Knox Bible

1

It was in the second year of Joas, son of Joachaz, king of Israel, that the throne of Joas, king of Juda, passed to his son Amasias.

2

This Amasias was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and his reign at Jerusalem lasted twenty-nine years; his mother’s name was Joadan, a woman of Jerusalem.

3

He obeyed the Lord’s will, not perfectly like his ancestor David, but in the manner of his father, king Joas;

4

he too left the hill-shrines standing, so that men still sacrificed and burned incense on the mountain-tops.

5

Once he was king, he put his father’s murderers to death,

6

but spared their children, in obedience to the law of Moses; whose terms are, A father must not die for his son’s guilt, or a son for his father’s; no guilt but his own shall bring a man to death.✻

7

He also fought a battle against the Edomites in the Valley of the Salt-mines, killing ten thousand of them, and gaining possession of a rock-fortress, which he called by its present name of Jectehel.

8

Then he sent a challenge to Joas, son of Joachaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel; Come, let us have a trial of strength!

9

And this answer Joas, king of Israel, sent to Amasias, king of Juda: Said Lebanon thistle to Lebanon cedar, Let my son have thy daughter to wife. But down came wild beasts from Lebanon forest, and all the thistle got was, he was trodden underfoot.

10

Thou hast struck a shrewd blow at Edom, and now thy heart is puffed up with pride; keep thyself at home, content with the renown thou hast, do not invite disaster, to thy own and Juda’s ruin.

11

But Amasias would have his way, so these two kings, Joas of Israel and Amasias of Juda, met at a town in Juda called Bethsames;

12

and there the men of Juda were routed by the Israelites, and scattered to their homes in flight.

13

Thus Amasias, son of Joas, son of Ochozias, King of Juda, was captured by Joas king of Israel at Bethsames, and taken back to his own city of Jerusalem; where Joas made a gap in the walls four hundred cubits long, from the gate of Ephraim to the Corner gate,

14

carried off all the gold and silver and other ware that was to be found in the temple or palace, took hostages besides, and made his way back to Samaria.

15

(What else Joas did, and the record of his great victory over Amasias king of Juda, is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Israel.

16

He was laid to rest with his fathers, with Samaria for his burying-place, and the throne passed to his son Jeroboam.✻ )

17

Amasias, son of the Joas that was king of Juda, survived Joachaz’s son, Joas of Israel, by fifteen years;

18

what else he did is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Juda.

19

A conspiracy was made against him at Jerusalem, and when he escaped to Lachis they sent in pursuit of him and put him to death there;

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afterwards his body was brought back to Jerusalem in a horse-litter, and there buried with his fathers in David’s Keep.

21

Thereupon the whole people of Juda chose Azarias, a boy sixteen years old, to succeed his father Amasias;

22

he it was carried out the designs of his dead father by fortifying the harbour of Aelath and restoring it to the possession of Juda.

23

It was in the fifteenth year of Amasias, son of king Joas of Juda, that Jeroboam, son of king Joas of Israel, began his reign in Samaria; it lasted forty-one years.

24

He defied the Lord’s will, and would not forgo the sins of Nabat’s son Jeroboam, that taught Israel to sin.

25

He it was restored to Israel its old territory, all the way from the pass of Emath in the North to the Dead Sea. So the Lord had foretold through a servant of his, the prophet Jonas, son of Amathi, from Geth-Opher:

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the Lord has not been blind to the affliction, past all endurance, that has fallen on Israel, bondman and free man alike perishing with none to succour them.

27

So the Lord resolved not to let Israel’s name vanish from the world; he would grant them redress through Jeroboam the son of Joas.

28

What else Jeroboam did, all his history, and the record of his great deeds, how he fought and how he restored to Israel all of Damascus and Emath that once belonged to the Jewish kingdom, is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Israel.✻

29

So Jeroboam was laid to rest with his fathers, the royal race of Israel, and his throne passed to his son Zacharias.