18. Also, the Philistines spread out among the cities of the plains, and to the south of Judah. And they seized Beth-shemesh, and Aijalon, and Gederoth, and also Soco, and Timnah, and Gimzo, with their villages, and they lived in them.
19. For the Lord had humbled Judah because of Ahaz, the king of Judah, since he had stripped it of help, and had shown contempt for the Lord.
20. And he led against him Tilgath-pilneser, the king of the Assyrians, who also afflicted him and laid waste to him, without resistance.
21. And so Ahaz, despoiling the house of the Lord, and the house of the kings and the leaders, gave gifts to the king of the Assyrians, and yet it profited him nothing.
22. Moreover, in the time of his anguish, he also added to his contempt against the Lord. King Ahaz himself, by himself,
23. immolated victims to the gods of Damascus, those who had struck him. And he said: "The gods of the kings of Syria assist them, and so I will please them with victims, and they will help me." But to the contrary, they had been the ruin of him and of all Israel.
24. And so, Ahaz, having despoiled and broken apart all the vessels of the house of God, closed up the doors of the temple of God, and made for himself altars in all the corners of Jerusalem.
25. Also, he constructed altars in all the cities of Judah, in order to burn frankincense, and so he provoked the Lord, the God of his fathers, to wrath.