In the fifty-second year of the reign of King Uzziah of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for twenty years.

It was while he was king that the LORD first sent King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of Israel to attack Judah.

Tell him to keep alert, to stay calm, and not to be frightened or disturbed. The anger of King Rezin and his Syrians and of King Pekah is no more dangerous than the smoke from two smoldering sticks of wood.

Syria, together with Israel and its king, has made a plot.

Israel is no stronger than Samaria, its capital city, and Samaria is no stronger than King Pekah. "If your faith is not enduring, you will not endure."

The people of Manasseh and the people of Ephraim attack each other, and together they attack Judah. Yet even so the LORD's anger is not ended; his hand is still stretched out to punish.

Abijah and his army dealt the Israelites a crushing defeat---half a million of Israel's best soldiers were killed.

and he went to meet King Asa. He called out, "Listen to me, King Asa, and all you people of Judah and Benjamin! The LORD is with you as long as you are with him. If you look for him, he will let you find him, but if you turn away, he will abandon you.

Do not worship other gods, any of the gods of the peoples around you.

If you do worship other gods, the LORD's anger will come against you like fire and will destroy you completely, because the LORD your God, who is present with you, tolerates no rivals.

"But if you disobey the LORD your God and do not faithfully keep all his commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these evil things will happen to you:

"The LORD will give your enemies victory over you. You will attack them from one direction, but you will run from them in all directions, and all the people on earth will be terrified when they see what happens to you.

Then the whole world will ask, 'Why did the LORD do this to their land? What was the reason for his fierce anger?'

They served other gods that they had never worshiped before, gods that the LORD had forbidden them to worship.

The LORD said to Moses, "You will soon die, and after your death the people will become unfaithful to me and break the covenant that I made with them. They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter.

When that happens, I will become angry with them; I will abandon them, and they will be destroyed. Many terrible disasters will come upon them, and then they will realize that these things are happening to them because I, their God, am no longer with them.

'I will no longer help them,' he said; 'then I will see what happens to them, those stubborn, unfaithful people.

If you do not keep the covenant which the LORD your God commanded you to keep and if you serve and worship other gods, then in his anger he will punish you, and soon none of you will be left in this good land that he has given you."

and if you leave him to serve foreign gods, he will turn against you and punish you. He will destroy you, even though he was good to you before."

But he will crush everyone who sins and rebels against him; he will kill everyone who forsakes him.

The people have defiled the earth by breaking God's laws and by violating the covenant he made to last forever.

So God has pronounced a curse on the earth. Its people are paying for what they have done. Fewer and fewer remain alive.

Your own evil will punish you, and your turning from me will condemn you. You will learn how bitter and wrong it is to abandon me, the LORD your God, and no longer to remain faithful to me. I, the Sovereign LORD Almighty, have spoken."

You people have rejected me; you have turned your backs on me. So I reached out and crushed you because I was tired of controlling my anger.