2 Kings Chapter 1
Death of Ahaziah
1 After Ahab died, Moab rebelled against Israel.
2 Ahaziah fell through the window of his upper room in Samaria and was injured. He sent messengers to them and said, “Go and inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I will recover from this injury.”
3 Then the angel of the Lord spoke to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?’
4 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘You will not get up from the bed you are lying on, but you will certainly die.’” So Elijah went.
5 When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you returned?”
6 They answered him, “We found a man who told us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you send to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore, you will not get up from the bed you are lying on; you will certainly die.”’”
7 He asked them, “What was the man like whom you found, who told you these things?”
8 They replied, “A man wearing a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.” Then he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
9 He then sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men, and they went up to where he was. And behold, he was sitting on the top of the mountain. And the captain said to him, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’”
10 Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.
11 Again the king sent another captain of fifty with his fifty men, and he spoke to him and said, “Man of God, this is what the king says: Come down quickly.”
12 Elijah answered him, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men.
13 Again he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. And this third captain of fifty went up and knelt before Elijah and begged him, saying, “Man of God, please spare my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours.”
14 Behold, fire has come down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of fifty with their fifty men; now let my life be precious in your sight.
15 Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king.
16 And he said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, is there no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore you shall not rise from the bed on which you lie, but you shall surely die.’”
17 So he died according to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken. Joram reigned in his place in the second year of Joram son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, for Ahaziah had no son.
18 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
2 Kings Chapter 2
Elisha succeeds Elijah
1 Now it happened that when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were going from Gilgal.
2 And Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.
3 And the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take your master from you today?” And he said, “Yes, I know; be silent.”
4 Then Elijah said to him again, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.
5 And the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that the Lord will take your master from you today?” He answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.”
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” And he said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.
7 Fifty men from the company of the prophets came and stood before them at a distance, while the two of them stood by the Jordan.
8 Then Elijah took his mantle, folded it, and struck the water with it, and it divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.”
10 He said, “You have asked a hard thing. If you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.”
11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
13 He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
14 He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water with it, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” When he had struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and Elisha crossed over.
15 When the company of the prophets at Jericho saw him on the other side, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they went to meet him and worshiped him.
16 And they said, “Look, there are fifty strong men with your servants; let them go now and search for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him on some mountain or in some valley.” But he said to them, “Do not send them.”
17 But they urged him until, ashamed, he said, “Send.” So they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find him.
18 When they returned to Elisha, who had remained in Jericho, he said to them, “Did I not tell you not to go?”
19 The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the location of this city is good, as my lord sees, but the water is bad and the land is barren.”
20 Then he said, “Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21 He went out to the spring of water and threw the salt into it and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor barrenness will come from it.’”
22 The water has remained wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.
23 From there he went up to Bethel; As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”
24 He turned around, looked at them and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
25 From there he went to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.
2 Kings Chapter 3
Reign of Joram of Israel
1 Joram son of Ahab began to reign in Samaria over Israel in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned twelve years.
2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he removed the sacred pillars of Baal that his father had made.
3 But he followed the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, and he did not turn away from them.
Elisha predicts victory over Moab
4 Now Mesha king of Moab owned livestock, and he paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams with their fleeces.
5 But after Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
6 So King Joram went out from Samaria and mustered all Israel.
7 Then he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, saying, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to war against Moab?” And he answered, “I will go, for I am as you are, my people as your people, and my horses as your horses.”
8 Then he asked, “Which way shall we go?” And he answered, “By way of the wilderness of Edom.”
9 So the king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom set out. And after they had marched around in the wilderness for seven days, there was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them.
10 Then the king of Israel said, “Ah!” whom the Lord has called to deliver into the hands of the Moabites.
11 But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord through him?” And one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Here is Elisha the son of Shaphat, who served Elijah.”
12 And Jehoshaphat said, “He will have the word of the Lord.” So the king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom went down to him.
13 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.” But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has gathered these three kings together to deliver them into the hands of the Moabites.”
14 And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, if I did not respect the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or even see you.”
15 But now bring me a musician.” And as the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha,
16 who said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of pools.’
17 For thus says the Lord: ‘You shall see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley shall be filled with water, and you, your livestock, and your cattle shall drink.’”
18 This is a light thing in the eyes of the Lord; he will also deliver the Moabites into your hands.
19 You shall destroy every fortified city and every fine town, cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs of water, and destroy all the fertile land with stones.
20 So it happened in the morning, at the time of the sacrifice, that water came from the direction of Edom, and the land was filled with water.
21 When all the Moabites heard that the kings were coming up to fight against them, they gathered together, from those who could barely put on armor and upward, and stood at the border.
22 When they rose early in the morning, and the sun shone on the waters, the Moabites saw from afar that the waters were red like blood;
23 and they said, “This is the blood of the sword! The kings have turned against each other, and each has killed his neighbor. Now then, Moab, to the plunder!”
