II Chronicles 26

1. Now all the people of Judah took Uzziah, and he was sixteen years old, and made him king in his father Amaziah’s place.

2. He built Eloth, and restored it to Judah, after the king was put to rest with his fathers.

3. Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Jecholiah of Jerusalem.

4. And he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah did.

5. And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God. As long as he sought the LORD, God blessed him.

6. And he went out and warred against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath, and the wall of Jabneh, and the wall of Ashdod, and built cities around Ashdod, and among the Philistines.

7. And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians who lived in Gur Baal, and the Meunites.

8. And the Ammonites paid tribute to Uzziah. And his name spread abroad even to the entrance of Egypt, for he was made very strong.

9. And Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate and at the Valley Gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them.

10. And he built towers in the desert, and dug many wells. For he had much livestock, both in the low country and in the plains. He also had husbandmen and vinedressers in the mountains and in Carmel. For he loved husbandry.

11. And Uzziah had an army of fighting men, going out to war by troops, according to the number of their reckoning by the hand of Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s leaders.

12. The whole number of the heads of the fathers of the mighty men of power was two thousand and six hundred.

13. And under their hand was an army of three hundred and seven thousand, five hundred, that made war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy.

14. And Uzziah prepared for them, for all the army, shields and spears and helmets and coats of armor and bows and stones for the slings.

15. And he made engines of war in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men, to be on the owers and on the corners, to shoot with arrows and great stones. And his name pread far abroad, for he was wonderfully helped until he was strong.

16. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction, for he sinned against the LORD his God, and went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense.

17. And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him eighty priests of the LORD, mighty men.

18. And they withstood Uzziah the king and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have sinned. Nor shall it be for your honor from the LORD God.”

19. Then Uzziah was angry. And he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, who were standing beside the incense altar.

20. And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him. And, behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they thrust him out from there. Yea, he himself hurried to go out also because the LORD had stricken him.

21. And Uzziah the king was a leper until the day of his death and lived in a separate house as a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the LORD. And Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

22. And the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write.

23. And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial of the kings, for they said, he is a leper. And his son Jotham reigned in his place.