Uzziah becomes proud and God punishes him
16 Uzziah was so powerful that he became proud. That caused him to lose his power. He began to turn away from the Lord his God. He went into the Lord's temple to burn incense on the special altar there. 17 Azariah and 80 other brave priests of the Lord went into the temple after him. 18 They warned King Uzziah. They said to him, ‘It is not right for you, Uzziah, to offer incense to the Lord. Only the priests, Aaron's descendants, may do that. They are the people that God has chosen to offer incense to him. So you must leave this Holy Place because you have done something that is wrong. As a result, the Lord God will not give you any honour.’
19 Then Uzziah became angry. In his hand, he was holding a pot with hot coals and incense in it. He was standing in the Lord's temple, near the special altar for incense. The priests were there with him. When he started to shout at the priests, a bad disease suddenly appeared on the skin of his face. 20 Azariah, the leader of the priests, and all the other priests turned towards Uzziah. They saw the terrible disease on the skin at the front of his head. So they quickly took him out of the temple. Uzziah himself was also in a hurry to leave, because the Lord had punished him with this disease.
26:20The bad disease on Uzziah's skin was probably leprosy. If anyone had leprosy, they had to keep away from other people.
