2Chronicles:15

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* God ’s Spirit came to Azariah , son of Oded . * Azariah went to Asa and said : »Listen to me Asa and all you men from Judah and Benjamin . Jehovah is with you when you are with him . If you will dedicate your lives to serve him , he will accept you . But if you abandon him , he will abandon you . * »Israel was without the true God for a long time . They were without a priest who taught correctly , and without law . * »When they were in trouble they turned to Jehovah the God of Israel . When they searched for him , he let them find him . * »No one could come and go in peace at that time . This is because everyone living in the land had a lot of turmoil . * »One nation crushed another nation . One city crushed another . God tormented them with every kind of trouble . * »But you must remain strong and not become discouraged . Your actions will be rewarded .« * Asa heard the prophet Oded ’s words of prophecy . He was encouraged and put away the detestable idols from all of Judah , Benjamin , and the cities he had captured in the mountains of Ephraim . He also repaired Jehovah ’s altar in front of Jehovah ’s entrance hall . * Then Asa gathered all the people from Judah and Benjamin and the foreigners who had come from Ephraim , Manasseh , and Simeon . Many of them had come to him from Israel when they saw that Asa ’s God , Jehovah , was with him . * In the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa ’s reign , they gathered in Jerusalem . * They sacrificed to Jehovah a part of the loot they brought with them : seven hundred cattle and seven thousand sheep . * They made an agreement with one another to dedicate their lives to serve the true God Jehovah , the God of their ancestors with all their heart and all their being . * All people , young and old , male and female , who refused to dedicate their lives to the true God Jehovah the God of Israel were to be killed . * Asa and the people swore their oath to Jehovah with shouts , singing , and the blowing of trumpets and rams ’ horns . * All the people of Judah were overjoyed because of the oath . They took the oath wholeheartedly . They took great pleasure in looking for Jehovah . And he let them find him . So Jehovah surrounded them with rest and peace . * King Asa also removed his grandmother Maacah from the position of queen mother . She made a statue of the repulsive goddess Asherah . Asa immediately cut the statue down , crushed it , and burned it in the Kidron Valley . * Although the illegal worship sites in Israel were not taken down , Asa remained committed to Jehovah his entire life . * He brought into God ’s Temple the silver , the gold , and the utensils he and his father had set apart as holy . * There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa ’s reign .

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