Ahaz Abandons the Father's Way
Ahaz burns his own son in the fire and buys Assyria's protection with temple silver. Then he sees an altar in Damascus he likes, sends home the pattern, and has Uriah build a copy. Our Father's bronze altar is shoved aside, and Uriah does as he is told.
16 1In Pekah son of Remaliah's seventeenth year, Ahaz son of Jotham became king of Judah. 2Ahaz was twenty when he became king; he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of our Father his God, unlike his ancestor David. 3Instead he followed the path of Israel's kings, even making his son pass through the fire, copying the detestable practices of the nations our Father drove out before Israel. a a v3 Making a child "pass through the fire" meant sacrificing that child in the flames to a pagan god — a horror our Father had condemned. 4He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every spreading tree.
5Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched to Jerusalem for war; they besieged Ahaz but couldn't defeat him. 6At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, drove the Judeans from it, and Edomites came and have lived there since. 7Ahaz sent envoys to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria: "I am your servant and son. Come rescue me from the king of Aram and king of Israel, who are attacking me." 8Ahaz took the silver and gold found in our Father's house and the king's storerooms, and sent them as a gift to Assyria's king. 9The king of Assyria complied. He attacked Damascus, captured it, exiled its people to Kir, and killed Rezin.
10When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar there. So he sent Uriah the priest its design and full pattern, exact in every detail. 11Priest Uriah built the altar exactly as King Ahaz sent from Damascus, finishing before King Ahaz returned. 12When the king returned from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached and went up on it. 13He burned his burnt offering and grain offering, poured his drink offering, and splashed his peace offerings' blood on the altar. 14He moved the bronze altar before our Father from the front of the house—between the new altar and the house of our Father—to the north side of the new altar. 15King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, "On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king's burnt and grain offerings, and all the people of the land: their burnt, grain, and drink offerings. Splash on it all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But the bronze altar is mine to seek guidance by." 16And Uriah the priest did everything just as King Ahaz had commanded.
17King Ahaz cut the panels off the movable stands and removed their basins. He took the bronze Sea down from the bronze oxen under it and set it on a stone base. 18For the king of Assyria, he removed the covered Sabbath walkway built in the house, and the king's outer entrance, from our Father's house. 19Aren't the rest of Ahaz's acts, what he did, written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 20Ahaz rested with his ancestors, buried with them in the City of David; his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.
