Bible in 90 Days

²¹ But now the kingdom of Israel was split in two; half the people were loyal to General Omri, and the other half followed Tibni, the son of Ginath. ²² But General Omri won and Tibni was killed; so Omri reigned without opposition.

²³ King Asa of Judah had been on the throne thirty-one years when Omri began his reign over Israel, which lasted twelve years, six of them in Tirzah. ²⁴ Then Omri bought the hill now known as Samaria from its owner, Shemer, for $4,000 and built a city on it, calling it Samaria in honor of Shemer. ²⁵ But Omri was worse than any of the kings before him; ²⁶ he worshiped idols as Jeroboam had and led Israel into this same sin. So God was very angry. ²⁷ The rest of Omri’s history is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ²⁸ When Omri died he was buried in Samaria, and his son Ahab became king in his place.

²⁹ King Asa of Judah had been on the throne thirty-eight years when Ahab became the king of Israel; and Ahab reigned for twenty-two years. ³⁰ But he was even more wicked than his father Omri; he was worse than any other king of Israel! ³¹ And as though that were not enough, he married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and then began worshiping Baal. ³² First he built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria. ³³ Then he made other idols and did more to anger the Lord God of Israel than any of the other kings of Israel before him.

³⁴ (It was during his reign that Hiel, a man from Bethel, rebuilt Jericho. When he laid the foundations, his oldest son, Abiram, died; and when he finally completed it by setting up the gates, his youngest son, Segub, died. For this was the Lord’s curse upon Jericho^[a] as declared by Joshua, the son of Nun.)

17 Then Elijah, the prophet^[b] from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, “As surely as the Lord God of Israel lives—the God whom I worship and serve—there won’t be any dew or rain for several years until I say the word!”

² Then the Lord said to Elijah, ³ “Go to the east and hide by Cherith Brook at a place east of where it enters the Jordan River. ⁴ Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to feed you.”

⁵ So he did as the Lord had told him to and camped beside the brook. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook. ⁷ But after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.

^8-9 Then the Lord said to him, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. There is a widow there who will feed you. I have given her my instructions.”

¹⁰ So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the city he saw a widow gathering sticks; and he asked her for a cup of water.

¹¹ As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread too.”

¹² But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I haven’t a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jar. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I must die of starvation.”

¹³ But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and cook that ‘last meal,’ but bake me a little loaf of bread first; and afterwards there will still be enough food for you and your son. ¹⁴ For the Lord God of Israel says that there will always be plenty of flour and oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”

¹⁵ So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil as long as it was needed. ¹⁶ For no matter how much they used, there was always plenty left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah!

¹⁷ But one day the woman’s son became sick and died.

¹⁸ “O man of God,” she cried, “what have you done to me? Have you come here to punish my sins by killing my son?”

¹⁹ “Give him to me,” Elijah replied. And he took the boy’s body from her and carried it upstairs to the guest room where he lived, and laid the body on his bed, ²⁰ and then cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, why have you killed the son of this widow with whom I am staying?”

²¹ And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s spirit return to him.”

²² And the Lord heard Elijah’s prayer; and the spirit of the child returned, and he became alive again! ²³ Then Elijah took him downstairs and gave him to his mother.

“See! He’s alive!” he beamed.

²⁴ “Now I know for sure that you are a prophet,” she told him afterward,^[c] “and that whatever you say is from the Lord!”

18 It was three years later that the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and tell King Ahab that I will soon send rain again!”

² So Elijah went to tell him. Meanwhile the famine had become very severe in Samaria.

^3-4 The man in charge of Ahab’s household affairs was Obadiah, who was a devoted follower of the Lord. Once when Queen Jezebel had tried to kill all of the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had hidden one hundred of them in two caves—fifty in each—and had fed them with bread and water.

⁵ That same day, while Elijah was on the way to see King Ahab,^[d] the king said to Obadiah, “We must check every stream and brook to see if we can find enough grass to save at least some of my horses and mules. You go one way and I’ll go the other, and we will search the entire land.”

⁶ So they did, each going alone. ⁷ Suddenly Obadiah saw Elijah coming toward him! Obadiah recognized him at once and fell to the ground before him.

“Is it really you, my lord Elijah?” he asked.

⁸ “Yes, it is,” Elijah replied. “Now go and tell the king I am here.”

⁹ “Oh, sir,” Obadiah protested, “what harm have I done to you that you are sending me to my death? ¹⁰ For I swear by God that the king has searched every nation and kingdom on earth from end to end to find you. And each time when he was told ‘Elijah isn’t here,’ King Ahab forced the king of that nation to swear to the truth of his claim. ¹¹ And now you say, ‘Go and tell him Elijah is here’! ¹² But as soon as I leave you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you away, who knows where, and when Ahab comes and can’t find you, he will kill me; yet I have been a true servant of the Lord all my life. ¹³ Has no one told you about the time when Queen Jezebel was trying to kill the Lord’s prophets, and I hid a hundred of them in two caves and fed them with bread and water? ¹⁴ And now you say, ‘Go tell the king that Elijah is here’! Sir, if I do that, I’m dead!”