24 But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked the Moabites, who fled before them. But they pursued them and killed the Moabites.
25 They destroyed the cities, and in all the fertile lands, each man threw his stone and filled them up. They also stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees, until only stones remained in Kir-hareseth, for the slingers surrounded it and destroyed it.
26 When the king of Moab saw that he was losing the battle, he took with him seven hundred men who handled swords to attack the king of Edom, but they could not.
27 Then he took his firstborn son, who was to reign in his place, and sacrificed him as a burnt offering on the wall. And there was great anger against Israel; and they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.
2 Kings Chapter 4
The Widow's Oil
1 A woman, one of the wives of the sons of the prophets, cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. Now the creditor has come to take my two sons as slaves.”
2 Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
3 He said, “Go and borrow empty jars from all your neighbors, not just a few.
4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all the jars. When each one is full, set it aside.”
5 So the woman went and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought her the jars, and she poured in the oil.
6 When the jars were full, she said to one of her sons, “Bring me another jar.” And he said, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your creditors; and you and your children can live on what is left.”
Elisha and the Shunammite woman
8 One day Elisha passed through Shunem, and a prominent woman lived there, who urged him to have a meal. So whenever he passed by, he would stop at her house to eat.
9 She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often passes by our house is a holy man of God.
10 Let’s make a small room with walls and put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp in it, so that when he comes to us, he can stay there.”
11 So one day he came by and went down to the room and lay down.
12 Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her, and she came to him.
13 He said to Gehazi, “Say to her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can I do for you?’” Do you need me to speak to the king or the commander of the army for you? And she answered, “I live among my own people.”
14 He said, “What then shall we do for her?” Gehazi answered, “Look, she has no son, and her husband is old.”
15 Then he said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood at the door.
16 He said to her, “About this time next year you will hold a son in your arms.” She said, “No, my lord, man of God, do not deceive your servant.”
17 But the woman conceived and gave birth to a son the following year at the time Elisha had told her.
18 The child grew. One day he came to his father, who was with the reapers,
19 and said to his father, “Oh, my head! My head!” His father said to a servant, “Take him to his mother.”
20 So he took him and brought him to his mother, and he sat on her knees until noon, and then he died.
21 She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door, and went out.
22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so that I may hurry to the man of God and return.”
23 He said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the new moon nor the Sabbath.” And she said, “Peace.”
24 Then he saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Lead on, and do not make me stop on the way unless I tell you to.”
25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her from afar, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Here is the Shunammite woman.”
26 Please go quickly to her and ask, “Are you well? Is your husband and your son well?” She replied, “Well.”
27When she came to the man of God on the mountain, she grasped his feet. Gehazi came near to take her away, but the man of God said to him, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in bitterness, and the Lord has hidden the reason from me and has not revealed it to me.
” She said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not mock me’?”
29 Then he said to Gehazi, “Gird up your loins, and take my staff in your hand, and go; if anyone meets you, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him; and lay my staff on the face of the child.”
30 And the child’s mother said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.”
31 So he arose and followed her. Now Gehazi had gone before them and laid the staff upon the child’s face, but there was no voice nor sense. And he turned back to meet Elisha and told him, “The child will not awaken.”
32 And when Elisha came into the house, behold, the child was dead, lying on his bed.
33 And he went in and shut the door behind them both, and prayed to the Lord.
34 Then he went up and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon the child’s mouth, his eyes upon the child’s eyes, and his hands upon the child’s hands; and the child’s body grew warm.
35 Then he turned and walked back and forth in the house, and went up and lay upon him again, and the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36 Then he called Gehazi and said to him, “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her. And when she came in, he said to her, “Take your son.”
37 So she came in, fell at his feet, and bowed down to the ground; then she took her son and went out.
Miracles for the benefit of the prophets
38 Elisha returned to Gilgal during a severe famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were with him, so he said to his servant, “Put on a large pot and make stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs and found something like a wild vine. He gathered wild gourds from it and cut them up into the pot of stew, for he did not know what they were.
40 He served it to the men to eat. But as they were eating the stew, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.
41 He said, “Bring some flour.” He sprinkled it into the pot and said, “Give it to the people to eat.” And there was no more harm in the pot.
42 A man from Baal-shalishah came and brought the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread and some fresh grain in the ear. And he said, “Give it to the people to eat.”
43 His servant replied, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” But he said again, “Give it to the people to eat, for thus says the Lord: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’”
44 So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.
2 Kings Chapter 5
Elisha and Naaman
1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty warrior, but he had leprosy.
2 Now bands of raiders from Syria had gone out and taken captive a young girl from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.
3 The girl said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 So Naaman went to his master and told him, “This is what the young girl from the land of Israel said.”
5 The king of Syria said to him, “Go, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing.
6 He also took letters to the king of Israel, which read: “When these letters reach you, know that I have sent my servant Naaman to you to heal him of his leprosy.”
