2 Chronicles 16

Asa Hires Aram and Turns on the Seer

1In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, Baasha king of Israel marched against Judah and fortified Ramah, to keep anyone from leaving or entering the territory of Asa king of Judah. 2Asa took silver and gold out of the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and of the royal palace and sent them to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, with this message: 3“There is a treaty between me and you, as there was between my father and your father. Look, I am sending you silver and gold. Go and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so that he withdraws from me.” 4Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his forces against the towns of Israel. They struck Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim and all the storage depots of the towns of Naphtali. 5When Baasha heard of it, he stopped fortifying Ramah and left his work unfinished. 6Then King Asa took all Judah, and they carried away the stones and timber of Ramah with which Baasha had been building; and with them he fortified Geba and Mizpah. 7At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: “Because you leaned on the king of Aram and did not lean on Yahweh your God, the army of the king of Aram has slipped out of your hand. 8Were not the Cushites and the Libyans a huge force, with chariots and horsemen in enormous numbers? Yet because you leaned on Yahweh, he gave them into your hand. 9For the eyes of Yahweh range over the whole earth, to give strength to those whose heart is undivided toward him. In this you have acted like a fool; from now on you will have wars.” 10Asa was furious with the seer and put him in the stocks in prison, so enraged was he with him over this. At that same time Asa crushed some of the people. 11Asa’s acts, from first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 12In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa fell ill in his feet, and his illness grew severe; yet even in his illness he did not seek Yahweh, but turned to the physicians. 13Asa lay down with his ancestors, dying in the forty-first year of his reign. 14They buried him in the tomb he had cut for himself in the City of David. They laid him on a bier filled with spices and perfumes of every kind, blended by the perfumer’s art, and they lit an enormous fire in his honour.