The High Priest Questions Jesus
(Matthew 26.59-66; Mark 14.55-64; Luke 22.66-71)

John 18 ¹⁹The High Priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. ²⁰Jesus answered, "I have always spoken publicly to everyone; all my teaching was done in the synagogues and in the Temple, where all the people come together. I have never said anything in secret. ²¹Why, then, do you question me? Question the people who heard me. Ask them what I told them--they know what I said."
²²When Jesus said this, one of the guards there slapped him and said, "How dare you talk like that to the High Priest!"
²³Jesus answered him, "If I have said anything wrong, tell everyone here what it was. But if I am right in what I have said, why do you hit me?"
²⁴Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to Caiaphas the High Priest.

Peter Denies Jesus Again
(Matthew 26.71-75; Mark 14.69-72; Luke 22.58-62)

²⁵Peter was still standing there keeping himself warm. So the others said to him, "Aren't you also one of the disciples of that man?"
But Peter denied it. "No, I am not," he said.
²⁶One of the High Priest's slaves, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, spoke up. "Didn't I see you with him in the garden?" he asked.
²⁷Again Peter said "No"--and at once a rooster crowed.

Jesus before Pilate
(Matthew 27.1, 2, 11-14; Mark 15.1-5; Luke 23.1-5)

²⁸Early in the morning Jesus was taken from Caiaphas' house to the governor's palace. The Jewish authorities did not go inside the palace, for they wanted to keep themselves ritually clean, in order to be able to eat the Passover meal. ²⁹So Pilate went outside to them and asked, "What do you accuse this man of ?"
³⁰Their answer was, "We would not have brought him to you if he had not committed a crime."
³¹Pilate said to them, "Then you yourselves take him and try him according to your own law."
They replied, "We are not allowed to put anyone to death." ( ³²This happened in order to make come true what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he would die.)
³³Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus. "Are you the king of the Jews?" he asked him.
³⁴Jesus answered, "Does this question come from you or have others told you about me?"
³⁵Pilate replied, "Do you think I am a Jew? It was your own people and the chief priests who handed you over to me. What have you done?"
³⁶Jesus said, "My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!"
³⁷So Pilate asked him, "Are you a king, then?"
Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me."
³⁸"And what is truth?" Pilate asked.

King Jotham of Judah
(2 Kings 15.32-38)

2 Chronicles 27 Jotham became king at the age of twenty-five, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. His mother was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok. ²He did what was pleasing to the LORD, just as his father had done; but unlike his father he did not sin by burning incense in the Temple. The people, however, went on sinning.
³It was Jotham who built the North Gate of the Temple and did extensive work on the city wall in the area of Jerusalem called Ophel. ⁴In the mountains of Judah he built cities, and in the forests he built forts and towers. ⁵He fought against the king of Ammon and his army and defeated them. Then he forced the Ammonites to pay him the following tribute each year for three years: four tons of silver, fifty thousand bushels of wheat, and fifty thousand bushels of barley. ⁶Jotham grew powerful because he faithfully obeyed the LORD his God. ⁷The other events of Jotham's reign, his wars, and his policies, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. ⁸Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. ⁹He died and was buried in David's City and his son Ahaz succeeded him as king.

King Ahaz of Judah
(2 Kings 16.1-4)

2 Chronicles 28 Ahaz became king at the age of twenty, and he ruled in Jerusalem for sixteen years. He did not follow the good example of his ancestor King David; instead, he did what was not pleasing to the LORD ²and followed the example of the kings of Israel. He had metal images of Baal made, ³burned incense in Hinnom Valley, and even sacrificed his own sons as burnt offerings to idols, imitating the disgusting practice of the people whom the LORD had driven out of the land as the Israelites advanced. ⁴At the pagan places of worship, on the hills, and under every shady tree Ahaz offered sacrifices and burned incense.

War with Syria and Israel
(2 Kings 16.5)

^5-6Because King Ahaz sinned, the LORD his God let the king of Syria defeat him and take a large number of Judeans back to Damascus as prisoners. The LORD also let the king of Israel, Pekah son of Remaliah, defeat Ahaz and kill 120,000 of the bravest Judean soldiers in one day. The LORD, the God of their ancestors, permitted this to happen, because the people of Judah had abandoned him. ⁷An Israelite soldier named Zichri killed King Ahaz' son Maaseiah, the palace administrator Azrikam, and Elkanah, who was second in command to the king. ⁸Even though the Judeans were their own relatives, the Israelite army captured 200,000 women and children as prisoners and took them back to Samaria, along with large amounts of loot.