7 When the king of Israel read the letters, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, able to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to heal a man of his leprosy? Consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.”
8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10 Then Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”
11 So Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the place and cure me of my leprosy.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 But his servants came near to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”
14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was cleansed.
15 Then he and all his company returned to the man of God and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Please accept a gift from your servant.”
16But he said, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will not accept it.” And he urged him to accept something, but he refused.
17 Then Naaman said, “Please let two mule-loads of produce be given to your servant from this land, for from now on your servant will offer no burnt offering or sacrifice to any other god but the Lord.”
18 May the Lord forgive your servant in this matter: When my lord the king goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and leans on my arm, and I also bow down in the temple of Rimmon, when I do this, may the Lord forgive your servant in this matter.
19 And he said to him, “Go in peace.” So he departed and traveled about half a league.
20 Then Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “Look, my master has hindered this Syrian Naaman, not accepting from his hand the things he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and take something from him.”
21 So Gehazi pursued Naaman. And when Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and said, “Is everything all right?”
22 And he said, “All right. My master has sent me to tell you, ‘Look, two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”
23 Naaman said, “Please take two talents.” And he urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, and two new sets of clothing, and put them on the shoulders of two of his servants to carry them before him.
24 When he came to a secret place, he took them from their hands and put them away in the house; then he sent the men away.
25 And he went in and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant has not gone anywhere.”
26 Then he said to him, “Was not my heart also there when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to receive money, and to receive clothing, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, oxen, male and female servants?
27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow.
2 Kings Chapter 6
Elisha makes the axe float
1 The sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we live with you is too small for us.
2 Let’s go to the Jordan, and each of us will take a beam from there, and we will make a place there for us to live.” He said, “Go.”
3 Then one of them said, “Please come with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.”
4 So he went with them, and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.
5 As one of them was cutting down a tree, the axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my lord! It was borrowed! ”
6 The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” And he showed him the place. Then he cut a stick and threw it in, and made the iron float.
7 He said, “Take it.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
Elisha and the Syrians
8 Now the king of Syria was at war with Israel, and he consulted with his servants and said, “My camp will be in such and such a place.”
9 The man of God sent word to the king of Israel, saying, “Beware of passing through such and such a place, for the Syrians are going there.”
10 So the king of Israel sent men to the place the man of God had indicated, and he did so repeatedly to be on his guard.
11 The heart of the king of Syria was troubled by this, and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not tell me which of our men are on the side of the king of Israel?”
12 One of the servants said, “No, my lord the king, but Elisha the prophet is in Israel, and he tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your most secret chamber.”
13 The king said, “Go and see where he is, so that I may send men and arrest him.” And it was told him, “He is in Dothan.”
14 Then the king sent horses, chariots, and a large army there, and they came by night and besieged the city.
15 Early the next morning the servant of the man of God got up and went out, and there was an army surrounding the city, with horses and chariots. His servant said to him, “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?”
16 He said, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
18 When the Syrians had come down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Please strike these people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, according to Elisha’s request.
19 Then Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” So he led them to Samaria.
20 When they arrived in Samaria, Elisha said, “Lord, open their eyes so they may see.” Then the Lord opened their eyes, and they looked and there they were, right in the middle of Samaria.
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father?”
22 “Do not kill them,” Elisha replied. “Would you kill those you have taken captive with your sword and bow? Set bread and water before them so they may eat and drink and return to their masters.”
23 So he prepared a great feast for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. And no more did the raiding parties of Syria invade the land of Israel.
Elisha and the Siege of Samaria
24 After this, Ben-Hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria.
25 As a result of the siege, there was a severe famine in Samaria, so that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.
26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman called out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 He replied, “If the Lord does not save you, where can I get help for you? From the barn or from the winepress?”
28 The king asked her, “What is the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son, that we may eat him today, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’
29 So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give me your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”
30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his clothes and went over the wall. The people saw the sackcloth he was wearing underneath.
31 He said, “May God do so to me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on him today!”
32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger to him, but before the messenger came, he said to the elders, “Have you seen how this son of a murderer has sent to cut off my head? Look, then, when the messenger comes, shut the door and prevent him from entering. Can you not hear the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
33 While he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him, and he said, “Surely this disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait any longer for the Lord?”
2 Kings Chapter 7
1 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”
2 A prince, on whose arm the king leaned, answered the man of God, “Even if the Lord were to make windows in the heavens, could this happen?” Elisha replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”
3 Now four lepers were standing at the entrance of the gate. They said to one another, “Why are we staying here until we die?
4 If we try to go into the city, we will die there because of the famine; and if we stay here, we will also die. Let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they spare our lives, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”
5 So they got up at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. When they came to the entrance of the Syrian camp, no one was there.
6 For the Lord had caused the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army to be heard in the Syrian camp. They said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!”
