the people in Israel’s kingdom in the south, called Judah, took Amaziah’s son, whose name was
Uzziah, and made him the new king.
Uzziah was 16 years old. He was king for 52 years. He did what God said was right. As long as he
kept on talking to God and listening to him and asking Him for what he needed,
God caused everything Uzziah did to turn out real good.
God helped Uzziah conquer bad ones and their cities and build up cities. He made Jerusalem’s
walls stronger.
He built towers and digged wells for water.
Uzziah had many herds of animals
and many soldiers.
He had many farmers growing crops for the country
and many wine growers in the mountains.
Uzziah loved how things grow and watching them grow.
The Lord God helped him a lot until Uzziah was real strong.
But when he was strong, Uzziah’s heart turned away from the Lord God
and got puffed up about himself.
Uzziah went into the Lord’s house and started to do some things that only the priests are allowed
to do. So the priest took 80 more priests with him and went into God’s house go get the king out.
They said, You shouldn’t be in here doing this. When the king heard this he got real angry. Then
a bad disease started on the king’s forehead.
God had put it on his forehead to stop him from doing anything more to hurt
himself.
With the bad disease on him, the king couldn’t lead the people any more or he would make the
people sick too, so the king had his son, Jotham, lead the people as their king.
Jotham was 25 years old when he started being the king and he was king of the country called
Judah for 16 years.
Jotham did right for God like his father, but he didn’t do the bad thing his father
did.
But the people were still doing some bad stuff.
The king made strong and high the gate at the house of the Lord and the wall to the city of
Jerusalem.
He built cities in the mountains and castles and towers in the forest.
He fought and won battles with the Lord’s enemies
and they brought him much silver
and wheat.
King Jotham became a strong and good king
because he planned his ways with the Lord his God.
Next after him was his son, Ahaz. Ahaz was 20 years old and was king for 16
years.
Ahaz did not do right in God’s sight. He built statues to the bad ones and bowed down to them and
did many of their bad things.
When he did this, the Lord God let a bad king come against him and many of Israel’s soldiers were
killed
because they had gone away from the Lord who is the one who protects them as their shield. They
took off their shield.
After the battle some other bad ones from another country came to take away the soldiers as
captives to be their slaves,
so the Lord sent a man to tell them to let the men go.