1. Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled twenty-nine years from Jerusalem, the home town of his mother Jehoaddin.
2. Even though Amaziah obeyed the Lord by doing right, he refused to be completely faithful.
3. For example, as soon as he had control of Judah, he arrested and killed the officers who had murdered his father.
4. But the children of those officers were not killed; the Lord had commanded in the Law of Moses that only the people who sinned were to be punished.
5. Amaziah sent a message to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and called together all the men who were twenty years old and older. Three hundred thousand men went to Jerusalem, all of them ready for battle and able to fight with spears and shields. Amaziah grouped these soldiers according to their clans and put them under the command of his army officers.