Azariah went to meet Asa and said, “Listen to me, Asa and all you people of Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you obey him, you will find him, but if you leave him, he will leave you.
Jerusalem says, “The Lord is right, but I refused to obey him. Listen, all you people, and look at my pain. My young women and men have gone into captivity.
If you leave the Lord and serve other gods, he will send you great trouble. The Lord may have been good to you, but if you turn against him, he will destroy you.”
When the Israelites went out to fight, they always lost, because the Lord was not with them. The Lord had sworn to them this would happen. So the Israelites suffered very much.
“But they forgot the Lord their God. So he handed them over as slaves to Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and as slaves to the Philistines and the king of Moab. They all fought against your ancestors.
But after they moved it to Gath, there was a great panic. The Lord was hard on that city also, and he gave both old and young people in Gath growths on their skin.