^{1 Ref} Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for sixteen years; he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like David his father:

^{2 Ref} But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel and made images of metal for the Baals.

^{3 Ref} More than this, he had offerings burned in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his children go through fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.

^{4 Ref} And he made offerings and had perfumes burned in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

^{5 Ref} So the Lord his God gave him up into the hands of the king of Aram; and they overcame him, and took away a great number of his people as prisoners to Damascus. Then he was given into the hands of the king of Israel, who sent great destruction on him.

^{6 Ref} For Pekah, the son of Remaliah, in one day put to death a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah, all of them good fighting-men; because they had given up the Lord, the God of their fathers.

^{7 Ref} And Zichri, a great fighting-man of Ephraim, put to death Maaseiah, the king's son, and Azrikam, the controller of his house, and Elkanah, who was second in authority to the king.

^{8 Ref} And the children of Israel took away as prisoners from their brothers, two hundred thousand, women and sons and daughters, and a great store of their goods, and took them to Samaria.