1. Ahaz, Jotham’s son, became king of Judah in the seventeenth year of Pekah, Remaliah’s son.
2. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he ruled for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He didn’t do what was right in the Lord’s eyes, unlike his ancestor David.
3. Instead, he walked in the ways of Israel’s kings. He even burned his own son alive, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
4. He also sacrificed and burned incense at the shrines on every hill and beneath every shady tree.
5. Then Aram’s King Rezin and Israel’s King Pekah, Remaliah’s son, came up to Jerusalem to fight. They surrounded Ahaz, but they weren’t able to defeat him.
6. At that time Aram’s King Rezin recovered Elath for the Arameans, driving the Judeans out of Elath. The Edomites came to Elath and settled there, and that’s still the case now.