gave him up into the hands of the king of Aram; and they overcame him, and took away a great number of his people as prisoners to Damascus. Then he was given into the hands of the king of Israel, who sent great destruction on him.
6For Pekah, the son of Remaliah, in one day put to death a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah, all of them good fighting-men; because they had given up the Lord, the God of their fathers.
7And Zichri, a great fighting-man of Ephraim, put to death Maaseiah, the king's son, and Azrikam, the controller of his house, and Elkanah, who was second in authority to the king.
