Asa Chooses Aram Over the Father
16 1 In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, Baasha king of Israel marched up against Judah and fortified Ramah to keep anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa king of Judah. 2 So Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of our Father and of the royal palace, and he sent them to Ben-Hadad king of Aram, who ruled 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 am sending you silver and gold. Go now and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me."
4 Ben-Hadad agreed with King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. They struck down Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store cities of Naphtali. 5 When Baasha heard of it, he stopped fortifying Ramah and abandoned his work. 6 Then King Asa mustered all Judah, and they carried away the stones and timber that Baasha had been using to fortify Ramah, and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah.
7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, "Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on your Father, the army of the king of Aram has slipped out of your hand. 8 Were not the Cushites and the Libyans a vast army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on your Father, he handed them over to you. 9 For the eyes of our Father range throughout the whole earth, to strengthen those whose heart is fully devoted to him. In this you have acted foolishly; from now on you will face wars."
10 Asa was enraged at the seer over this and put him in the prison stocks, for he was furious with him about it. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people.
11 Now the acts of Asa, from first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa developed a foot disease, and it grew severe. Yet even in his illness he did not seek our Father, but turned only to the doctors. 13 Then Asa rested with his fathers, dying in the forty-first year of his reign. 14 They buried him in the tomb he had cut out for himself in the City of David. They laid him on a funeral bed covered with spices and various blended perfumes prepared by skilled perfumers, and they made a great fire in his honor. a a v14 The great fire burned spices in the king's honor; it was not a cremation, which Israel did not practice.