1 Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan, from Jerusalem.
2 He did what was right in the Lord’s sight, though not wholeheartedly.
3 When he had the kingdom firmly in hand, he struck down the officials who had struck down the king, his father.
4 But their children he did not put to death, for he acted according to what is written in the law, in the Book of Moses, which the Lord commanded: “Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; they shall each die for their own sin.”
5 Amaziah gathered Judah and placed them, out of all Judah and Benjamin according to their ancestral houses, under leaders of thousands and of hundreds. When he made a count of those twenty years old and over, he found that there were three hundred thousand picked men fit for war, capable of handling lance and shield.
6 He also hired a hundred thousand valiant warriors from Israel for a hundred talents of silver.