5. In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands.
6. They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress.
7. But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”
8. As soon as Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded, he took courage and put away the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities that he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the Lord.
9. And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.
10. They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.
11. They sacrificed to the Lord on that day from the spoil that they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep.
12. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul,
13. but that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.
14. They swore an oath to the Lord with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns.