Chapter 27

This Joatham was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and his reign at Jerusalem lasted sixteen years; his mother’s name was Jerusa, daughter of Sadoc.

He obeyed the Lord’s will, imitating the piety of Ozias, but not his sacrilege;1 among the people, there were corrupt ways of worship still.

He it was built the high gate that leads into the Lord’s house, and added much to the Ophel wall;

there are walled cities, too, in the hill-country of Juda, fortresses and towers in woodland places, that are of his building.

He gave battle to the Ammonites and defeated them; a hundred talents of silver the Ammonites must pay him, with ten thousand measures of wheat, and as many of barley, that year and in the two years that followed.

Such greatness Joatham achieved by his obedience to the Lord’s will.

What else he did, the battles he fought and the life he lived, may be found set down in the Record of the kings of Israel and Juda.

So, when he had lived forty-one years, and reigned sixteen years at Jerusalem,

Joatham was laid to rest with his fathers, with the Keep of David for his burying-place, and the throne passed to his son Achaz.