7 So they got up and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents, their horses, their donkeys, and the camp as it was. They fled for their lives.
8 When the lepers reached the entrance of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank. They took silver, gold, and clothing from there and went and hid them. Then they turned and went into another tent and took things from there also and went and hid them.
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning, our wickedness will overtake us. Let us go now and tell the king’s household.”
10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We went to the camp of the Arameans, and there was no one there, nor the sound of a man, except horses tied up and donkeys tied up, and the camp intact.”
11 The gatekeepers called out and reported it inside, to the king’s palace.
12 Then the king got up during the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are hungry, and they have come out of their tents and hidden themselves in the open country, saying, ‘When they leave the city, we will take them alive and enter the city.’”
13Then one of his servants answered and said, “Take now five of the horses that are left in the city (for those that remain here will also perish like all the multitude of Israel that has already perished), and let us send and see what is there.”
14 So they took two horses from a chariot, and the king sent them to the camp of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.”
15 So they went and pursued them as far as the Jordan. And behold, the whole road was full of garments and belongings that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.
16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. And a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
17 And the king set the prince at the gate, on whose arm he leaned. And the people trampled him down at the entrance, and he died, according to what the man of God had said when the king went down to him.
18 So it happened just as the man of God had told the king, saying, “Two seahs of barley for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour will be sold for a shekel tomorrow at this time at the gate of Samaria.”
19 The prince had answered the man of God, “If the Lord made windows in the heavens, could this happen?” And he said, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.”
20 And so it happened to him; for the people trampled him down at the gate, and he died.
2 Kings Chapter 8
The Shunammite woman's belongings returned
1 Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had raised to life, saying, “Go, you and all your household, and live wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years.”
2 So the woman went and did as the man of God had told her; she and her household went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.
3 At the end of the seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went out to plead with the king for her household and her land.
4 Now the king had spoken with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, “Please tell me all the wonders that Elisha has done.”
5 And while he was telling the king how he had raised a dead man to life, the woman whose son he had raised to life came to plead with the king for her household and her land. Then Gehazi said, “My lord the king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha saved from death.”
6 When the king asked the woman, she told him. Then the king gave orders to an officer, saying, “Give her back everything that belonged to her, and all the produce of her land from the day she left the country until now.”
Hazael reigns in Syria
7 Elisha then went to Damascus. Now Ben-Hadad king of Syria was sick, and someone told him, “The man of God has come here.”
8 The king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord for him, asking, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
9 So Hazael took a present from the goods of Damascus, forty camels full, and went to meet him. When he arrived, he stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, asking, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
10 Elisha said to him, “Go and tell him, ‘You will surely recover.’ However, the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die.”
11 The man of God stared at him and remained so until he blushed; then the man of God wept.
12 Hazael said to him, “Why is my lord weeping?” And he answered, “For I know the evil you will do to the Israelites: You will set fire to their strongholds, kill their young men with the sword, dash their children to pieces, and rip open the bellies of their pregnant women.”
13 Hazael said, “What is your servant, this dog, that he should do such great things?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Syria.”
14 So Hazael went and came to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha tell you?” He replied, “He said that you will surely be healed.”
15 The next day he took a cloth, dipped it in water, and placed it on Ben-Hadad’s face, and he died. Hazael succeeded him as king.
Reinado de Joram de Judá
16 In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, and when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Joram son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign.
17 He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.
18 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was married to a daughter of Ahab; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.
19 Nevertheless, the Lord was unwilling to destroy Judah, for the sake of his servant David, because he had promised to give him and his descendants a lamp forever.
20 In his days Edom rebelled against the rule of Judah, and they set a king over them.
21 So Joram crossed over to Zair, and all his chariots with him; and he rose up by night and attacked the Edomites who had besieged him, including the commanders of the chariots; and the people fled to their tents.
22 Nevertheless, Edom has kept itself from the rule of Judah to this day. Libnah also rebelled at the same time.
23 The rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
24 So Joram rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of David. Ahaziah, his son, succeeded him as king.
Reign of Ahaziah of Judah
25 In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Joram, king of Judah, began to reign.
26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, king of Israel.
27 He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was a son-in-law to the house of Ahab.
28 He went to war with Joram son of Ahab at Ramoth-gilead against Hazael king of Aram, and the Arams wounded Joram.
29 King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arams had inflicted on him at Ramoth when he fought against Hazael king of Aram. And Ahaziah the son of Joram, king of Judah, went down to visit Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he was sick.
2 Kings Chapter 9
Jehu is anointed king of Israel
1 Then the prophet Elisha called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, “Gird up your loins, and take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead.
2 When you arrive there, you will see Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go in, have him rise from among his brothers, and take him to the upper room.
3 Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: I have anointed you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee; do not wait.”
