Open English Translation 2 CHR Chapter 14

14 Then Aviyah died and they buried him with his ancestors in ‘The city of David’, and his son Asa, reigned in his place. During his rule, the country was peaceful for ten years. 2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of his god Yahweh—3 he removed the pagan altars and the hilltop shrines, smashed the sacred stone pillars, and cut the Asherah poles down. 4 He ordered the people in Yehudah to worship Yahweh, the god of their ancestors, and to obey his instructions and regulations. 5 He removed all the hilltop shrines from Yehudah’s cities and the incense altars, and the kingdom was peaceful under his rule. 6 He fortified Yehudah’s cities as the place was quiet without war during those years, because Yahweh had given him peace 7 and he’d told Yehudah, “Let’s build these cities and with walls around them, and towers, doors, and bars while the land is quiet around us because we’ve asked our god Yahweh for guidance. We’ve made our request and he’sgiven rest to us all around.” So they built and they prospered. 8 King Asa had an army of three-hundred thousand men from Yehudah who carried large shields and spears, as well as 280,000 men from Benyamin who also carried shields along with bows and arrows. They were all powerful warriors.

9 But then Zerah the Kushite (or Ethiopian) came out against them with an army of a million soldiers and three hundred chariots, and he advanced to Mareshah. 10 Asa went out to oppose them, and they deployed for battle in the Tsefatah valley near Mareshah. 11 Then King Asa called out to his god Yahweh, “Yahweh, it makes no difference to you if there’s one against you, or one million. Help us, Yahweh our god, because we rely on you, and we’ve come against this massive force trusting in your reputation. Yahweh, you’re our god—don’t let mere humans prevail against you.”

12 So Yahweh helped Asa and the army from Yehudah to defeat the Cushites, and they fled. 13 Asa and his army chased them southwest as far as Gerar. So many Kushites were killed that the rest couldn’t save themselves, because they had been destroyed in front of Yahweh and his army, and the men of Yehudah carried away a large amount of plunder. 14 They struck all the cities around Gerar, because the Kushites there were terrified of Yahweh. The men from Yehudah plundered all those cities, because they contained a lot of valuable goods. 15 They also attacked the Kushite cattle herdsmen, as well as capturing lots of sheep and camels before returning to Yerushalem.