2
he went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa, and all Y'hudah and Binyamin! ADONAI is with you, as long as you are with him; if you seek him, you will find him; but if you abandon him, he will abandon you!
3
For a long time Isra'el was without the true God, without a cohen who could teach, and without Torah.
4
But when, in their distress, they turned to ADONAI the God of Isra'el and sought him, they found him.
5
In those times people going about their business were insecure, and great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands;
6
so that they were shattered to pieces, nation against nation and city against city, as God troubled them with every kind of distress.
7
But you, be strong, and don't slack off; for your work will be rewarded."
8
When Asa heard these words prophesied by 'Oded the prophet, it gave him courage to throw the disgusting things out of the whole land of Y'hudah and Binyamin and out of the cities he had captured in the hills of Efrayim; he also renewed the altar of ADONAI which was in front of the vestibule of ADONAI.
9
Then he gathered all Y'hudah and Binyamin, along with those from Efrayim, M'nasheh and Shim'on who were staying with him (for they had defected to him in large numbers upon seeing that ADONAI his God was with him).
10
They assembled together at Yerushalayim in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa's reign.
11
That day they sacrificed to ADONAI 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep from the spoil they had brought;
12
and they entered into a covenant to seek ADONAI, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and with all their being;