4 So the young man, the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead.
5 When he entered, the commanders of the army were sitting there. He said, “Commander, I have a word to say to you.” Jehu said, “To which of us?” He said, “To you, Commander.”
6 Then he rose and went into the house; Then the other poured the oil on his head and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I have anointed you king over the Lord’s people of Israel.
7 You will strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the Lord’s servants at the hand of Jezebel.
8 All the house of Ahab will perish, and I will cut off every male from Ahab, both slave and free, in Israel.
9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah.
10 Dogs will eat Jezebel in the fields of Jezreel, and there will be no one to bury her.’” Immediately he opened the door and fled.
11 Then Jehu went out to his master’s servants, and they said to him, “Is it peace? Why did that madman come to you?” And he said to them, “You know the man and his words.”
12 They said, “That’s a lie; tell us now.” And he said, “Thus he spoke to me, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: I have anointed you king over Israel.’”
13 Then each man quickly took his robe and laid it beneath Jehu on a high throne, and they blew the trumpet and said, “Jehu is king!”
Jehu kills Joram
14 So Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. (At that time Joram was guarding Ramoth-gilead with all Israel because of Hazael king of Syria.
15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Syrians had inflicted on him while fighting against Hazael king of Syria.) Jehu said, “If it pleases you, let no one escape from the city to go and tell the news in Jezreel.”
16 So Jehu rode up and went to Jezreel, for Joram was there sick. Ahaziah king of Judah was also there, having come down to visit Joram.
17 The watchman on the tower at Jezreel saw Jehu’s troop coming and said, “I see a troop.” Joram said, “Send a horseman over to scout them out and ask, ‘Is it peace?’”
18 So the rider went to scout them out and said, “This is what the king says: ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu replied, “What do you have to do with peace? Come back with me.” The watchman then reported, “The messenger reached them, but he is not returning.”
19 Then he sent another rider, who reached them and said, “This is what the king says: ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu replied, “What do you have to do with peace? Come back with me.”
20 The watchman reported again, “This one also reached them, but he is not returning. The way he is coming is like the way Jehu son of Nimshi comes—he comes swiftly.”
21 Then Joram said, “Harness the chariot.” So when his chariot was harnessed, Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah rode out, each in his chariot, to meet Jehu, whom they found in the field of Naboth the Jezreelite.
22 When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” And he answered, “What peace, with the whoring of Jezebel your mother, and her many sorceries?”
23 Then Joram turned the reins and fled, and said to Ahaziah, “Treason, Ahaziah!”
24 But Jehu bent his bow, and struck Joram between the shoulders; and the arrow came out through his heart, and he fell in his chariot.
25 Then Jehu said to Bidcar his captain, “Take him and throw him into the far corner of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember that when you and I went with the men of Ahab his father, the Lord pronounced this sentence against him, saying,
26 ‘I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons,’ said the Lord, ‘and I will repay you with this field,’ said the Lord. Now then, take him and throw him into the field of Naboth, according to the word of the Lord.”
Jehu kills Ahaziah
27 When Ahaziah king of Judah saw this, he fled by way of the garden house. Jehu pursued him, saying, “Strike this man also in his chariot.” So they struck him down at the ascent of Gur, near Ibleam. Ahaziah fled to Megiddo, but died there.
28 His servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and there they buried him with his ancestors in his tomb in the City of David.
29 In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
Death of Jezebel
30 After this, Jehu came to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard of it, she painted her eyes with antimony, adorned her head, and looked out of a window.
31 As Jehu entered the gate, she said, “Did it go well with Zimri, who killed his master?”
32 He looked up at the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs bowed down to him.
33 He said to them, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood splashed on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her.
34 Then he went in, and after he had eaten and drunk, he said, “Go now to that cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.”
35 But when they went to bury her, they found nothing of her but her skull, her feet, and her hands.
36 So they returned and told him. And he said, “This is the word of God, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘In the plot of ground at Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel,
37 and the body of Jezebel shall be like dung on the face of the ground in the plot of ground at Jezreel, so that no one may say, “This is Jezebel.”’”
2 Kings Chapter 10
Jehu exterminates the house of Ahab
1 Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the leaders of Jezreel, the elders, and Ahab’s guardians, saying,
2 “ As soon as these letters reach you—you who have your master’s sons, chariots, horsemen, a fortified city, and weapons—
3 choose the best and most upright of your master’s sons and set him on his father’s throne, and fight for your master’s house.”
4 But they were greatly afraid and said, “Look, two kings could not withstand him; how can we withstand him?”
5 Then the steward, the governor of the city, the elders, and the guardians sent word to Jehu, saying, “We are your servants, and we will do everything you command. We will not choose anyone to be king; do whatever seems good to you.”
6 Then he wrote to them a second time, saying, “If you are my servants and will obey me, take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me tomorrow at this time in Jezreel.” Now the king’s seventy sons were with the leading men of the city, who were raising them.
