Asa Chooses Aram Over the Father
Facing Baasha, Asa buys Aram's help with temple silver instead of asking his Father. Hanani tells him our Father's eyes range the whole earth looking for hearts fully devoted to him. Asa jails the seer, and later seeks doctors rather than him for his diseased feet.
16 1In Asa's thirty-sixth year, Baasha king of Israel invaded Judah, fortifying Ramah to keep anyone from leaving or entering Asa king of Judah's territory. 2Asa took silver and gold from the storerooms of our Father's house and the royal house, and sent them to Ben-Hadad king of Aram, living in Damascus, with this message: 3"Let there be a treaty between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. See, I'm sending you silver and gold. Go now and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so he withdraws from me."
4Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent his army commanders against Israel's cities. They struck down Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all Naphtali's store cities. 5When Baasha heard of it, he stopped fortifying Ramah and abandoned his work. 6King Asa mustered all Judah; they carried off the stones and timber Baasha had fortified Ramah with, and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah.
7Then Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, "Because you relied on Aram's king and not your Father, his army escaped your hand. 8Weren't Cushites and Libyans a vast army with countless chariots and horsemen? Because you relied on your Father, he gave them to you. 9For our Father's eyes scan the whole earth, to strengthen those whose heart is fully devoted to him. You acted foolishly in this; from now on you will have wars."
10Asa raged at the seer for this and jailed him in the stocks, for he was furious with him about it; he also brutally oppressed some people at that time.
11Asa's acts, first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 12In his thirty-ninth year of reign, Asa's feet grew diseased, the disease severe. Yet even in his illness he did not seek our Father, but only the doctors. 13Then Asa rested with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign. 14They buried him in his own tomb, cut for himself in the City of David, laid him on a funeral bed covered with spices and various blended perfumes prepared by skilled perfumers, and lit a great fire for him. a a v14 The great fire burned spices in the king's honor; it was not a cremation, which Israel did not practice.
