¹In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham started to reign as the king of Judah. ²Ahaz was twenty years old when he started to reign, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. But he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God like David his father. ³And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and he made even his own son pass over fire, like the abominations of the Gentiles whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel. ⁴And he sacrificed and burned incense on the idolatrous raised sites and on the hills and under every luxuriant tree. ⁵Then Rezin king of Aramaea and Pekah the son of Remaliah, the king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to war, and they besieged Ahaz, but they could not do battle. ⁶At that time Rezin king of Aramaea restored Elath to Aramaea, and he drove the Jews out of Eloth, and Aramaeans came to Elath and lived there, as they do up to this day. ⁷And Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria and said, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from the grip of the king of Aramaea, and from the grip of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.” ⁸And Ahaz took the silver and the gold which were present in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house, and he sent a bribe to the king of Assyria. ⁹And the king of Assyria heeded him, and the king of Assyria went up to Damascus and took possession of it, and he exiled the population to Kir, and he killed Rezin. ¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria in Damascus, and he saw the altar which was in Damascus, and King Ahaz sent Uriah the priest a drawing of the altar and its design in all its detail. ¹¹And Uriah the priest built the altar. According to everything that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, ready for when King Ahaz would come from Damascus. ¹²And when the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar, and the king went up to the altar and made a burnt offering on it. ¹³And he made his burnt offering and his meal-offering, and he poured out his libation, and he sprinkled the blood of his peace-offerings on the altar. ¹⁴And he brought the copper altar which is before the Lord from the front of the house between the altar and the house of the Lord, and he put it to the side of the altar to the north. ¹⁵And King Ahaz commanded him – Uriah the priest – and said, “Burn the morning burnt offering and the evening meal-offering and the king's burnt offering, and his meal-offering, and the burnt offering for all the people of the land, and their meal-offering, and their libations, on the big altar, and sprinkle all the blood of the burnt offering, and all the blood of the sacrifice on it. And the copper altar will be for me to consider.” ¹⁶And Uriah the priest acted according to everything that King Ahaz commanded him. ¹⁷And King Ahaz cut the borders of the bases off and removed them from them, and he took down both the laver and the artificial sea from the copper oxen which were under it, and he put it on the stone paving. ¹⁸And he altered the veranda for the Sabbath, which they had built adjoining the house and the king's outer entrance to go to the house of the Lord on account of the king of Assyria. ¹⁹And the rest of the exploits of Ahaz which he undertook, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ²⁰And Ahaz lay with his fathers, and with his fathers he was buried, in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son reigned in place of him.