¹In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah and built Ramah, so as not to allow anyone going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.

²Asa brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of Yahweh and the house of the king, and sent to Ben-hadad king of Aram, who dwells in Damascus, saying:

³There is a covenant between me and you, and between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you silver and gold. Go, break your covenant with Baasha king of Israel, so that he may go up away from me.

⁴Ben-hadad heard King Asa and sent the captains of the armies that belonged to him against the cities of Israel, and they struck down Ijon and Dan and Abel-maim and all the storehouses of the cities of Naphtali.

⁵It happened, when Baasha heard, that he ceased from building Ramah and caused his work to cease.

⁶And King Asa took all Judah, and they carried off the stones of Ramah and its wood, which Baasha had been building with, and with them he built Geba and Mizpah.

⁷At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: Because you leaned on the king of Aram and did not lean on Yahweh your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand.

⁸Were not the Cushites and the Libyans an army of great multitude, with chariotry and horsemen, exceedingly many? And when you leaned on Yahweh, he gave them into your hand.

⁹For the eyes of Yahweh rove about through all the land, to show himself strong with those whose heart is complete toward him. You have acted foolishly in this, for from now on there are wars with you.

¹⁰Asa was angry at the seer and put him in the house of the stocks, for he was in a rage with him over this; and Asa crushed some of the people at that time.

¹¹And behold, the words of Asa, the first and the last, behold, they are written in the scroll of the kings of Judah and Israel.

¹²Asa became sick in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, in his feet, until his sickness reached its highest point; yet even in his sickness he did not inquire of Yahweh, but of the physicians.

¹³Asa lay down with his fathers and died in the forty-first year of his reign.

¹⁴They buried him in his own graves, which he had dug for himself in the city of David, and they laid him down on the bed that he had filled with spices and various kinds mixed into the work of an ointment-mixture; and they burned for him a burning, exceedingly great.