1Therefore in the eighteenth year of the realm of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam reigned upon Judah.

2Three years he reigned in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.

3And he went in all the sins of his father, which he did before him; and his heart was not perfect with his Lord God, as the heart of David, his father, was perfect.

4But for David, his Lord God gave to him a lantern in Jerusalem, that he should raise his son after him, and that he should stand in Jerusalem;

5for David had done rightfulness [or right] in the eyes of the Lord, and had not bowed [away] from all things that the Lord had commanded to him, in all the days of his life, except the word of Uriah the Hittite ⁵.

6Nevertheless battle was betwixt Abijam and Jeroboam, in all the time of his life.

7Soothly the residue of the words of Abijam, and all things that he did, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of the kings of Judah? And battle was betwixt Abijam and Jeroboam.

8And Abijam slept with his fathers; and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa, his son, reigned for him.

9And Asa, king of Judah, reigned in the twentieth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel;

10and Asa reigned one and forty years in Jerusalem. The name of his grandmother was Maachah, the daugh-ter of Abishalom.

11And Asa did rightfulness [or right] in the sight of the Lord, as David, his father, did;

12and he took away from the land men of women’s conditions [or the womanish-made men], and he purged all the filths of idols, which his fathers made.

13Furthermore and he removed Maachah, his grandmother, that she should not be princess in the solemn things of the idol Priapus, and in his maumet woods that she had hallow-ed; and he destroyed the den of him, and he brake the foulest simulacrum, and burnt it in the strand [or stream] of Kidron;

14soothly he did not away the high things ⁶; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect with his Lord God, in all his days.

15And he brought into the house of the Lord those things, which his father had hallowed, and avowed [or vowed], silver, and gold, and vessels.

16Forsooth battle was betwixt Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, in all the days of them.

17And Baasha, king of Israel, went up into Judah, and builded Ramah, that no man of the part of Asa, king of Judah, might go out, either go in.

18Therefore Asa took all the silver and gold, that were left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and gave it into the hands of his servants; and he sent it to Benhadad, the son of Tab-rimon, son of Hezion, the king of Syria, that dwelled in Damascus, and said,

19A bond of peace is betwixt me and thee, and betwixt my father and thy father, and therefore I sent to thee gifts, gold, and silver; and I ask, that thou come, and make void the bond of peace, that thou hast with Baasha, king of Israel, and that he go away from me.

20Benhadad assented to king Asa, and sent the princes of his host into the cities of Israel; and they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel, the house of Maachah or Abelbethmaachah, and all Cinneroth, that is, all the land of Naphtali.

21And when Baasha had heard this thing, he left off to build Ramah, and turned again into Tirzah.

22Forsooth king Asa sent [a] message into all Judah, and said, No man be excused. And they took away the stones of Ramah, and the trees thereof, by which Baasha had builded; and king Asa builded of the same stones and trees Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah.

23Soothly the residue of all the words of Asa, and of all his strength, and all things that he did, and the cities which he builded, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of [the] kings of Judah? Nevertheless Asa had ache in his feet, in the time of his eld age.

24And Asa slept with his fathers, and he was buried with them in the city of David, his father; and Jehosh-aphat, his son, reigned for him.

25Forsooth Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, reigned on Israel, in the second year of Asa, king of Judah; and he reigned on Israel two years.

26And he did that, that was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he went in the ways of his father, and in the sins of him, in which he made Israel to do sin.

27And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, setted treason to him, and he smote him in Gibbe-thon ⁷, which is a city of Philistines; and Nadab and all Israel besieged Gibbethon.

28Therefore Baasha killed him, in the third year of Asa, king of Judah, and reigned for him.

29And when he had reigned, he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not one man of his seed, till he did away him, by the word of the Lord, which he spake in the hand of his servant, Ahijah of Shiloh, a prophet,

30for the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and in which he made Israel to do sin, and for the trespass, by which he wrathed the Lord God of Israel.

31Soothly the residue of the words of Nadab, and all things which he wrought, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of the kings of Israel?

32And battle was betwixt Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, in all the days of them.

33In the third year of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, reigned upon all Israel, in Tirzah, four and twenty years.

34And he did evil before the Lord, and he went in the ways of Jeroboam, and in his sins, by which he made Israel to do sin.