1[1] And Abijah rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. Asa his son succeeded him as king, and in his days the country was at peace for ten years.
Asa king of Judah
2Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.3He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.[2]4He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands.5He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him.6He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No-one was at war with him during those years, for the Lord gave him rest.7‘Let us build up these towns,’ he said to Judah, ‘and put walls round them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we sought him and he has given us rest on every side.’ So they built and prospered.8Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men from Judah, equipped with large shields and with spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin, armed with small shields and with bows. All these were brave fighting men.9Zerah the Cushite marched out against them with an army of thousands upon thousands and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mareshah.10Asa went out to meet him, and they took up battle positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.11Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, ‘Lord, there is no-one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you.’12The Lord struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled,13and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the Lord and his forces. The men of Judah carried off a large amount of plunder.14They destroyed all the villages around Gerar, for the terror of the Lord had fallen on them. They looted all these villages, since there was much plunder there.15They also attacked the camps of the herdsmen and carried off droves of sheep and goats and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.