¹⁵ But Elijah said, “I swear by the Lord God of the armies of heaven, in whose presence I stand, that I will present myself to Ahab today.”

¹⁶ So Obadiah went to tell Ahab that Elijah had come; and Ahab went out to meet him.

¹⁷ “So it’s you, is it?—the man who brought this disaster upon Israel!” Ahab exclaimed when he saw him.

¹⁸ “You’re talking about yourself,” Elijah answered. “For you and your family have refused to obey the Lord and have worshiped Baal instead. ¹⁹ Now bring all the people of Israel to Mount Carmel, with all 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who are supported by Jezebel.”

²⁰ So Ahab summoned all the people and the prophets to Mount Carmel.

²¹ Then Elijah talked to them. “How long are you going to waver between two opinions?” he asked the people. “If the Lord is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!”

²² Then Elijah spoke again. “I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left,” he told them, “but Baal has 450 prophets. ²³ Now bring two young bulls. The prophets of Baal may choose whichever one they wish and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their altar, but without putting any fire under the wood; and I will prepare the other young bull and lay it on the wood on the Lord’s altar, with no fire under it. ²⁴ Then pray to your god, and I will pray to the Lord; and the god who answers by sending fire to light the wood is the true God!” And all the people agreed to this test.

²⁵ Then Elijah turned to the prophets of Baal. “You first,” he said, “for there are many of you; choose one of the bulls and prepare it and call to your god; but don’t put any fire under the wood.”

²⁶ So they prepared one of the young bulls and placed it on the altar; and they called to Baal all morning, shouting, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they began to dance around the altar. ²⁷ About noontime, Elijah began mocking them.

“You’ll have to shout louder than that,” he scoffed, “to catch the attention of your god! Perhaps he is talking to someone, or is out sitting on the toilet, or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!”

²⁸ So they shouted louder and, as was their custom, cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. ²⁹ They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but there was no reply, no voice, no answer.

³⁰ Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here.”

And they all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. ³¹ He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel,^{[e] 32} and used the stones to rebuild the Lord’s altar. Then he dug a trench about three feet wide^[f] around the altar. ³³ He piled wood upon the altar and cut the young bull into pieces and laid the pieces on the wood.

“Fill four barrels with water,” he said, “and pour the water over the carcass and the wood.”

After they had done this he said, ³⁴ “Do it again.” And they did.

“Now, do it once more!” And they did; ³⁵ and the water ran off the altar and filled the trench.

³⁶ At the customary time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, prove today that you are the God of Israel and that I am your servant; prove that I have done all this at your command. ³⁷ O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”

³⁸ Then, suddenly, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, the dust, and even evaporated all the water in the ditch!

³⁹ And when the people saw it, they fell to their faces upon the ground shouting, “Jehovah is God! Jehovah is God!”

⁴⁰ Then Elijah told them to grab the prophets of Baal. “Don’t let a single one escape,” he commanded.

So they seized them all, and Elijah took them to Kishon Brook and killed them there.

⁴¹ Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go and enjoy a good meal! For I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!”

⁴² So Ahab prepared a feast. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and got down on his knees, with his face between his knees, ⁴³ and said to his servant, “Go and look out toward the sea.”

He did, but returned to Elijah and told him, “I didn’t see anything.”

Then Elijah told him, “Go again, and again, and again, seven times!”

⁴⁴ Finally, the seventh time, his servant told him, “I saw a little cloud about the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea.”

Then Elijah shouted, “Hurry to Ahab and tell him to get into his chariot and get down the mountain, or he’ll be stopped by the rain!”

⁴⁵ And sure enough, the sky was soon black with clouds, and a heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm. Ahab left hastily for Jezreel, ⁴⁶ and the Lord gave special strength to Elijah so that he was able to run ahead of Ahab’s chariot to the entrance of the city!

19 When Ahab told Queen Jezebel what Elijah had done, and that he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal, ² she sent this message to Elijah: “You killed my prophets, and now I swear by the gods that I am going to kill you by this time tomorrow night.”

³ So Elijah fled for his life; he went to Beersheba, a city of Judah, and left his servant there. ⁴ Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day, and sat down under a broom bush and prayed that he might die.

“I’ve had enough,” he told the Lord. “Take away my life. I’ve got to die sometime, and it might as well be now.”^[g]

⁵ Then he lay down and slept beneath the broom bush. But as he was sleeping, an Angel touched him and told him to get up and eat! ⁶ He looked around and saw some bread baking on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.

⁷ Then the Angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, for there is a long journey ahead of you.”

⁸ So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, ⁹ where he lived in a cave.

But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁰ He replied, “I have worked very hard for the Lord God of the heavens; but the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you and torn down your altars and killed your prophets, and only I am left; and now they are trying to kill me too.”

¹¹ “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain; it was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was the sound of a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his scarf and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And a voice said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

¹⁴ He replied again, “I have been working very hard for the Lord God of the armies of heaven, but the people have broken their covenant and have torn down your altars; they have killed every one of your prophets except me; and now they are trying to kill me too.”

¹⁵ Then the Lord told him, “Go back by the desert road to Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king of Syria. ¹⁶ Then anoint Jehu (son of Nimshi) to be king of Israel, and anoint Elisha (the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah) to replace you as my prophet. ¹⁷ Anyone who escapes from Hazael shall be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu shall be killed by Elisha! ¹⁸ And incidentally, there are 7,000 men in Israel who have never bowed to Baal nor kissed him!”

¹⁹ So Elijah went and found Elisha who was plowing a field with eleven other teams ahead of him; he was at the end of the line with the last team. Elijah went over to him and threw his coat across his shoulders and walked away again.^[h]

²⁰ Elisha left the oxen standing there and ran after Elijah and said to him, “First let me go and say good-bye to my father and mother, and then I’ll go with you!”

Elijah replied, “Go on back! Why all the excitement?”

²¹ Elisha then returned to his oxen, killed them, and used wood from the plow to build a fire to roast their flesh. He passed around the meat to the other plowmen, and they all had a great feast. Then he went with Elijah, as his assistant.

20 King Ben-hadad of Syria now mobilized his army and, with thirty-two allied nations and their hordes of chariots and horses, besieged Samaria, the Israeli capital. ^2-3 He sent this message into the city to King Ahab of Israel: “Your silver and gold are mine, as are your prettiest wives and the best of your children!”

⁴ “All right, my lord,” Ahab replied. “All that I have is yours!”

^5-6 Soon Ben-hadad’s messengers returned again with another message: “You must not only give me your silver, gold, wives, and children, but about this time tomorrow I will send my men to search your palace and the homes of your people, and they will take away whatever they like!”

⁷ Then Ahab summoned his advisors. “Look what this man is doing,” he complained to them. “He is stirring up trouble despite the fact that I have already told him he could have my wives and children and silver and gold, just as he demanded.”

⁸ “Don’t give him anything more,” the elders advised.

⁹ So he told the messengers from Ben-hadad, “Tell my lord the king, ‘I will give you everything you asked for the first time, but your men may not search the palace and the homes of the people.’”^[i] So the messengers returned to Ben-hadad.

¹⁰ Then the Syrian king sent this message to Ahab: “May the gods do more to me than I am going to do to you if I don’t turn Samaria into handfuls of dust!”

¹¹ The king of Israel retorted, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!”

¹² This reply of Ahab’s reached Ben-hadad and the other kings as they were drinking in their tents.

“Prepare to attack!” Ben-hadad commanded his officers.

¹³ Then a prophet came to see King Ahab and gave him this message from the Lord: “Do you see all these enemy forces? I will deliver them all to you today. Then at last you will know that I am the Lord.”

¹⁴ Ahab asked, “How will he do it?”

And the prophet replied, “The Lord says, ‘By the troops from the provinces.’”

“Shall we attack first?” Ahab asked.

“Yes,” the prophet answered.

¹⁵ So he mustered the troops from the provinces, 232 of them, then the rest of his army of 7,000 men. ¹⁶ About noontime, as Ben-hadad and the thirty-two allied kings were still drinking themselves drunk, the first of Ahab’s troops marched out of the city.

¹⁷ As they approached, Ben-hadad’s scouts reported to him, “Some troops are coming!”

¹⁸ “Take them alive,” Ben-hadad commanded, “whether they have come for truce or for war.”

¹⁹ By now Ahab’s entire army had joined the attack. ²⁰ Each one killed a Syrian soldier, and suddenly the entire Syrian army panicked and fled. The Israelis chased them, but King Ben-hadad and a few others escaped on horses. ²¹ However, the great bulk of the horses and chariots were captured, and most of the Syrian army was killed in a great slaughter.

²² Then the prophet approached King Ahab and said, “Get ready for another attack by the king of Syria.”

²³ For after their defeat, Ben-hadad’s officers said to him, “The Israeli God is a god of the hills; that is why they won. But we can beat them easily on the plains. ²⁴ Only this time replace the kings with generals! ²⁵ Recruit another army like the one you lost; give us the same number of horses, chariots, and men, and we will fight against them in the plains; there’s not a shadow of a doubt that we will beat them.” So King Ben-hadad did as they suggested. ²⁶ The following year he called up the Syrian army and marched out against Israel again, this time at Aphek. ²⁷ Israel then mustered its army, set up supply lines, and moved into the battle; but the Israeli army looked like two little flocks of baby goats in comparison to the vast Syrian forces that filled the countryside!

²⁸ Then a prophet went to the king of Israel with this message from the Lord: “Because the Syrians have declared, ‘The Lord is a God of the hills and not of the plains,’ I will help you defeat this vast army, and you shall know that I am indeed the Lord.”

²⁹ The two armies camped opposite each other for seven days, and on the seventh day the battle began. And the Israelis killed 100,000 Syrian infantrymen that first day. ³⁰ The rest fled behind the walls of Aphek, but the wall fell on them and killed another 27,000. Ben-hadad fled into the city and hid in the inner room of one of the houses.

³¹ “Sir,” his officers said to him, “we have heard that the kings of Israel are very merciful. Let us wear sackcloth and put ropes on our heads and go out to King Ahab to see if he will let you live.”

³² So they went to the king of Israel and begged, “Your servant Ben-hadad pleads, ‘Let me live!’”

“Oh, is he still alive?” the king of Israel asked. “He is my brother!”

³³ The men were quick to grab this straw of hope and hurried to clinch the matter by exclaiming, “Yes, your brother Ben-hadad!”

“Go and get him,” the king of Israel told them. And when Ben-hadad arrived, he invited him up into his chariot!

³⁴ Ben-hadad told him, “I will restore the cities my father took from your father, and you may establish trading posts in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.”

³⁵ Meanwhile, the Lord instructed one of the prophets to say to another man, “Strike me with your sword!” But the man refused.

³⁶ Then the prophet told him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, a lion shall kill you as soon as you leave me.” And sure enough, as he turned to go a lion attacked and killed him.

³⁷ Then the prophet turned to another man and said, “Strike me with your sword.” And he did, wounding him.

³⁸ The prophet waited for the king beside the road, having placed a bandage over his eyes to disguise himself.

³⁹ As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, “Sir, I was in the battle, and a man brought me a prisoner and said, ‘Keep this man; if he gets away, you must die, or else pay me $2,000!’ ⁴⁰ But while I was busy doing something else, the prisoner disappeared!”

“Well, it’s your own fault,” the king replied. “You’ll have to pay.”

⁴¹ Then the prophet yanked off the bandage from his eyes, and the king recognized him as one of the prophets. ⁴² Then the prophet told him, “The Lord says, ‘Because you have spared the man I said must die, now you must die in his place, and your people shall perish instead of his.’”

⁴³ So the king of Israel went home to Samaria angry and sullen.

21 Naboth, a man from Jezreel, had a vineyard on the outskirts of the city near King Ahab’s palace. ² One day the king talked to him about selling him this land.

“I want it for a garden,” the king explained, “because it’s so convenient to the palace.” He offered cash or, if Naboth preferred, a piece of better land in trade.

³ But Naboth replied, “Not on your life! That land has been in my family for generations.”

⁴ So Ahab went back to the palace angry and sullen. He refused to eat and went to bed with his face to the wall!

⁵ “What in the world is the matter?” his wife, Jezebel, asked him. “Why aren’t you eating? What has made you so upset and angry?”

⁶ “I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or to trade it, and he refused!” Ahab told her.

⁷ “Are you the king of Israel or not?” Jezebel demanded. “Get up and eat and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard!”

⁸ So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and addressed them to the civic leaders of Jezreel, where Naboth lived. ⁹ In her letter she commanded: “Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer.^[j] Then summon Naboth, ¹⁰ and find two scoundrels who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and execute him.”

¹¹ The city fathers followed the queen’s instructions. ¹² They called the meeting and put Naboth on trial. ¹³ Then two men who had no conscience accused him of cursing God and the king; and he was dragged outside the city and stoned to death. ¹⁴ The city officials then sent word to Jezebel that Naboth was dead.

¹⁵ When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, “You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn’t sell you? Well, you can have it now! He’s dead!”

¹⁶ So Ahab went down to the vineyard to claim it.

¹⁷ But the Lord said to Elijah, ¹⁸ “Go to Samaria to meet King Ahab. He will be at Naboth’s vineyard, taking possession of it. ¹⁹ Give him this message from me: ‘Isn’t killing Naboth bad enough? Must you rob him too? Because you have done this, dogs shall lick your blood outside the city just as they licked the blood of Naboth!’”

²⁰ “So my enemy has found me!” Ahab exclaimed to Elijah.

“Yes,” Elijah answered, “I have come to place God’s curse upon you because you have sold yourself to the devil.^{[k] 21} The Lord is going to bring great harm to you and sweep you away; he will not let a single one of your male descendants survive! ²² He is going to destroy your family as he did the family of King Jeroboam and the family of King Baasha, for you have made him very angry and have led all of Israel into sin. ²³ The Lord has also told me that the dogs of Jezreel shall tear apart the body of your wife, Jezebel. ²⁴ The members of your family who die in the city shall be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the country shall be eaten by vultures.”

²⁵ No one else was so completely sold out to the devil as Ahab, for his wife, Jezebel, encouraged him to do every sort of evil. ²⁶ He was especially guilty because he worshiped idols just as the Amorites did—the people whom the Lord had chased out of the land to make room for the people of Israel. ²⁷ When Ahab heard these prophecies, he tore his clothing, put on rags, fasted, slept in sackcloth, and went about in deep humility.

²⁸ Then another message came to Elijah: ²⁹ “Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime; it will happen to his sons; I will destroy his descendants.”

22 For three years there was no war between Syria and Israel. ² But during the third year, while King Jehoshaphat of Judah was visiting King Ahab of Israel, ³ Ahab said to his officials, “Do you realize that the Syrians are still occupying our city of Ramoth-gilead? And we’re sitting here without doing a thing about it!”

⁴ Then he turned to Jehoshaphat and asked him, “Will you send your army with mine to recover Ramoth-gilead?”

And King Jehoshaphat of Judah replied, “Of course! You and I are brothers; my people are yours to command, and my horses are at your service. ⁵ But,” he added, “we should ask the Lord first, to be sure of what he wants us to do.”

⁶ So King Ahab summoned his 400 heathen prophets^[l] and asked them, “Shall I attack Ramoth-gilead, or not?”

And they all said, “Yes, go ahead, for God will help you conquer it.”

⁷ But Jehoshaphat asked, “Isn’t there a prophet of the Lord here? I’d like to ask him too.”

⁸ “Well, there’s one,” King Ahab replied, “but I hate him, for he never prophesies anything good. He always has something gloomy to say. His name is Micaiah, the son of Imlah.”

“Oh, come now!” Jehoshaphat replied. “Don’t talk like that!”

⁹ So King Ahab called to one of his aides, “Go get Micaiah. Hurry!”

¹⁰ Meanwhile, all the prophets continued prophesying before the two kings, who were dressed in their royal robes and were sitting on thrones placed on the threshing floor near the city gate. ¹¹ One of the prophets, Zedekiah (son of Chenaanah), made some iron horns and declared, “The Lord promises that you will push the Syrians around with these horns until they are destroyed.”

¹² And all the others agreed. “Go ahead and attack Ramoth-gilead,” they said, “for the Lord will cause you to triumph!”

¹³ The messenger who went to get Micaiah told him what the other prophets were saying and urged him to say the same thing.

¹⁴ But Micaiah told him, “This I vow, that I will say only what the Lord tells me to!”

¹⁵ When he arrived, the king asked him, “Micaiah, shall we attack Ramoth-gilead, or not?”

“Why, of course! Go right ahead!” Micaiah told him. “You will have a great victory, for the Lord will cause you to conquer!”

¹⁶ “How many times must I tell you to speak only what the Lord tells you to?” the king demanded.

¹⁷ Then Micaiah told him, “I saw all Israel scattered upon the mountains as sheep without a shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘Their king is dead; send them to their homes.’”

¹⁸ Turning to Jehoshaphat, Ahab complained, “Didn’t I tell you this would happen? He never tells me anything good. It’s always bad.”

¹⁹ Then Micaiah said, “Listen to this further word from the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the armies of heaven stood around him.

²⁰ “Then the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go and die at Ramoth-gilead?’

“Various suggestions were made, ²¹ until one angel approached the Lord and said, ‘I’ll do it!’

²² “‘How?’ the Lord asked.

“And he replied, ‘I will go as a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’

“And the Lord said, ‘That will do it; you will succeed. Go ahead.’

²³ “Don’t you see? The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets, but the fact of the matter is that the Lord has decreed disaster upon you.”

²⁴ Then Zedekiah (son of Chenaanah) walked over and slapped Micaiah on the face.

“When did the Spirit of the Lord leave me and speak to you?” he demanded.

²⁵ And Micaiah replied, “You will have the answer to your question when you find yourself hiding in an inner room.”

²⁶ Then King Ahab ordered Micaiah’s arrest.

“Take him to Amon, the mayor of the city, and to my son Joash. ²⁷ Tell them, ‘The king says to put this fellow in jail and feed him with bread and water—and only enough to keep him alive^[m]—until I return in peace.’”

²⁸ “If you return in peace,” Micaiah replied, “it will prove that the Lord has not spoken through me.” Then he turned to the people standing nearby and said, “Take note of what I’ve said.”

²⁹ So King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah led their armies to Ramoth-gilead.

³⁰ Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “You wear your royal robes, but I’ll not wear mine!”

So Ahab went into the battle disguised in an ordinary soldier’s uniform. ³¹ For the king of Syria had commanded his thirty-two chariot captains to fight no one except King Ahab himself. ^32-33 When they saw King Jehoshaphat in his royal robes, they thought, “That’s the man we’re after.” So they wheeled around to attack him. But when Jehoshaphat shouted out to identify himself,^[n] they turned back! ³⁴ However, someone shot an arrow at random and it struck King Ahab between the joints of his armor.

“Take me out of the battle, for I am badly wounded,” he groaned to his chariot driver.

³⁵ The battle became more and more intense as the day wore on, and King Ahab went back in, propped up in his chariot with the blood from his wound running down onto the floorboards. Finally, toward evening, he died. ^36-37 Just as the sun was going down the cry ran through his troops. “It’s all over—return home! The king is dead!”

And his body was taken to Samaria and buried there. ³⁸ When his chariot and armor were washed beside the pool of Samaria, where the prostitutes bathed, dogs came and licked the king’s blood just as the Lord had said would happen.

³⁹ The rest of Ahab’s history—including the story of the ivory palace and the cities he built—is written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ⁴⁰ So Ahab was buried among his ancestors, and Ahaziah, his son, became the new king of Israel.

⁴¹ Meanwhile, over in Judah, Jehoshaphat the son of Asa had become king during the fourth year of the reign of King Ahab of Israel. ⁴² Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he ascended the throne, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. His mother was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi. ⁴³ He did as his father Asa had done, obeying the Lord in all but one thing: he did not destroy the shrines on the hills, so the people sacrificed and burned incense there. ⁴⁴ He also made peace with Ahab, the king of Israel. ⁴⁵ The rest of the deeds of Jehoshaphat and his heroic achievements and his wars are described in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.

⁴⁶ He also closed all the houses of male prostitution that still continued from the days of his father Asa. ⁴⁷ (There was no king in Edom at that time, only a deputy.)

⁴⁸ King Jehoshaphat built great freighters to sail to Ophir for gold; but they never arrived, for they were wrecked at Ezion-geber. ⁴⁹ Ahaziah, King Ahab’s son and successor, had proposed to Jehoshaphat that his men go, too, but Jehoshaphat had refused the offer.

⁵⁰ When King Jehoshaphat died he was buried with his ancestors in Jerusalem, the city of his forefather David; and his son Jehoram took the throne. ⁵¹ It was during the seventeenth year of the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah that Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, began to reign over Israel in Samaria; and he reigned two years. ^52-53 But he was not a good king, for he followed in the footsteps of his father and mother and of Jeroboam, who had led Israel into the sin of worshiping idols. So Ahaziah made the Lord God of Israel very angry.

1 After King Ahab’s death the nation of Moab declared its independence and refused to pay tribute to Israel any longer.

² Israel’s new king, Ahaziah, had fallen off the upstairs porch of his palace at Samaria and was seriously injured. He sent messengers to the temple of the god Baal-zebub at Ekron to ask whether he would recover.

³ But the Angel of the Lord told Elijah the prophet,^[o] “Go and meet the messengers and ask them, ‘Is it true that there is no God in Israel? Is that why you are going to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether the king will get well? ^4-5 Because King Ahaziah has done this, the Lord says that he will never leave the bed he is lying on; he will surely die.’”

When Elijah told the messengers this, they returned immediately to the king.

“Why have you returned so soon?” he asked them.

⁶ “A man came up to us,” they said, “and told us to go back to the king and tell him, ‘The Lord wants to know why you are asking questions of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. Is it because there is no God in Israel? Now, since you have done this, you will not leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die.’”

⁷ “Who was this fellow?” the king demanded. “What did he look like?”

⁸ “He was a hairy man,” they replied, “with a wide leather belt.”

“It was Elijah the prophet!” the king exclaimed. ⁹ Then he sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, “O man of God, the king has commanded you to come along with us.”

¹⁰ But Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!” Then lightning struck them and killed them all!

¹¹ So the king sent another captain with fifty men to demand, “O man of God, the king says that you must come down right away.”

¹² Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men.” And again the fire from God burned them up.

¹³ Once more the king sent fifty men, but this time the captain fell to his knees before Elijah and pleaded with him, “O man of God, please spare my life and the lives of these, your fifty servants. ¹⁴ Have mercy on us! Don’t destroy us as you did the others.”

¹⁵ Then the Angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Don’t be afraid. Go with him.” So Elijah went to the king.

¹⁶ “Why did you send messengers to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask about your sickness?” Elijah demanded. “Is it because there is no God in Israel to ask? Because you have done this, you shall not leave this bed; you will surely die.”

¹⁷ So Ahaziah died as the Lord had predicted through Elijah, and his brother Joram^[p] became the new king—for Ahaziah did not have a son to succeed him. This occurred in the second year of the reign of King Jehoram (son of Jehoshaphat) of Judah. ¹⁸ The rest of the history of Ahaziah’s reign is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.

2 ^1-2 Now the time came for the Lord to take Elijah to heaven—by means of a whirlwind! Elijah said to Elisha as they left Gilgal, “Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to Bethel.”

But Elisha replied, “I swear to God that I won’t leave you!”

So they went on together to Bethel. ³ There the young prophets of Bethel Seminary came out to meet them and asked Elisha, “Did you know that the Lord is going to take Elijah away from you today?”

“Quiet!” Elisha snapped. “Of course I know it.”

⁴ Then Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here in Bethel, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.”

But Elisha replied again, “I swear to God that I won’t leave you.” So they went on together to Jericho.

⁵ Then the students at Jericho Seminary came to Elisha and asked him, “Do you know that the Lord is going to take away your master today?”

“Will you please be quiet?” he commanded. “Of course I know it!”

^6-7 Then Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan River.”

But Elisha replied as before, “I swear to God that I won’t leave you.”

So they went on together and stood beside the Jordan River as fifty of the young prophets watched from a distance. ⁸ Then Elijah folded his cloak together and struck the water with it; and the river divided and they went across on dry ground!

⁹ When they arrived on the other side Elijah said to Elisha, “What wish shall I grant you before I am taken away?”

And Elisha replied, “Please grant me twice as much prophetic power as you have had.”

¹⁰ “You have asked a hard thing,” Elijah replied. “If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won’t.”

¹¹ As they were walking along, talking, suddenly a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of fire, appeared and drove between them, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.

¹² Elisha saw it and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariot of Israel and the charioteers!”

As they disappeared from sight he tore his robe. ^13-14 Then he picked up Elijah’s cloak and returned to the bank of the Jordan River, and struck the water with it.

“Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” he cried out. And the water parted and Elisha went across!

¹⁵ When the young prophets of Jericho saw what had happened, they exclaimed, “The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha!” And they went to meet him and greeted him respectfully.

¹⁶ “Sir,” they said, “just say the word and fifty of our best athletes will search the wilderness for your master; perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has left him on some mountain or in some ravine.”

“No,” Elisha said, “don’t bother.”

¹⁷ But they kept urging until he was embarrassed and finally said, “All right, go ahead.” Then fifty men searched for three days, but didn’t find him.

¹⁸ Elisha was still at Jericho when they returned. “Didn’t I tell you not to go?” he growled.

¹⁹ Now a delegation of the city officials of Jericho visited Elisha. “We have a problem,” they told him. “This city is located in beautiful natural surroundings, as you can see; but the water is bad and causes our women to have miscarriages.”^[q]

²⁰ “Well,” he said, “bring me a new bowl filled with salt.” So they brought it to him.

²¹ Then he went out to the city well and threw the salt in and declared, “The Lord has healed these waters. They shall no longer cause death or miscarriage.”

²² And sure enough! The water was purified, just as Elisha had said.

²³ From Jericho he went to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, a gang of young men from the city began mocking and making fun of him because of his bald head. ²⁴ He turned around and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and two female bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of them. ²⁵ Then he went to Mount Carmel and finally returned to Samaria.

3 Ahab’s son Joram began his reign over Israel during the eighteenth year of the reign of King Jehoshaphat^[r] of Judah; and he reigned twelve years. His capital was Samaria. ² He was a very evil man, but not as wicked as his father and mother had been, for he at least tore down the pillar to Baal that his father had made. ³ Nevertheless he still clung to the great sin of Jeroboam (the son of Nebat), who had led the people of Israel into the worship of idols.

⁴ King Mesha of Moab and his people were sheep ranchers. They paid Israel an annual tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams; ⁵ but after Ahab’s death, the king of Moab rebelled against Israel. ^6-8 So King Joram mustered the Israeli army and sent this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you help me fight him?”

“Of course I will,” Jehoshaphat replied. “My people and horses are yours to command. What are your battle plans?”

“We’ll attack from the wilderness of Edom,” Joram replied.

⁹ So their two armies, now joined also by troops from Edom, moved along a roundabout route through the wilderness for seven days; but there was no water for the men or their pack animals.

¹⁰ “Oh, what shall we do?” the king of Israel cried out. “The Lord has brought us here to let the king of Moab defeat us.”

¹¹ But Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, asked, “Isn’t there a prophet of the Lord with us? If so, we can find out what to do!”

“Elisha is here,” one of the king of Israel’s officers replied. Then he added, “He was Elijah’s assistant.”

¹² “Fine,” Jehoshaphat said. “He’s just the man we want.”^[s] So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom went to consult Elisha.

¹³ “I want no part of you,” Elisha snarled at King Joram of Israel. “Go to the false prophets of your father and mother!”

But King Joram replied, “No! For it is the Lord who has called us here to be destroyed by the king of Moab!”

¹⁴ “I swear by the Lord God that I wouldn’t bother with you except for the presence of King Jehoshaphat of Judah,” Elisha replied. ¹⁵ “Now bring me someone to play the lute.” And as the lute was played, the message of the Lord came to Elisha:

¹⁶ “The Lord says to fill this dry valley with trenches to hold the water he will send. ¹⁷ You won’t see wind nor rain, but this valley will be filled with water, and you will have plenty for yourselves and for your animals! ¹⁸ But this is only the beginning, for the Lord will make you victorious over the army of Moab! ¹⁹ You will conquer the best of their cities—even those that are fortified—and ruin all the good land with stones.”

²⁰ And sure enough, the next day at about the time when the morning sacrifice was offered—look! Water! It was flowing from the direction of Edom, and soon there was water everywhere.

²¹ Meanwhile, when the people of Moab heard about the three armies marching against them, they mobilized every man who could fight, old and young, and stationed themselves along their frontier. ²² But early the next morning the sun looked red as it shone across the water!

²³ “Blood!” they exclaimed. “The three armies have attacked and killed each other! Let’s go and collect the loot!”

²⁴ But when they arrived at the Israeli camp, the army of Israel rushed out and began killing them; and the army of Moab fled. Then the men of Israel moved forward into the land of Moab, destroying everything as they went. ²⁵ They destroyed the cities, threw stones on every good piece of land, stopped up the wells, and felled the fruit trees; finally, only Fort Kir-hareseth was left, but even that finally fell to them.^[t]

²⁶ When the king of Moab saw that the battle had been lost, he led 700 of his swordsmen in a last desperate attempt to break through to the king of Edom; but he failed. ²⁷ Then he took his oldest son, who was to have been the next king, and to the horror of the Israeli army, killed him and sacrificed him as a burnt offering upon the wall. So the army of Israel turned back in disgust to their own land.

4 One day the wife of one of the seminary students came to Elisha to tell him of her husband’s death. He was a man who had loved God, she said. But he had owed some money when he died, and now the creditor was demanding it back. If she didn’t pay, he said he would take her two sons as his slaves.

² “What shall I do?” Elisha asked. “How much food do you have in the house?”

“Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil,” she replied.

³ “Then borrow many pots and pans from your friends and neighbors!” he instructed. ⁴ “Go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Then pour olive oil from your jar into the pots and pans, setting them aside as they are filled!”

⁵ So she did. Her sons brought the pots and pans to her, and she filled one after another! ⁶ Soon every container was full to the brim!

“Bring me another jar,” she said to her sons.

“There aren’t any more!” they told her. And then the oil stopped flowing!

⁷ When she told the prophet what had happened, he said to her, “Go and sell the oil and pay your debt, and there will be enough money left for you and your sons to live on!”

⁸ One day Elisha went to Shunem. A prominent woman of the city invited him in to eat, and afterwards, whenever he passed that way, he stopped for dinner.

⁹ She said to her husband, “I’m sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy prophet. ¹⁰ Let’s make a little room for him on the roof; we can put in a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, and he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”

^11-12 Once when he was resting in the room he said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman I want to speak to her.”

When she came, ¹³ he said to Gehazi, “Tell her that we appreciate her kindness to us. Now ask her what we can do for her. Does she want me to put in a good word for her to the king or to the general of the army?”

“No,” she replied, “I am perfectly content.”

¹⁴ “What can we do for her?” he asked Gehazi afterwards.

He suggested, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”

^15-16 “Call her back again,” Elisha told him.

When she returned, he talked to her as she stood in the doorway. “Next year at about this time you shall have a son!”

“O man of God,” she exclaimed, “don’t lie to me like that!”

¹⁷ But it was true; the woman soon conceived and had a baby boy the following year, just as Elisha had predicted.

¹⁸ One day when her child was older, he went out to visit his father, who was working with the reapers. ¹⁹ He complained about a headache and soon was moaning in pain. His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”

²⁰ So he took him home, and his mother held him on her lap; but around noontime he died. ²¹ She carried him up to the bed of the prophet and shut the door; ²² then she sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the prophet and come right back.”

²³ “Why today?” he asked. “This isn’t a religious holiday.”

But she said, “It’s important. I must go.”

²⁴ So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down for my comfort unless I tell you to.”

²⁵ As she approached Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance and said to Gehazi, “Look, that woman from Shunem is coming. ²⁶ Run and meet her and ask her what the trouble is. See if her husband is all right and if the child is well.”

“Yes,” she told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”

²⁷ But when she came to Elisha at the mountain she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone; something is deeply troubling her and the Lord hasn’t told me what it is.”

²⁸ Then she said, “It was you who said I’d have a son. And I begged you not to lie to me!”

²⁹ Then he said to Gehazi, “Quick, take my staff! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Hurry! Lay the staff upon the child’s face.”

³⁰ But the boy’s mother said, “I swear to God that I won’t go home without you.” So Elisha returned with her.

³¹ Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff upon the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”

³² When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there upon the prophet’s bed. ³³ He went in and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. ³⁴ Then he lay upon the child’s body, placing his mouth upon the child’s mouth, and his eyes upon the child’s eyes, and his hands upon the child’s hands. And the child’s body began to grow warm again! ³⁵ Then the prophet went down and walked back and forth in the house a few times; returning upstairs, he stretched himself again upon the child. This time the little boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!

³⁶ Then the prophet summoned Gehazi. “Call her!” he said. And when she came in, he said, “Here’s your son!”

³⁷ She fell to the floor at his feet and then picked up her son and went out.