7 When the letters arrived, they took the king’s sons, slaughtered the seventy men, put their heads in baskets, and sent them to Jezreel.
8 A messenger came and told him, “The heads of the king’s sons have been brought.” He said, “Put them in two piles at the entrance of the gate until morning.”
9 When morning came, he went out and stood before all the people and said, “You are righteous! I conspired against my master and killed him, but who killed all these men?”
10 Know now that of the word that the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab, not one of it will fall to the ground; and the Lord has done what he promised through his servant Elijah.
11 So Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his princes, all his relatives, and his priests, until not one was left.
12 Then he arose from there to go to Samaria; and on the way he came to a shepherds’ shearing house.
13 And he found there the brothers of Ahaziah king of Judah, and he said to them, “Who are you?” And they said, “We are brothers of Ahaziah, and we have come to greet the king’s sons and the queen’s sons.”
14 Then he said, “Seize them alive.” And after they had taken them alive, they slaughtered them at the well of the shearing house, forty-two men, leaving none of them.
15Leaving there, he met Jonadab son of Rechab. After greeting him, he asked, “Is your heart as true to me as mine is to you?” Jonadab replied, “It is.” “If it is,” he said, “give me your hand.” So he gave him his hand. Then Jehu had him ride into his chariot with him
and said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” So they put him in his chariot.
When Jehu arrived in Samaria, he killed all the survivors of Ahab in Samaria, destroying them completely, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through Elijah.
Jehu exterminates the worship of Baal
18 Then Jehu gathered all the people together and said to them, “Ahab served Baal little, but Jehu will serve him much.”
19 Call me at once for all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests; let not one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal; whoever is missing shall not live. This Jehu did by craftiness, to destroy those who worshipped Baal.
20 And Jehu said, “Sanctify a solemn day to Baal.” And they convoked.
21 So Jehu sent messengers throughout all Israel, and all the servants of Baal came, so that there was not one who did not come. And they entered the temple of Baal, and the temple of Baal was filled from one end to the other.
22 Then he said to the one in charge of the garments, “Bring out garments for all the servants of Baal.” So he brought out garments for them.
23 Then Jehu and Jonadab son of Rechab went into the temple of Baal and said to the servants of Baal, “See that there is not one of the servants of the Lord here among you, but only the servants of Baal.”
24 And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu stationed eighty men outside and said to them, “Whoever spares any of the men I have put in your hands, his life shall be for the life of the other.”
25 After they had finished offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to his guards and officers, “Go in and kill them; let not one escape.” So they killed them with the sword, and the guards and officers left them lying there. Then they went to the holy place of Baal’s temple,
26 and brought out the images from Baal’s temple and burned them.
27 They smashed the image of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and they have made it a latrine to this day.
28 Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel.
29 Nevertheless, Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit; he left standing the golden calves that were in Bethel and Dan.
30 And the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, your descendants shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”
31 But Jehu did not take care to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart, nor did he turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, who had caused Israel to sin.
32 In those days the Lord began to cut off the territory of Israel; and Hazael defeated them on all their borders,
33 from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, from Aroer, which is by the Arnon River, as far as Gilead and Bashan.
34 Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
35 So Jehu rested with his ancestors and was buried in Samaria. His son Jehoahaz succeeded him as king.
36 Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria for twenty-eight years.
2 Kings Chapter 11
Athaliah usurps the throne
1 When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring.
2 But Jehosheba, daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Joash, Ahaziah’s son, and secretly brought him out from among the king’s sons who were being killed. She hid him and his nurse in the bedroom, so that he was not killed.
3 He remained hidden with her in the house of the Lord for six years, and Athaliah reigned over the land.
4 In the seventh year, Jehoiada sent and took commanders of hundreds, officers, and guards, and brought them with him into the house of the Lord. He made a covenant with them, making them swear an oath in the house of the Lord, and showed them the king’s son.
5 He commanded them, saying, “This is what you must do: A third of you shall be on guard duty in the king’s house on the Sabbath.”
6 Another third will be at the Shur Gate, and another third at the gate of the watchtower; thus you shall guard the house, so that it may not be broken into.
7 But the two divisions of you who go out on the Sabbath shall have the guard of the house of the Lord beside the king.
8 You shall surround the king on all sides, each of you with his weapons in hand; and whoever enters the ranks shall be put to death. You shall be with the king when he goes out and when he comes in.
9 So the commanders of hundreds did everything as Jehoiada the priest commanded them; and each man took his men, that is, those who went out on the Sabbath and those who went out on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.
10 And the priest gave to the commanders of hundreds the spears and shields that had belonged to King David, which were in the house of the Lord.
11 The guards stood in formation, each with his weapons in hand, from the right side of the house to the left side, by the altar and the temple, all around the king.
12 Then Jehoiada brought out the king’s son, placed the crown on him, and gave him the testimony. They anointed him king and clapped their hands, saying, “Long live the king!”
