II Chronicles 15
1The spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.
2He came to Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin; GOD is with you as long as you act faithfully. If it is [God] whom you seek, you will be answered, but if you forsake [God], you will be forsaken.
3Israel has gone many days without the true God, without a priest to give instruction and without Teaching.
4But in distress it returned to the ETERNAL God of Israel, whom it sought—and who, in turn, responded.
5At those times, no wayfarer was safe, for there was much tumult among all the inhabitants of the lands.
6Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God threw them into panic with every kind of trouble.
7As for you, be strong, do not be disheartened, for there is reward for your labor.”
8When Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the abominations from the entire land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities that he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He restored the altar of GOD in front of the porch of GOD.
9He assembled all the people of Judah and Benjamin and those people of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who sojourned among them, for many in Israel had thrown in their lot with him when they saw that the ETERNAL his God was with him.
10They were assembled in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.
11They brought sacrifices to GOD on that day; they brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep of the spoil.
12They entered into a covenant to worship the ETERNAL God of their ancestors with all their heart and with all their soul.
13Whoever would not worship the ETERNAL God of Israel would be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
14So they took an oath to GOD in a loud voice and with shouts, with trumpeting and blasts of the horn.
15All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they swore with all their heart and sought [God] with all their will. In response, they were given respite on every side.
16King Asa also deposed his mother Maacah from the rank of queen mother, because she had made an abominable thing for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa cut down her abominable thing, reduced it to dust, and burned it in the Wadi Kidron.
17The shrines, indeed, were not abolished in Israel; however, Asa was wholehearted [with GOD] all his life.
18He brought into the House of God the things that he and his father had consecrated—silver, gold, and utensils.
19There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.