The Prophet Oded

⁹A man named Oded, a prophet of the LORD, lived in the city of Samaria. He met the returning Israelite army with its Judean prisoners as it was about to enter the city, and he said, "The LORD God of your ancestors was angry with Judah and let you defeat them, but now he has heard of the vicious way you slaughtered them. ¹⁰And now you intend to make the men and women of Jerusalem and Judah your slaves. Don't you know that you also have committed sins against the LORD your God? ¹¹Listen to me! These prisoners are your brothers and sisters. Let them go, or the LORD will punish you in his anger."
¹²Four of the leading men of the Northern Kingdom, Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai also opposed the actions of the army. ¹³They said, "Don't bring those prisoners here! We have already sinned against the LORD and made him angry enough to punish us. Now you want to do something that will increase our guilt." ¹⁴So then the army handed the prisoners and the loot over to the people and their leaders, ¹⁵and the four men were appointed to provide the prisoners with clothing from the captured loot. They gave them clothes and sandals to wear, gave them enough to eat and drink, and put olive oil on their wounds. Those who were too weak to walk were put on donkeys, and all the prisoners were taken back to Judean territory at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then the Israelites returned home to Samaria.

Ahaz Asks Assyria for Help
(2 Kings 16.7-9)

^16-17The Edomites began to raid Judah again and captured many prisoners, so King Ahaz asked Tiglath Pileser, the emperor of Assyria, to send help. ¹⁸At this same time the Philistines were raiding the towns in the western foothills and in southern Judah. They captured the cities of Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, and the cities of Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo with their villages, and settled there permanently. ¹⁹Because King Ahaz of Judah had violated the rights of his people and had defied the LORD, the LORD brought troubles on Judah. ²⁰The Assyrian emperor, instead of helping Ahaz, opposed him and caused him trouble. ²¹So Ahaz took the gold from the Temple, the palace, and the homes of the leaders of the people, and gave it to the emperor, but even this did not help.

The Sins of Ahaz

²²When his troubles were at their worst, that man Ahaz sinned against the LORD more than ever. ²³He offered sacrifices to the gods of the Syrians, who had defeated him. He said, "The Syrian gods helped the kings of Syria, so if I sacrifice to them, they may help me too." This brought disaster on him and on his nation. ²⁴In addition, he took all the Temple equipment and broke it in pieces. He closed the Temple and set up altars in every part of Jerusalem. ²⁵In every city and town in Judah he built pagan places of worship, where incense was to be burned to foreign gods. In this way he brought on himself the anger of the LORD, the God of his ancestors.
²⁶All the other events of his reign, from beginning to end, are recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷King Ahaz died and was buried in Jerusalem, but not in the royal tombs. His son Hezekiah succeeded him as king.

Longing for God's House

Psalm 84 How I love your Temple, LORD Almighty!
²How I want to be there!
I long to be in the LORD's Temple.
With my whole being I sing for joy
to the living God.
³Even the sparrows have built a nest,
and the swallows have their own home;
they keep their young near your altars,
LORD Almighty, my king and my God.
⁴How happy are those who live in your Temple,
always singing praise to you.

⁵How happy are those whose strength comes from you,
who are eager to make the pilgrimage to Mount Zion.
⁶As they pass through the dry valley of Baca,
it becomes a place of springs;
the autumn rain fills it with pools.
⁷They grow stronger as they go;
they will see the God of gods on Zion.

⁸Hear my prayer, LORD God Almighty.
Listen, O God of Jacob!
⁹Bless our king, O God,
the king you have chosen.

¹⁰One day spent in your Temple
is better than a thousand anywhere else;
I would rather stand at the gate of the house of my God
than live in the homes of the wicked.
¹¹The LORD is our protector and glorious king,
blessing us with kindness and honor.
He does not refuse any good thing
to those who do what is right.
¹²LORD Almighty, how happy are those who trust in you!