20240921

making the best

1 Kings 14:21-15:24 (JDV)

1 Kings 14:21 Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king; he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where Yahveh had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.
1 Kings 14:22 Judah did what was evil in Yahveh’s sight. They provoked him to jealous anger more than all that their ancestors had done with the sins they committed.
1 Kings 14:23 They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree;
1 Kings 14:24 there were even male cult prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the detestable practices of the nations Yahveh had dispossessed before the Israelites.
1 Kings 14:25 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt went to war against Jerusalem.
1 Kings 14:26 He seized the treasuries of Yahveh’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace. He took everything. He took all the gold shields that Solomon had made.
1 Kings 14:27 King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and committed them to the care of the captains of the guards who protected the entrance to the king’s palace.
1 Kings 14:28 Whenever the king entered Yahveh’s temple, the guards would carry the shields, then they would take them back to the armory.
1 Kings 14:29 The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written about in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.
1 Kings 14:30 There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout their reigns.
1 Kings 14:31 Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. His son Abijam became king in his place.
1 Kings 15:1 In the eighteenth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah,
1 Kings 15:2 and he reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.
1 Kings 15:3 Abijam walked in all the sins his father before him had committed, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to Yahveh his God as his ancestor David had been.
1 Kings 15:4 But for the sake of David, Yahveh his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up his son after him and by preserving Jerusalem.
1 Kings 15:5 Because David did what was right in Yahveh’s sight, and he did not turn aside from anything he had commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hethite.
1 Kings 15:6 There had been a war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of Rehoboam’s life.
1 Kings 15:7 The rest of the events of Abijam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. There was also a war between Abijam and Jeroboam.
1 Kings 15:8 Abijam rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. His son Asa became king in his place.
1 Kings 15:9 In the twentieth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Asa became king of Judah,
1 Kings 15:10 and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.
1 Kings 15:11 Asa did what was right in Yahveh’s sight, as his ancestor David had done.
1 Kings 15:12 He banished the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
1 Kings 15:13 He also removed his grandmother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
1 Kings 15:14 The high places were not taken away, but Asa was wholeheartedly devoted to Yahveh his entire life.
1 Kings 15:15 He brought his father’s consecrated gifts and his own consecrated gifts into Yahveh’s temple: silver, gold, and utensils.
1 Kings 15:16 There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel throughout their reigns.
1 Kings 15:17 Israel’s King Baasha went to war against Judah. He built Ramah to keep anyone from leaving or coming to King Asa of Judah.
1 Kings 15:18 So Asa withdrew all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of Yahveh’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace and gave it to his servants. Then King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion king of Aram who lived in Damascus, saying,
1 Kings 15:19 “There is a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold. Go and break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.”
1 Kings 15:20 Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. He attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, all Chinnereth, and the whole land of Naphtali.
1 Kings 15:21 When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stayed in Tirzah.
1 Kings 15:22 Then King Asa gave a command to everyone without exception in Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah with them.
1 Kings 15:23 The rest of all the events of Asa’s reign, along with all his might, all his accomplishments, and the cities he built, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. But in his old age, he developed a disease in his feet.
1 Kings 15:24 Then Asa rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his ancestor David. His son Jehoshaphat became king in his place.

making the best

Just when you think things are never going to get better for this divided nation, king Asa appears. He makes attempts to defeat the idolatry that was destroying his people, and invests in the protection of Judah instead of its downfall. He was a hero among zeroes.

Thank you, LORD, for people like Asa, who make the best of trying times.