15 Then God’s spirit came on Oded’s son Azaryah, 2 and he went out to King Asa and told him, “Listen to me, Asa, and all Yehudah and Benyamin: Yahweh is with you all, when you’re all with him. And if you all look for him, he’ll be found by you all, but if you abandon him, he’ll also abandon you all. 3 Yisrael has been without the true God for a long time as there hasn’t been a priest teaching, so God’s instructions have been forgotten. 4 However, they turned to Yisrael’s god Yahweh when they were in distress, and requested his help and he helped them.

5 “In those times, it wasn’t safe to travel away because there was wide unrest among the inhabitants of the surrounding regions. 6 Nation crushed nation, and city crushed city, because God sent them one trouble after another. 7 But all of you, be strong and don’t give up striving, because your hard work will be rewarded.”

8 When King Asa heard those words and the prophecy from the prophet Oded’s son, he took courage and removed all the detestable idols from across Yehudah and Benyamin, and from the cities that he’d captured from the Efrayim hill country. Also, he repaired the altar to Yahweh that stood in front of Yahweh’s temple.

9 He assembled all the people from Yehudah and Benyamin, as well as the many people who had joined them from the tribes of Efrayim, Menashsheh, and Shimeon. (Many people had emmigrated from Yisrael into Yehudah when they had realised that his god Yahweh was helping him.) 10 They gathered together in Yerushalem in June of the fifteenth year of King Asa’s reign 11 and sacrificed seven hundred bulls to Yahweh and seven thousand sheep—all of which had come from the recent plunder. 12 They solemnly agreed to sincerely and diligently devote themselves to Yahweh, the god of their ancestors. 13 They decided that anyone who didn’t worship Yisrael’s god Yahweh must be killed, man or woman, and whether or not they had an important position. 14 They loudly promised that together to Yahweh, then shouted and blew trumpets and horns, 15 and all Yehudah celebrated that promise because they were totally sincere and committed. They asked Yahweh to give them guidance which he did, and he enabled them to have peace throughout their country.

16 King Asa also removed his mother Maakah from her position as queen because she made a disgusting Asherah pole. Asa cut down the pole and crushed it, and burnt it at the Kidron brook, 17 although they didn’t remove the hilltop shrines from Yisrael. Nevertheless, Asa maintained his singular devotion to Yahweh all his lifetime, 18 and he brought his father’s sacred things, and his own, into God’s temple house of God—gold and silver items. 19 There was no more war in Yehudah until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.