2 Kings 16:1-9

1In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, became king.

2Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father (ancestor) David had done.

3Instead he walked in the way of the [idolatrous] kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire [as a human sacrifice], in accordance with the repulsive [and idolatrous] practices of the [pagan] nations whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.

4He also sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

5Then Rezin the king of Aram (Syria) and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to Jerusalem to wage war. They besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome and conquer him.

6At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath [in Edom] for Aram, and drove the Jews away from it. The Arameans came to Elath, and live there to this day.

7So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the kings of Aram and of Israel, who are rising up against me.”

8And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and sent a gift to the king of Assyria.

9So the king of Assyria listened to him; and he went up against Damascus and captured it, and carried its people away into exile to Kir, and put Rezin [king of Aram] to death.