19. The Lord gave troubles to Judah because King Ahaz of Judah encouraged the people of Judah to sin. He was very unfaithful to the Lord.
20. King Tiglath Pileser of Assyria came and gave Ahaz trouble instead of helping him.
21. Ahaz took some valuable things from the Lord’S Temple and from the king’s palace and from the prince’s house. Ahaz gave them to the king of Assyria, but that didn’t help him.
22. In Ahaz’s troubles, he sinned worse and became more unfaithful to the Lord.
23. He offered sacrifices to the gods the people of Damascus worshiped. The people of Damascus had defeated Ahaz. So he thought to himself, “The gods the people of Aram worship helped them. So if I offer sacrifices to them, maybe they will help me also.” Ahaz worshiped these gods. In this way he sinned, and he made the people of Israel sin.
24. Ahaz gathered the things from God’s Temple and broke them to pieces. Then he closed the doors of the Lord’S Temple. He made altars and put them on every street corner in Jerusalem.
25. In every town in Judah Ahaz made high places for burning incense to worship other gods. Ahaz made the Lord, the God his ancestors obeyed, very angry.
26. Everything else Ahaz did, from the beginning to the end, is written in the book, The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel.