7
But as for you, be strong; don't be discouraged, for your work has a reward."
8
When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of [Azariah son of] Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He renovated the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the Lord's [temple].
9
Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, as well as those from [the tribes of] Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had settled among them, for they had defected to him from Israel in great numbers when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.
10
They were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.
11
At that time they sacrificed to the Lord 700 cattle and 7,000 sheep from all the plunder they had brought.
12
Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their ancestors with all their mind and all their heart.
13
Whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel would be put to death, young or old, man or woman.
14
They took an oath to the Lord in a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets, and with rams' horns.
15
All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn it with all their mind. They had sought Him with all their heart, and He was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.
16
King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother, from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
17
The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholehearted his entire life.