2 Kings 3:21-27
New Catholic Bible
21 The Moabites heard that the kings were coming to fight against them, and they gathered together everyone who was old enough to put on armor and older and they stationed them on the border.
22 When they got up in the morning, the sun was shining on the water, and the Moabites saw that the water on the other side was as red as blood.[a] 23 They said, “This is blood. Surely the kings have attacked and killed one another. To the spoil, Moab!”
24 When they arrived at the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and defeated the Moabites who fled before them. They pushed forward, cutting down the Moabites. 25 They then destroyed the cities, and each cast his stone onto a good piece of land, filling it in. They stopped up all of the wells, and they cut down all of the good trees. But they left the stones of Kir-hareseth, although the slingers surrounded and attacked it.
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took seven hundred swordsmen with him to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not. 27 They took his oldest son who would have reigned in his stead, and they offered him up as a burnt offering upon the wall. They were furious at Israel. They departed and returned to their own land.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 2 Kings 3:22 A mirage caused by the rays of the rising sun on the desert, or else a coloring due to the ocher or red clay that was so plentiful as to give the region its name (Edom means “red”).
