2 Kings 16

16 ¹ In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. ² Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of our Father his God, as his ancestor David had done. ³ Instead he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, following the detestable practices of the nations our Father had driven out before the people of Israel. ¹ 1 v3 Making a child "pass through the fire" meant sacrificing that child in the flames to a pagan god — a horror our Father had condemned. ⁴ He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every spreading tree.

⁵ Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to wage war against Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz but could not overpower him. ⁶ At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram and drove the people of Judah out of Elath. The Edomites came to Elath, and they live there to this day. ⁷ So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, "I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me." ⁸ Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the house of our Father and in the treasuries of the royal palace, and he sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria. ⁹ The king of Assyria complied with him. He marched up against Damascus, captured it, deported its people to Kir, and put Rezin to death.

Ahaz Defiles the Father's House

¹⁰ When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was there. So King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar and its pattern, exact in every detail. ¹¹ Uriah the priest built the altar; he made it according to everything King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, finishing it before King Ahaz returned. ¹² When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and went up on it. ¹³ 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 As for the bronze altar that stood before our Father, he moved it from the front of the temple — from between the new altar and the house of our Father — and set it on the north side of his new altar. ¹⁵ Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, "On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king's burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings. Splash on it all the blood of the burnt offerings and all the blood of the sacrifices. But the bronze altar will be mine to seek guidance by." ¹⁶ And Uriah the priest did everything just as King Ahaz had commanded.

¹⁷ King Ahaz also cut off the side panels of the movable stands and removed the basins from them. He took down the bronze Sea from the bronze oxen that supported it and set it on a stone base. ¹⁸ And because of the king of Assyria, he removed from the house of our Father the covered walkway for the Sabbath that had been built at the temple, along with the king's outer entrance. ¹⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz, what he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰ Ahaz rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.