9. In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah.
10. He reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem, and his grandmother’s name was Maakah, the daughter of Abishalom.
11. Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.
12. He expelled the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.
13. In addition he even deposed his grandmother Maakah as queen, because she had made an idol in a grove. Asa destroyed her idol and burned it by the Kidron brook.
14. But the high places were not all removed, even though Asa’s heart was wholly devoted to the Lord all his days.
15. He brought into the house of the Lord the things that both his father and he himself had dedicated, the silver and gold and cups.
16. There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.
17. Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and fortified Ramah so he could prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.
18. Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the Lord, as well as the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants, and he sent them to Ben-Hadad, the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, who lived at Damascus, saying,
19. “There is a treaty between me and you and between my father and your father. I have sent to you a present of silver and gold. Come and break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel, so he will depart from me.”
20. So Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel and conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maakah, and all Kinnereth, along with all the land of Naphtali.