and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, "Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin! Yahweh is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

Also Maacah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah; and Asa cut down her image, and made dust of it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not allow anyone to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the prison; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.

So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa his son reigned in his place. In his days the land was quiet ten years.

Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of Yahweh his God:

Asa had an army that bore bucklers and spears, out of Judah three hundred thousand; and out of Benjamin, that bore shields and drew bows, two hundred eighty thousand: all these were mighty men of valor.

Then Asa went out to meet him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

Asa cried to Yahweh his God, and said, "Yahweh, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength. Help us, Yahweh our God; for we rely on you, and in your name are we come against this multitude. Yahweh, you are our God. Don't let man prevail against you."

So Yahweh struck the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled.

Asa and the people who were with him pursued them to Gerar: and there fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before Yahweh, and before his army; and they carried away very much booty.

When Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill country of Ephraim; and he renewed the altar of Yahweh, that was before the porch of Yahweh.

So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.

But the high places were not taken away out of Israel: nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.

There was no more war to the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa.

Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of Yahweh and of the king's house, and sent to Ben Hadad king of Syria, who lived at Damascus, saying,

Ben Hadad listened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel; and they struck Ijon, and Dan, and Abel Maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali.

Then Asa the king took all Judah; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and its timber, with which Baasha had built; and he built therewith Geba and Mizpah.

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him, "Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on Yahweh your God, therefore is the army of the king of Syria escaped out of your hand.

Behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he didn't seek Yahweh, but to the physicians.

Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.

He placed forces in all the fortified cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

He walked in the way of Asa his father, and didn't turn aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh.

A letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father, 'Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah,