Bible in 90 Days

³⁸ Elisha now returned to Gilgal, but there was a famine in the land. One day as he was teaching the young prophets, he said to Gehazi, “Make some stew for supper for these men.”

³⁹ One of the young men went out into the field to gather vegetables and came back with some wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into a kettle without realizing that they were poisonous. ⁴⁰ But after the men had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Oh, sir, there’s poison in this stew!”

⁴¹ “Bring me some meal,” Elisha said. He threw it into the kettle and said, “Now it’s all right! Go ahead and eat!” And then it didn’t harm them.

⁴² One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought Elisha a sack of fresh corn^[a] and twenty individual loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Elisha told Gehazi to use it to feed the young prophets.

⁴³ “What?” Gehazi exclaimed. “Feed one hundred men with only this?”

But Elisha said, “Go ahead, for the Lord says there will be plenty for all, and some will even be left over!”

⁴⁴ And sure enough, there was, just as the Lord had said!

5 The king of Syria had high admiration for Naaman, the commander-in-chief of his army, for he had led his troops to many glorious victories. So he was a great hero, but he was a leper. ² Bands of Syrians had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a little girl who had been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid.

³ One day the little girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy!”

⁴ Naaman told the king what the little girl had said.

⁵ “Go and visit the prophet,” the king told him. “I will send a letter of introduction for you to carry to the king of Israel.”

So Naaman started out, taking gifts of $20,000 in silver, $60,000 in gold, and ten suits of clothing. ⁶ The letter to the king of Israel said: “The man bringing this letter is my servant Naaman; I want you to heal him of his leprosy.”

⁷ When the king of Israel read it, he tore his clothes and said, “This man sends me a leper to heal! Am I God, that I can kill and give life? He is only trying to get an excuse to invade us again.”

⁸ But when Elisha the prophet heard about the king of Israel’s plight, he sent this message to him: “Why are you so upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet of God here in Israel.”

⁹ So Naaman arrived with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s home. ¹⁰ Elisha sent a messenger out to tell him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed of every trace of his leprosy! ¹¹ But Naaman was angry and stalked away.

“Look,” he said, “I thought at least he would come out and talk to me! I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call upon the name of the Lord his God and heal me! ¹² Aren’t the Abana River and Pharpar River of Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel put together? If it’s rivers I need, I’ll wash at home and get rid of my leprosy.” So he went away in a rage.

¹³ But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply to go and wash and be cured!”

¹⁴ So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the prophet had told him to. And his flesh became as healthy as a little child’s, and he was healed! ¹⁵ Then he and his entire party went back to find the prophet; they stood humbly before him and Naaman said, “I know at last that there is no God in all the world except in Israel; now please accept my gifts.”

¹⁶ But Elisha replied, “I swear by Jehovah my God that I will not accept them.”

Naaman urged him to take them, but he absolutely refused. ¹⁷ “Well,” Naaman said, “all right. But please give me two muleloads of earth to take back with me, for from now on I will never again offer any burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord.^{[b] 18} However, may the Lord pardon me this one thing—when my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow too.”

¹⁹ “All right,” Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.

²⁰ But Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, said to himself, “My master shouldn’t have let this fellow get away without taking his gifts. I will chase after him and get something from him.”

²¹ So Gehazi caught up with him. When Naaman saw him coming, he jumped down from his chariot and ran to meet him.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

²² “Yes,” he said, “but my master has sent me to tell you that two young prophets from the hills of Ephraim have just arrived, and he would like $2,000 in silver and two suits to give to them.”

²³ “Take $4,000,” Naaman insisted. He gave him two expensive robes, tied up the money in two bags, and gave them to two of his servants to carry back with Gehazi. ²⁴ But when they arrived at the hill where Elisha lived,^[c] Gehazi took the bags from the servants and sent the men back. Then he hid the money in his house.

²⁵ When he went in to his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”

“I haven’t been anywhere,” he replied.

²⁶ But Elisha asked him, “Don’t you realize that I was there in thought when Naaman stepped down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to receive money and clothing and olive farms and vineyards and sheep and oxen and servants? ²⁷ Because you have done this, Naaman’s leprosy shall be upon you and upon your children and your children’s children forever.”

And Gehazi walked from the room a leper, his skin as white as snow.

6 ^1-2 One day the seminary students came to Elisha and told him, “As you can see, our dormitory is too small. Tell us, as our president, whether we can build a new one down beside the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs.”

“All right,” he told them, “go ahead.”

³ “Please, sir, come with us,” someone suggested.

“I will,” he said.

⁴ When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees; ⁵ but as one of them was chopping, his axhead fell into the river.

“Oh, sir,” he cried, “it was borrowed!”

⁶ “Where did it fall?” the prophet asked. The youth showed him the place, and Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water; and the axhead rose to the surface and floated! ⁷ “Grab it,” Elisha said to him; and he did.

⁸ Once when the king of Syria was at war with Israel, he said to his officers, “We will mobilize our forces at ____” (naming the place).

⁹ Immediately Elisha warned the king of Israel, “Don’t go near ____” (naming the same place) “for the Syrians are planning to mobilize their troops there!”

¹⁰ The king sent a scout to see if Elisha was right, and sure enough, he had saved him from disaster. This happened several times.

¹¹ The king of Syria was puzzled. He called together his officers and demanded, “Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel about my plans?”

¹² “It’s not us, sir,” one of the officers replied. “Elisha, the prophet, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!”

¹³ “Go and find out where he is, and we’ll send troops to seize him,” the king exclaimed.

And the report came back, “Elisha is at Dothan.”

¹⁴ So one night the king of Syria sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city. ¹⁵ When the prophet’s servant got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere.

“Alas, my master, what shall we do now?” he cried out to Elisha.

¹⁶ “Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For our army is bigger than theirs!”

¹⁷ Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” And the Lord opened the young man’s eyes so that he could see horses of fire and chariots of fire everywhere upon the mountain!

¹⁸ As the Syrian army advanced upon them, Elisha prayed, “Lord, please make them blind.” And he did.

¹⁹ Then Elisha went out and told them, “You’ve come the wrong way! This isn’t the right city! Follow me and I will take you to the man you’re looking for.” And he led them to Samaria!

²⁰ As soon as they arrived Elisha prayed, “Lord, now open their eyes and let them see.” And the Lord did, and they discovered that they were in Samaria, the capital city of Israel!

²¹ When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, “Oh, sir, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”

²² “Of course not!” Elisha told him. “Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again.”

²³ So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their king. And after that the Syrian raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.

²⁴ Later on, however, King Ben-hadad of Syria mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ As a result there was a great famine in the city, and after a long while even a donkey’s head sold for fifty dollars and a pint of dove’s dung brought three dollars!

^26-30 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Help, my lord the king!”

“If the Lord doesn’t help you, what can I do?” he retorted. “I have neither food nor wine to give you. However, what’s the matter?”

She replied, “This woman proposed that we eat my son one day and her son the next. So we boiled my son and ate him, but the next day when I said, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ she hid him.”

When the king heard this he tore his clothes. (The people watching noticed through the rip he tore in them that he was wearing an inner robe made of sackcloth next to his flesh.)

³¹ “May God kill me if I don’t execute Elisha this very day,” the king vowed.

³² Elisha was sitting in his house at a meeting with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “This murderer has sent a man to kill me. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out, for his master will soon follow him.”

³³ While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived followed by the king.^[d]

“The Lord has caused this mess,” the king stormed. “Why should I expect any help from him?”

7 Elisha replied, “The Lord says that by this time tomorrow two gallons of flour or four gallons of barley grain will be sold in the markets of Samaria for a dollar!”

² The officer assisting the king said, “That couldn’t happen if the Lord made windows in the sky!”

But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen, but you won’t be able to buy any of it!”

³ Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. “Why sit here until we die?” they asked each other. ⁴ “We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better; but if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”

⁵ So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there! ⁶ (For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and a loud galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us,” they cried out. ⁷ So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else.)

⁸ When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it. ⁹ Finally they said to each other, “This isn’t right. This is wonderful news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! Even if we wait until morning, some terrible calamity will certainly fall upon us; come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”

¹⁰ So they went back to the city and told the watchmen what had happened—they had gone out to the Syrian camp and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there was not a soul around. ¹¹ Then the watchmen shouted the news to those in the palace.

¹² The king got out of bed and told his officers, “I know what has happened. The Syrians know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields, thinking that we will be lured out of the city. Then they will attack us and make slaves of us and get in.”

¹³ One of his officers replied, “We’d better send out scouts to see. Let them take five of the remaining horses—if something happens to the animals it won’t be any greater loss than if they stay here and die with the rest of us!”

¹⁴ Four chariot horses were found and the king sent out two charioteers to see where the Syrians had gone. ¹⁵ They followed a trail of clothing and equipment all the way to the Jordan River—thrown away by the Syrians in their haste. The scouts returned and told the king, ¹⁶ and the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So it was true that two gallons of flour and four gallons of barley were sold that day for one dollar, just as the Lord had said!

¹⁷ The king appointed his special assistant to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled and killed as the people rushed out. This is what Elisha had predicted on the previous day when the king had come to arrest him, ¹⁸ and the prophet had told the king that flour and barley would sell for so little on the following day.

¹⁹ The king’s officer had replied, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!”

And the prophet had said, “You will see it happen, but you won’t be able to buy any of it!”

²⁰ And he couldn’t, for the people trampled him to death at the gate!

8 Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “Take your family and move to some other country, for the Lord has called down a famine on Israel that will last for seven years.”

² So the woman took her family and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years. ³ After the famine ended, she returned to the land of Israel and went to see the king about getting back her house and land. ⁴ Just as she came in, the king was talking with Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, and saying, “Tell me some stories of the great things Elisha has done.” ⁵ And Gehazi was telling the king about the time when Elisha brought a little boy back to life. At that very moment, the mother of the boy walked in!

“Oh, sir!” Gehazi exclaimed. “Here is the woman now, and this is her son—the very one Elisha brought back to life!”

⁶ “Is this true?” the king asked her. And she told him that it was. So he directed one of his officials to see to it that everything she had owned was restored to her, plus the value of any crops that had been harvested during her absence.

⁷ Afterwards Elisha went to Damascus (the capital of Syria), where King Ben-hadad lay sick. Someone told the king that the prophet had come.

^8-9 When the king heard the news, he said to Hazael, “Take a present to the man of God and tell him to ask the Lord whether I will get well again.”

So Hazael took forty camel-loads of the best produce of the land as presents for Elisha and said to him, “Your son Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, has sent me to ask you whether he will recover.”

¹⁰ And Elisha replied, “Tell him, ‘Yes.’ But the Lord has shown me that he will surely die!”

¹¹ Elisha stared at Hazael until he became embarrassed, and then Elisha started crying.

¹² “What’s the matter, sir?” Hazael asked him.

Elisha replied, “I know the terrible things you will do to the people of Israel: you will burn their forts, kill the young men, dash their babies against the rocks, and rip open the bellies of the pregnant women!”

¹³ “Am I a dog?” Hazael asked him. “I would never do that sort of thing.”

But Elisha replied, “The Lord has shown me that you are going to be the king of Syria.”

¹⁴ When Hazael went back, the king asked him, “What did he tell you?”

And Hazael replied, “He told me that you would recover.”

¹⁵ But the next day Hazael took a blanket and dipped it in water and held it over the king’s face until he smothered to death. And Hazael became king instead.

¹⁶ King Jehoram, the son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, began his reign during the fifth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel, the son of Ahab. ¹⁷ Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years. ¹⁸ But he was as wicked as Ahab and the other kings of Israel; he even married one of Ahab’s daughters. ¹⁹ Nevertheless, because God had promised his servant David that he would watch over and guide his descendants, he did not destroy Judah.

²⁰ During Jehoram’s reign, the people in Edom revolted from Judah and appointed their own king. ²¹ King Jehoram^[e] tried unsuccessfully to crush the rebellion: he crossed the Jordan River and attacked the city of Zair, but was quickly surrounded by the army of Edom. Under cover of night he broke through their ranks, but his army deserted him and fled. ²² So Edom has maintained its independence to this day. Libnah also rebelled at that time.

²³ The rest of the history of King Jehoram is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. ^24-25 He died and was buried in the royal cemetery in the City of David—the old section of Jerusalem.

Then his son Ahaziah^[f] became the new king during the twelfth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel, the son of Ahab. ²⁶ Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, but he reigned only one year in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, the granddaughter of King Omri of Israel. ²⁷ He was an evil king, just as all of King Ahab’s descendants were—for he was related to Ahab by marriage.

²⁸ He joined King Joram of Israel (son of Ahab) in his war against Hazael, the king of Syria, at Ramoth-gilead. King Joram was wounded in the battle, ²⁹ so he went to Jezreel to rest and recover from his wounds. While he was there, King Ahaziah of Judah (son of Jehoram) came to visit him.

9 Meanwhile Elisha had summoned one of the young prophets.

“Get ready to go to Ramoth-gilead,” he told him. “Take this vial of oil with you ² and find Jehu (the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi). Call him into a private room away from his friends, ³ and pour the oil over his head. Tell him that the Lord has anointed him to be the king of Israel; then run for your life!”

⁴ So the young prophet did as he was told. When he arrived in Ramoth-gilead, ⁵ he found Jehu sitting around with the other army officers.

“I have a message for you, sir,” he said.

“For which one of us?” Jehu asked.

“For you,” he replied.

⁶ So Jehu left the others and went into the house, and the young man poured the oil over his head and said, “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘I anoint you king of the Lord’s people, Israel. ⁷ You are to destroy the family of Ahab; you will avenge the murder of my prophets and of all my other people who were killed by Jezebel. ⁸ The entire family of Ahab must be wiped out—every male, no matter who. ⁹ I will destroy the family of Ahab as I destroyed the families of Jeroboam (son of Nebat) and of Baasha (son of Ahijah). ¹⁰ Dogs shall eat Ahab’s wife Jezebel at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’”

Then he opened the door and ran.

¹¹ Jehu went back to his friends and one of them asked him, “What did that crazy fellow want? Is everything all right?”

“You know very well who he was and what he wanted,” Jehu replied.

¹² “No, we don’t,” they said. “Tell us.”

So he told them what the man had said and that he had been anointed king of Israel!

¹³ They quickly carpeted the bare steps with their coats and blew a trumpet, shouting, “Jehu is king!”

¹⁴ That is how Jehu (son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi) rebelled against King Joram. (King Joram had been with the army at Ramoth-gilead, defending Israel against the forces of King Hazael of Syria. ¹⁵ But he had returned to Jezreel to recover from his wounds.)

“Since you want me to be king,” Jehu told the men who were with him, “don’t let anyone escape to Jezreel to report what we have done.”

¹⁶ Then Jehu jumped into a chariot and rode to Jezreel himself to find King Joram, who was lying there wounded. (King Ahaziah of Judah was there too, for he had gone to visit him.) ¹⁷ The watchman on the Tower of Jezreel saw Jehu and his company approaching and shouted, “Someone is coming.”

“Send out a rider and find out if he is friend or foe,” King Joram shouted back. ¹⁸ So a soldier rode out to meet Jehu.

“The king wants to know whether you are friend or foe,” he demanded. “Do you come in peace?”

Jehu replied, “What do you know about peace? Get behind me!”

The watchman called out to the king that the messenger had met them but was not returning. ¹⁹ So the king sent out a second rider. He rode up to them and demanded in the name of the king to know whether their intentions were friendly or not.

Jehu answered, “What do you know about friendliness? Get behind me!”

²⁰ “He isn’t returning either!” the watchman exclaimed. “It must be Jehu, for he is driving so furiously.”

²¹ “Quick! Get my chariot ready!” King Joram commanded.

Then he and King Ahaziah of Judah rode out to meet Jehu. They met him at the field of Naboth, ²² and King Joram demanded, “Do you come as a friend, Jehu?”

Jehu replied, “How can there be friendship as long as the evils of your mother Jezebel are all around us?”

²³ Then King Joram reined the chariot horses around and fled, shouting to King Ahaziah, “There is treachery, Ahaziah! Treason!”

²⁴ Then Jehu drew his bow with his full strength and shot Joram between the shoulders; and the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank down dead in his chariot.

²⁵ Jehu said to Bidkar, his assistant, “Throw him into the field of Naboth, for once when you and I were riding along behind his father Ahab, the Lord revealed this prophecy to me: ²⁶ ‘I will repay him here on Naboth’s property for the murder of Naboth and his sons.’ So throw him out on Naboth’s field, just as the Lord said.”

²⁷ Meanwhile, King Ahaziah of Judah had fled along the road to Beth-haggan. Jehu rode after him, shouting, “Shoot him too.”

So they shot him in his chariot at the place where the road climbs to Gur, near Ibleam. He was able to go on as far as Megiddo, but died there. ²⁸ His officials took him by chariot to Jerusalem where they buried him in the royal cemetery. ²⁹ (Ahaziah’s reign over Judah had begun in the twelfth year^[g] of the reign of King Joram of Israel.)

³⁰ When Jezebel heard that Jehu had come to Jezreel, she painted her eyelids and fixed her hair and sat at a window. ³¹ When Jehu entered the gate of the palace, she shouted at him, “How are you today, you murderer! You son of a Zimri who murdered his master!”

³² He looked up and saw her at the window and shouted, “Who is on my side?” And two or three eunuchs looked out at him.

³³ “Throw her down!” he yelled.

So they threw her out the window, and her blood spattered against the wall and on the horses; and she was trampled by the horses’ hoofs.

³⁴ Then Jehu went into the palace for lunch. Afterwards he said, “Someone go and bury this cursed woman, for she is the daughter of a king.”

³⁵ But when they went out to bury her, they found only her skull, her feet, and her hands.

³⁶ When they returned and told him, he remarked, “That is just what the Lord said would happen. He told Elijah the prophet that dogs would eat her flesh ³⁷ and that her body would be scattered like manure upon the field, so that no one could tell whose it was.”

10 Then Jehu wrote a letter to the city council of Samaria and to the guardians of Ahab’s seventy sons—all of whom were living there.

^2-3 “Upon receipt of this letter, select the best one of Ahab’s sons to be your king, and prepare to fight for his throne. For you have chariots and horses and a fortified city and an armory.”

⁴ But they were too frightened to do it. “Two kings couldn’t stand against this man! What can we do?” they said.

⁵ So the manager of palace affairs and the city manager, together with the city council and the guardians of Ahab’s sons, sent him this message:

“Jehu, we are your servants and will do anything you tell us to. We have decided that you should be our king instead of one of Ahab’s sons.”

⁶ Jehu responded with this message: “If you are on my side and are going to obey me, bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel at about this time tomorrow.”

(These seventy sons of King Ahab were living in the homes of the chief men of the city, where they had been raised since childhood.) ⁷ When the letter arrived, all seventy of them were murdered, and their heads were packed into baskets and presented to Jehu at Jezreel. ⁸ When a messenger told Jehu that the heads of the king’s sons had arrived, he said to pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the city gate, and to leave them there until the next morning.

^9-10 In the morning he went out and spoke to the crowd that had gathered around them. “You aren’t to blame,” he told them. “I conspired against my master and killed him, but I didn’t kill his sons! The Lord has done that, for everything he says comes true. He declared through his servant Elijah that this would happen to Ahab’s descendants.”

¹¹ Jehu then killed all the rest of the members of the family of Ahab who were in Jezreel, as well as all of his important officials, personal friends, and private chaplains. Finally, no one was left who had been close to him in any way.^{[h] 12} Then he set out for Samaria and stayed overnight at a shepherd’s inn along the way. ¹³ While he was there he met the brothers of King Ahaziah of Judah.

“Who are you?” he asked them.

And they replied, “We are brothers^[i] of King Ahaziah. We are going to Samaria to visit the sons of King Ahab and of the Queen Mother, Jezebel.”

¹⁴ “Grab them!” Jehu shouted to his men. And he took them out to the cistern and killed all forty-two of them.

¹⁵ As he left the inn, he met Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, who was coming to meet him. After they had greeted each other, Jehu said to him, “Are you as loyal to me as I am to you?”

“Yes,” Jehonadab replied.

“Then give me your hand,” Jehu said, and he helped him into the royal chariot.

¹⁶ “Now come along with me,” Jehu said, “and see how much I have done for the Lord.” So Jehonadab rode along with him. ¹⁷ When he arrived in Samaria he butchered all of Ahab’s friends and relatives, just as Elijah, speaking for the Lord, had predicted.

Then Jehu called a meeting of all the people of the city and said to them, “Ahab hardly worshiped Baal at all in comparison to the way I am going to! ^18-19 Summon all the prophets and priests of Baal, and call together all his worshipers. See to it that every one of them comes, for we worshipers of Baal are going to have a great celebration to praise him. Any of Baal’s worshipers who don’t come will be put to death.”

But Jehu’s plan was to exterminate them. ^20-21 He sent messengers throughout all Israel summoning those who worshiped Baal; and they all came and filled the temple of Baal from one end to the other. ²² He instructed the head of the robing room, “Be sure that every worshiper wears one of the special robes.”

²³ Then Jehu and Jehonadab (son of Rechab) went into the temple to address the people: “Check to be sure that only those who worship Baal are here; don’t let anyone in who worships the Lord!”

²⁴ As the priests of Baal began offering sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu surrounded the building with eighty of his men and told them, “If you let anyone escape, you’ll pay for it with your own life.”

²⁵ As soon as he had finished sacrificing the burnt offering, Jehu went out and told his officers and men, “Go in and kill the whole bunch of them. Don’t let a single one escape.”

So they slaughtered them all and dragged their bodies outside. Then Jehu’s men went into the inner temple, ²⁶ dragged out the pillar used for the worship of Baal, and burned it. ²⁷ They wrecked the temple and converted it into a public toilet, which it still is today. ²⁸ Thus Jehu destroyed every trace of Baal from Israel. ²⁹ However, he didn’t destroy the gold calves at Bethel and Dan—this was the great sin of Jeroboam (son of Nebat), for it resulted in all Israel sinning.

³⁰ Afterwards the Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well in following my instructions to destroy the dynasty of Ahab. Because of this I will cause your son, your grandson, and your great-grandson to be the kings of Israel.”

³¹ But Jehu didn’t follow the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he continued to worship Jeroboam’s gold calves that had been the cause of such great sin in Israel.

^32-33 At about that time the Lord began to whittle down the size of Israel. King Hazael conquered several sections of the country east of the Jordan River, as well as all of Gilead, Gad, and Reuben; he also conquered parts of Manasseh from the Aroer River in the valley of the Arnon as far as Gilead and Bashan.

³⁴ The rest of Jehu’s activities are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ³⁵ When Jehu died, he was buried in Samaria; and his son Jehoahaz became the new king. ³⁶ In all, Jehu reigned as king of Israel, in Samaria, for twenty-eight years.

11 When Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned that her son was dead, she killed all of his children, ^2-3 except for his year-old son^[j] Joash. Joash was rescued by his Aunt Jehosheba, who was a sister of King Ahaziah (for she was a daughter of King Jehoram, Ahaziah’s father). She stole him away from among the rest of the king’s children who were waiting to be slain and hid him and his nurse in a storeroom of the Temple. They lived there for six years while Athaliah reigned as queen.

⁴ In the seventh year of Queen Athaliah’s reign, Jehoiada the priest^[k] summoned the officers of the palace guard and the queen’s bodyguard. He met them in the Temple, swore them to secrecy, and showed them the king’s son.

⁵ Then he gave them their instructions: “A third of those who are on duty on the Sabbath are to guard the palace. ^6-8 The other two-thirds shall stand guard at the Temple; surround the king, weapons in hand, and kill anyone who tries to break through. Stay with the king at all times.”

⁹ So the officers followed Jehoiada’s instructions. They brought to Jehoiada the men who were going off duty on the Sabbath and those who were coming on duty, ¹⁰ and he armed them from the Temple’s supply of spears and shields that had belonged to King David. ¹¹ The guards, with weapons ready, stood across the front of the sanctuary and surrounded the altar, which was near Joash’s hideaway.

¹² Then Jehoiada brought out the young prince and put the crown upon his head and gave him a copy of the Ten Commandments, and anointed him as king. Then everyone clapped and shouted, “Long live the king!”

^13-14 When Athaliah heard all the noise, she ran into the Temple and saw the new king standing beside the pillar, as was the custom at times of coronation, surrounded by her bodyguard and many trumpeters; and everyone was rejoicing and blowing trumpets.

“Treason! Treason!” she screamed, and began to tear her clothes.

¹⁵ “Get her out of here,” shouted Jehoiada to the officers of the guard. “Don’t kill her here in the Temple. But kill anyone who tries to come to her rescue.”

¹⁶ So they dragged her to the palace stables and killed her there.

¹⁷ Jehoiada made a treaty between the Lord, the king, and the people, that they would be the Lord’s people. He also made a contract between the king and the people. ¹⁸ Everyone went over to the temple of Baal and tore it down, breaking the altars and images and killing Mattan, the priest of Baal, in front of the altar. And Jehoiada set guards at the Temple of the Lord. ¹⁹ Then he and the officers and the guard and all the people led the king from the Temple, past the guardhouse, and into the palace. And he sat upon the king’s throne.

²⁰ So everyone was happy, and the city settled back into quietness after Athaliah’s death. ²¹ Joash was seven years old when he became king.

12 It was seven years after Jehu had become the king of Israel that Joash became king of Judah. He reigned in Jerusalem for forty years. (His mother was Zibiah, from Beersheba.) ² All his life Joash did what was right because Jehoiada the High Priest instructed him. ³ Yet even so he didn’t destroy the shrines on the hills—the people still sacrificed and burned incense there.

^4-5 One day King Joash said to Jehoiada, “The Temple building needs repairing. Whenever anyone brings a contribution to the Lord, whether it is a regular assessment or some special gift, use it to pay for whatever repairs are needed.”

⁶ But in the twenty-third year of his reign the Temple was still in disrepair. ⁷ So Joash called for Jehoiada and the other priests and asked them, “Why haven’t you done anything about the Temple? Now don’t use any more money for your own needs; from now on it must all be spent on getting the Temple into good condition.”

⁸ So the priests agreed to set up a special repair fund that would not go through their hands, lest it be diverted to care for their personal needs. ⁹ Jehoiada the priest bored a hole in the lid of a large chest and set it on the right-hand side of the altar at the Temple entrance. The doorkeepers put all of the people’s contributions into it. ¹⁰ Whenever the chest became full, the king’s financial secretary and the High Priest counted it, put it into bags, ^11-12 and gave it to the construction superintendents to pay the carpenters, stonemasons, quarrymen, timber dealers, and stone merchants, and to buy the other materials needed to repair the Temple of the Lord. ^13-14 It was not used to buy silver cups, gold snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or similar articles, but only for repairs to the building. ¹⁵ No accounting was required from the construction superintendents, for they were honest and faithful men. ¹⁶ However, the money that was contributed for guilt offerings and sin offerings was given to the priests for their own use. It was not put into the chest.

¹⁷ About this time, King Hazael of Syria went to war against Gath and captured it; then he moved on toward Jerusalem to attack it. ¹⁸ King Joash took all the sacred objects that his ancestors—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—had dedicated, along with what he himself had dedicated, and all the gold in the treasuries of the Temple and the palace, and sent it to Hazael. So Hazael called off the attack.

¹⁹ The rest of the history of Joash is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. ²⁰ But his officers plotted against him and assassinated him in his royal residence at Millo on the road to Silla. ²¹ The assassins were Jozachar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer—both trusted aides.^[l] He was buried in the royal cemetery in Jerusalem, and his son Amaziah became the new king.

13 Jehoahaz (the son of Jehu) began a seventeen-year reign over Israel during the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash of Judah. ² But he was an evil king, and he followed the wicked paths of Jeroboam, who had caused Israel to sin. ³ So the Lord was very angry with Israel, and he continually allowed King Hazael of Syria and his son Ben-hadad to conquer them.

⁴ But Jehoahaz prayed for the Lord’s help, and the Lord listened to him; for the Lord saw how terribly the king of Syria was oppressing Israel. ⁵ So the Lord raised up leaders among the Israelis to rescue them from the tyranny of the Syrians; and then Israel lived in safety again as they had in former days. ⁶ But they continued to sin, following the evil ways of Jeroboam; and they continued to worship the goddess Asherah at Samaria. ⁷ Finally the Lord reduced Jehoahaz’s army to fifty mounted troops, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry; for the king of Syria had destroyed the others as though they were dust beneath his feet.

⁸ The rest of the history of Jehoahaz is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.

^9-10 Jehoahaz died and was buried in Samaria, and his son Joash reigned in Samaria for sixteen years. He came to the throne in the thirty-seventh year of the reign of King Joash of Judah. ¹¹ But he was an evil man, for, like Jeroboam, he encouraged the people to worship idols and led them into sin. ¹² The rest of the history of the reign of Joash, including his wars against King Amaziah of Judah, are written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ¹³ Joash died and was buried in Samaria with the other kings of Israel; and Jeroboam II became the new king.

¹⁴ When Elisha was in his last illness, King Joash visited him and wept over him.

“My father! My father! You are the strength of Israel!”^[m] he cried.

¹⁵ Elisha told him, “Get a bow and some arrows,” and he did.

^16-17 “Open that eastern window,” he instructed. Then he told the king to put his hand upon the bow, and Elisha laid his own hands upon the king’s hands.

“Shoot!” Elisha commanded, and he did.

Then Elisha proclaimed, “This is the Lord’s arrow, full of victory over Syria; for you will completely conquer the Syrians at Aphek. ¹⁸ Now pick up the other arrows and strike them against the floor.”

So the king picked them up and struck the floor three times. ¹⁹ But the prophet was angry with him. “You should have struck the floor five or six times,” he exclaimed, “for then you would have beaten Syria until they were entirely destroyed; now you will be victorious only three times.”

^20-21 So Elisha died and was buried.

In those days bandit gangs of Moabites used to invade the land each spring. Once some men who were burying a friend spied these marauders so they hastily threw his body into the tomb of Elisha. And as soon as the body touched Elisha’s bones, the dead man revived and jumped to his feet!

²² King Hazael of Syria had oppressed Israel during the entire reign of King Jehoahaz. ²³ But the Lord was gracious to the people of Israel, and they were not totally destroyed. For God pitied them, and also he was honoring his contract with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this is still true. ²⁴ Then King Hazael of Syria died, and his son Ben-hadad reigned in his place.

²⁵ King Joash of Israel^[n] (the son of Jehoahaz) was successful on three occasions in reconquering the cities that his father had lost to Ben-hadad.

14 During the second year of the reign of King Joash of Israel, King Amaziah began his reign over Judah. ² Amaziah was twenty-five years old at the time, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. (His mother was Jehoaddin, a native of Jerusalem.) ³ He was a good king in the Lord’s sight, though not quite like his ancestor David; but he was as good a king as his father Joash. ⁴ However, he didn’t destroy the shrines on the hills, so the people still sacrificed and burned incense there.

⁵ As soon as he had a firm grip on the kingdom, he killed the men who had assassinated his father; ⁶ but he didn’t kill their children, for the Lord had commanded through the law of Moses that fathers shall not be killed for their children, nor children for the sins of their fathers: everyone must pay the penalty for his own sins. ⁷ Once Amaziah killed ten thousand Edomites in Salt Valley; he also conquered Sela and changed its name to Joktheel, as it is called to this day.

⁸ One day he sent a message to King Joash of Israel (the son of Jehoahaz and the grandson of Jehu), daring him to mobilize his army and come out and fight.

⁹ But King Joash replied, “The thistle of Lebanon demanded of the mighty cedar tree, ‘Give your daughter to be a wife for my son.’ But just then a wild animal passed by and stepped on the thistle and trod it into the ground! ¹⁰ You have destroyed Edom and are very proud about it; but my advice to you is, be content with your glory and stay home! Why provoke disaster for both yourself and Judah?”

¹¹ But Amaziah refused to listen, so King Joash of Israel mustered his army. The battle began at Beth-shemesh, one of the cities of Judah, ¹² and Judah was defeated and the army fled home. ¹³ King Amaziah was captured, and the army of Israel marched on Jerusalem and broke down its wall from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, a distance of about six hundred feet. ¹⁴ King Joash took many hostages and all the gold and silver from the Temple and palace treasury, also the gold cups. Then he returned to Samaria.

¹⁵ The rest of the history of Joash and his war with King Amaziah of Judah are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ¹⁶ When Joash died, he was buried in Samaria with the other kings of Israel. And his son Jeroboam became the new king.

¹⁷ Amaziah lived fifteen years longer than Joash, ¹⁸ and the rest of his biography is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. ¹⁹ There was a plot against his life in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but his enemies sent assassins and killed him there. ²⁰ His body was returned on horses, and he was buried in the royal cemetery, in the City of David section of Jerusalem.

²¹ Then his son Azariah became the new king at the age of sixteen. ²² After his father’s death, he built Elath and restored it to Judah.

²³ Meanwhile, over in Israel, Jeroboam II had become king during the fifteenth year of the reign of King Amaziah of Judah. Jeroboam’s reign lasted forty-one years. ²⁴ But he was as evil as Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat), who had led Israel into the sin of worshiping idols. ²⁵ Jeroboam II recovered the lost territories of Israel between Hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the Lord God of Israel had predicted through Jonah (son of Amittai) the prophet from Gathhepher. ²⁶ For the Lord saw the bitter plight of Israel—she had no one to help her. ²⁷ And he had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel, so he used King Jeroboam II to save her.

²⁸ The rest of Jeroboam’s biography—all that he did, and his great power, and his wars, and how he recovered Damascus and Hamath (which had been captured by Judah)—is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ²⁹ When Jeroboam II died, he was buried with the other kings of Israel, and his son Zechariah became the new king of Israel.

15 ^1-2 New king of Judah: Azariah

³ Azariah was a good king, and he pleased the Lord just as his father Amaziah had. ⁴ But like his predecessors, he didn’t destroy the shrines on the hills where the people sacrificed and burned incense. ⁵ Because of this^[o] the Lord struck him with leprosy, which lasted until the day of his death; so he lived in a house by himself. And his son Jotham was the acting king. ⁶ The rest of the history of Azariah is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. ⁷ When Azariah died, he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, and his son Jotham became king.

⁹ But Zechariah was an evil king in the Lord’s sight, just like his ancestors. Like Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat), he encouraged Israel in the sin of worshiping idols. ¹⁰ Then Shallum (the son of Jabesh) conspired against him and assassinated him at Ibleam and took the crown himself. ¹¹ The rest of the history of Zechariah’s reign is found in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ¹² (So the Lord’s statement to Jehu came true, that Jehu’s son, grandson, and great-grandson would be kings of Israel.^[p])

¹⁴ One month after Shallum became king, Menahem (the son of Gadi) came to Samaria from Tirzah and assassinated him and took the throne. ¹⁵ Additional details about King Shallum and his conspiracy^[q] are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.

¹⁶ Menahem destroyed the city of Tappuah and the surrounding countryside, for its citizens refused to accept him as their king; he killed the entire population and ripped open the pregnant women.

¹⁸ But Menahem was an evil king. He worshiped idols, as King Jeroboam I had done so long before, and he led the people of Israel into grievous sin. ^19-20 Then King Pul of Assyria invaded the land; but King Menahem bought him off with a gift of $2,000,000, so he turned around and returned home. Menahem extorted the money from the rich, assessing each one $2,000 in the form of a special tax. ²¹ The rest of the history of King Menahem is written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ²² When he died, his son Pekahiah became the new king.

²⁴ But Pekahiah was an evil king, and he continued the idol worship begun by Jeroboam I (son of Nebat) who led Israel down that evil trail.

²⁵ Then Pekah (son of Remaliah), the commanding general of his army, conspired against him with fifty men from Gilead and assassinated him in the palace at Samaria (Argob and Arieh were also slain in the revolt). So Pekah became the new king. ²⁶ The rest of the history of King Pekahiah is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.