For a wife to become a harlot in the city (Deuteronomy 22:23–24) would render her unfit to be married to a priest (Leviticus 21:7), for a priest's offspring to be slain would result in his priestly line being wiped out, and for him to die unclean would be an insult to his priestly instincts.1 God’s curses on Amaziah parallel the covenant curses that God had promised to send on his people if they were disobedient. This includes a wife becoming a prostitute (Deuteronomy 28:30), children being killed (Deuteronomy 28:32, Deuteronomy 28:41; Deuteronomy 32:25), personal property being given to others (Deuteronomy 28:30; Leviticus 26:32), and death in a pagan land (Leviticus 26:38–39).
17 Therefore thus says the LORD: “‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”