1 And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded;
2 and he went out to meet Asa and said unto him, Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you, while ye are with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.
3 For many days Israel has been without the true God, and without a priest and without a teacher and without law,
4 but when they in their trouble turned unto the Lord God of Israel and sought him, he was found of them.
5 And in those times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great destruction upon all the inhabitants of the lands.
6 And one Gentile destroyed the other, and one city the other; for God discomforted them with all adversity.
7 Be ye strong, therefore, and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.
8 And when Asa heard the words and prophecy of Oded, the prophet, he was comforted and put away the abominations out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin and out of the cities which he had taken in Mount Ephraim and repaired the altar of the Lord, that was before the porch of the Lord.
9 And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon, for many of Israel had gone over to him, when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.
10 So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.
11 And they offered unto the Lord the same day, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.
12 And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;
13 that whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
14 And they swore unto the Lord with a loud voice, and with shouting and with trumpets and with shofar.
15 And all those of Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them; and the Lord gave them rest round about.
16 And also concerning Maachah, the mother of Asa the king, he removed her from being queen because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa cut down her idol and stamped it and burnt it at the brook Kidron.
17 But with all this the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless, the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.
18 And he brought into the house of God the things that his father had dedicated and that he himself had dedicated, silver and gold and vessels.
19 And there was no more war until the year thirty-five of the reign of Asa.