2 Chronicles

26 And all the people of Judah took ʽUzzijah, who was sixteen years old, and installed him as successor to his father Amasiah. 2 He fortified Eloth, and reannexed it to Judah, after the king had gone to rest with his fathers.

3 ʽUzzijah was sixteen years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned fifty-two years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jecoliah, from Jerusalem. 4 And he did what Jehovah approved, just as his father Amasiah had, 5 and undertook to devote himself to God in the time of Zecariah the director in the fear of God; and during the time that he devoted himself to Jehovah, God gave him prosperity. 6* And he went out and attacked the Philistines, and breached the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities in Ashdod and among the Philistines; 7 and God helped him against the Philistines and against the encampment-dwelling Arabs and against the Meʽunites; 8* and the Meʽunites paid tribute to ʽUzzijah; and his prestige reached to the frontier of Egypt, because he showed himself surpassingly strong. 9 And ʽUzzijah built towers in Jerusalem over the Corner Gate and over the Valley Gate and over the angle, and made them strong. 10 And he built towers in the wilderness and cut out many cisterns, because he had much livestock, and in the foothills and on the plain plowmen and vineyardists on the mountainsides and in the vineyards, because he was a lover of the soil. 11 And ʽUzzijah had a war force, men going out on raiding service, by the count of their muster by Secretary Jeʽiel and Marshal Maʽasejah under the direction of Hananiah one of the king’s captains, 12 total number of heads of families, men of solid fortunes, twenty-six hundred, 13 and under their direction a service force of three hundred and seven thousand and five hundred who warred with stalwart strength to help the king against the enemy; 14 and ʽUzzijah had ready for them, for all the army, shields and pikes and helmets and cuirasses, and slingstones; 15* and he made in Jerusalem newly-invented machines to stand on the towers and on the corners of the wall to shoot bolts and great stones. And his fame went out to distant parts; for he was marvelously helped till he was strong.

16 But when he was strong his heart went so high that he grew vicious and was unfaithful to his God Jehovah, and went into Jehovah’s temple to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 And Priest ʽAzariah went in after him, and with him eighty stalwart priests of Jehovah, 18 and opposed King ʽUzzijah and said to him “It does not belong to you, ʽUzzijah, to burn incense to Jehovah, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary, because you have been unfaithful and Jehovah will not have it redound to your glory.” 19 And ʽUzzijah was displeased, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense; but as he vented his displeasure on the priests, leprosy shot out in his forehead before the priests in Jehovah’s house above the altar of incense, 20* and Chief Priest ʽAzariah and all the priests faced toward him and found him leprous in the forehead, and hurried him out of there; and he of his own accord bolted out because Jehovah had marred him. 21* And King ʽUzzijah was leprous to the day of his death, and lived as a leper in the exempt house because he was sundered from Jehovah’s house, while his son Jotham, as steward of the royal palace, acted as regent. 22 And the rest of the history of ʽUzzijah, first and last, the prophet Isaiah the son of Amos has recorded. 23* And ʽUzzijah went to rest with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers, in the royal burial-field, because they thought “He is a leper”; and his son Jotham succeeded him.