CHAPTER 16
1In the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s kingship Baasha went up against Judah and built Ramah so as not to allow anyone to come and go who belonged to Asa king of Judah. 2And Asa took out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the house of the king and sent them to Ben-Hadad king of Aram who dwelled in Damascus, saying, 3“There is a pact between you and me and between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you silver and gold. Go, revoke your pact with Baasha king of Israel, that he withdraw from me.” 4And Ben-Hadad heeded King Asa and sent the commanders of the troops that he had against the towns of Israel, and he struck down Ijon and Dan and Abel-Mayim and all the storehouses of the towns of Naphtali. 5And it happened, when Baasha heard, that he left off building Ramah and brought his task to an end. 6And King Asa took all Judah, and they bore off the stones of Ramah and its timbers with which Baasha had built, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah. 7And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Aram and did not rely on the LORD your God, the force of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. 8Were not the Cushites and the Lybians a vast army with very many chariots and horsemen, and because you relied on the LORD, He gave them into your hand? 9For the LORD—His eyes roam through all the earth to lend strength to those wholeheartedly with Him. You have been foolish in this, for from now on you will have wars.” 10And Asa was vexed with the seer and put him in stocks because of his anger against him over this. And Asa abused some of the people at that time. 11And, look, the early and late acts of Asa are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 12And in the thirty-ninth year of his kingship Asa was ailing in his feet until his ailment was acute, but even in his ailment he did not seek the LORD but rather physicians. 13And Asa lay with his fathers, and he died in the forty-first year of his reign. 14And they buried him in his tomb that he had dug in the City of David, and they laid him out in his resting place, which was filled with spices of various kinds compounded by the perfumer’s art, and they lit a very great fire for him.