1
The Spirit of God came on `Azaryah the son of `Oded:
2
and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear you me, Asa, and all Yehudah and Binyamin: the LORD is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
3
Now for a long season Yisra'el was without the true God, and without a teaching Kohen, and without law:
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But when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Yisra'el, and sought him, he was found of them.
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In those times there was no shalom to him who went out, nor to him who came in; but great vexations were on all the inhabitants of the lands.
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They were broken in pieces, nation against nation, and city against city; for God did vex them with all adversity.
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But be you strong, and don't let your hands be slack; for your work shall be rewarded.
8
When Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of `Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominations out of all the land of Yehudah and Binyamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from the hill-country of Efrayim; and he renewed the altar of the LORD, that was before the porch of the LORD.
9
He gathered all Yehudah and Binyamin, and those who sojourned with them out of Efrayim and Menashsheh, and out of Shim`on: for they fell to him out of Yisra'el in abundance, when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.
10
So they gathered themselves together at Yerushalayim in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.