13 When Athaliah heard the sound of the people rushing in, she went with the people to the temple of the Lord.
14 When she looked, there was the king standing by the pillar, as was the custom, with the princes and the trumpeters beside him. All the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and cried out, “Treason! Treason!”
15 But Jehoiada the priest commanded the commanders of hundreds who ruled the army, and said to them, “Bring her out of the temple precincts, and whoever pursues her, kill him with the sword.” (For the priest had said not to kill her in the temple of the Lord.)
16 So they opened the way for her; and on the road by which the horsemen enter into the king’s house, there they killed her.
17 Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and the king and the people, that they would be the Lord’s people; and also between the king and the people.
18 And all the people of the land went into the temple of Baal and tore it down; they also utterly smashed its altars and its images, and killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, before the altars. And the priest posted a garrison over the house of the Lord.
19 Then he took the commanders of hundreds, the captains, the guard, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king from the house of the Lord, and they came by way of the gate of the guard to the king’s house; and the king sat on the throne of the kings.
20 And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was at rest, since Athaliah was killed with the sword beside the king’s house.
21 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign.
2 Kings Chapter 12
Reign of Joash of Judah
1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba.
2 Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days that Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
3 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed, for the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
4 Then Joash said to the priests, “All the consecrated money that is brought to the house of the Lord, the redemption money for each person according to the prescribed amount, and all the money that each person brings of his own free will to the house of the Lord—
5 let the priests receive it, each from the hand of his relatives, and let them repair the breaches in the temple wherever they are found.”
6 But in the twenty-third year of King Joash, the priests had still not repaired the breaches in the temple.
7 Then King Joash summoned Jehoiada the high priest and the other priests and said to them, “Why don’t you repair the breaches in the temple? Now then, do not take any more money from your relatives, but give it to repair the breaches in the temple.”
8 So the priests agreed not to take any more money from the people, nor to be responsible for repairing the breaches in the temple.
9 But Jehoiada the high priest took a chest and made a hole in its lid and placed it beside the altar, on the right-hand side as one enters the temple of the Lord. The priests who guarded the door put into it all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.
10 Whenever they saw that there was a large amount of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest came and counted the money that was found in the temple of the Lord and put it away.
11 They gave sufficient money to those who were doing the work and to those who were in charge of the house of the Lord. And they spent it on paying the carpenters and craftsmen who repaired the house of the Lord,
12 and the masons and stonecutters; and on buying timber and hewn stone to repair the breaches in the house of the Lord, and on everything that was spent on the house to repair it.
13 But from the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, no silver bowls, snuffers, basins, or trumpets were made; nor were any other articles of gold or silver made for the temple of the Lord;
14 for they gave it to those who did the work, and with it they repaired the house of the Lord.
15 No account was taken of the men into whose hands the money was delivered, to be given to those who did the work, for they did it faithfully.
16 The sin money and the guilt money were not brought into the house of the Lord, for they belonged to the priests.
17 Then Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath and captured it. Hazael then set his mind to go up against Jerusalem.
18 So Joash king of Judah took all the offerings that his ancestors, Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and those that he himself had dedicated, and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and in the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Syria. Then he withdrew from Jerusalem.
19 As for the rest of the events of Joash’s reign, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 Then his servants rose up and conspired together, and killed Joash in the house of Millo, as he went down to Shilah.
21 For his servants, Jozachar son of Shimeath and Jozabad son of Shomer, struck him down, and he died. They buried him with his ancestors in the City of David, and Amaziah his son succeeded him as king.
2 Kings Chapter 13
Reign of Joacaz
1 In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria; and he reigned seventeen years.
2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin; he did not turn away from them.
3 So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he gave them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad son of Hazael, for a long time.
4 But Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord, and the Lord heard him; for he saw the affliction of Israel, because the king of Syria was oppressing them.
5 (And the Lord gave Israel a savior, and they went out from the power of the Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as before.
6 Nevertheless, they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin; they walked in them; and the image of Asherah remained in Samaria.)
7 For Jehoahaz had no army left but fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers; for the king of Syria had destroyed them and made them like dust to be trampled underfoot.
8 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
9 So Jehoahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria, and Joash his son reigned in his place.
Reign of Joash of Israel
10 In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Joash son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned sixteen years.
11 He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not turn away from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin; he walked in them.
12 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, all that he did, and the might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
13 So Joash rested with his ancestors, and Jeroboam sat on his throne; and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
Final prophecy and death of Elisha
14 Now Elisha was sick with the illness from which he died. And Joash king of Israel went down to him, and weeping before him, said, “My father, my father! The chariot of Israel and its horsemen!”
15 And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took a bow and some arrows.
16 Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on the bow. Then Elisha placed his hands on the king’s hands,
17 and said, “Open the window facing east.” When he opened it, Elisha said, “Shoot.” And when he shot, Elisha said, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram! For you shall strike the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them.”
18 Again he said, “Take the arrows.” And when the king of Israel had taken them, he said, “Strike the ground.” So he struck it three times and stopped.
19 Then the man of God was angry with him and said, “If you had struck five or six times, you would have routed Aram until you had destroyed it. But now you will route Aram only three times.”
20 So Elisha died and was buried. Later that year, Moabite raiders came into the land.
21 As some men were burying a man, they suddenly saw a band of raiders and threw the body into Elisha’s tomb. When the dead man touched Elisha’s bones, he revived and stood up on his feet.
22 Hazael, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.
23 But the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion on them and looked upon them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he would not destroy them or cast them out of his presence to this day.
24 Hazael, king of Syria, died, and his son Ben-Hadad succeeded him as king.
25 Joash son of Jehoahaz returned and took back from Ben-Hadad son of Hazael the cities that he had taken in war from Jehoahaz his father. Three times Joash defeated him and restored the cities to Israel.
2 Kings Chapter 14
Reign of Amaziah
1 In the second year of Joash son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoadan of Jerusalem.
3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, though not like his father David; he did everything his father Joash had done.
4 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed, for the people still sacrificed and burned incense on them.
5 After he had established the kingdom in his hand, he killed the servants who had assassinated his father the king.
6 But he did not put to death the children of those who had assassinated him, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, “You shall not put parents to death for their children, nor children to death for their parents; each one shall die for his own sin.”
7 He also killed ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt, and captured Sela in battle, and called it Joktheel, to this day.
8 Then Amaziah sent messengers to Joash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, “Come over, so that we may face each other.”
9 And Joash king of Israel sent this reply to Amaziah king of Judah: “The thistle in Lebanon sent word to the cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ So the wild animals of Lebanon passed over and trampled the thistle.
10 You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart is lifted up; boast, then, but stay at home. Why should you go into trouble, so that you and Judah may fall with you?”
11 But Amaziah would not listen; So Joash king of Israel went up, and he and Amaziah king of Judah met face to face at Beth-shemesh, which belongs to Judah.
12 And Judah fell before Israel, and they fled, each to his tent.
13 Moreover, Joash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh; and he came to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate, four hundred cubits.
14 And he took all the gold, the silver, and all the articles that were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house, and he took the sons as hostages, and returned to Samaria.
15 Now the rest of the acts that Joash performed, and his exploits, and how he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
16 So Joash rested with his ancestors and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. His son Jeroboam succeeded him as king.
17 Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, lived fifteen years after the death of Joash son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.
18 Now the rest of the events of Amaziah’s reign are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
19 They conspired against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but they pursued him to Lachish and killed him there.
20 Then they brought him back on horses and buried him in Jerusalem with his ancestors in the City of David.
21 Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.
22 He rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king had rested with his ancestors.
Reign of Jeroboam II
23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Joash began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years.
24 He did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not turn away from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin.
25 He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he had spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.
26 For the Lord saw the very bitter affliction of Israel, that there was neither bond nor free, nor anyone to help Israel;
27 and the Lord had not determined to blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; therefore he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.
28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, all that he did, his might, all the wars he waged, and how he restored to Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
29 So Jeroboam rested with his ancestors, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son succeeded him as king.
2 Kings Chapter 15
Reign of Azariah
1 In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.
3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father Amaziah had done.
4 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed, for the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.
5 But the Lord struck the king with leprosy, and he remained leprous until the day of his death. He lived in a separate house, and Jotham, the king’s son, was in charge of the palace and governed the people.
6 As for the rest of the events of Azariah’s reign, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
7 And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with them in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place.
Reign of Zechariah
8 In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel for six months.
9 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestors had done. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin.
10 Shallum son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck him down before his people and killed him, and succeeded him as king.
11 The rest of the events of Zechariah’s reign are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
12 This was the word of the Lord that he had spoken to Jehu: “Your descendants to the fourth generation will sit on the throne of Israel.” And so it was.
Reign of Salum
13 Shallum son of Jabesh began to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned one month in Samaria.
14 For Menahem son of Gadi went up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and struck down Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria and killed him, and reigned in his place.
15 The rest of the acts of Shallum, and the conspiracy that he plotted, are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
16 Then Menahem plundered Tiphsah and all who were in it, and also its surrounding area from Tirzah; he plundered it because they had not opened the gates to him, and he ripped open all its pregnant women.
Reign of Manahem
17 In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem son of Gadi reigned over Israel for ten years in Samaria.
18 He did evil in the sight of the Lord; throughout his reign he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin.
19 Then Pul king of Assyria came to attack the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver to help him establish his kingdom.
20 Menahem levied this money on Israel, on all the wealthy and powerful men, fifty shekels of silver from each, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not remain there in the land.
21 Now the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
22 Menahem rested with his ancestors, and Pekahiah his son succeeded him as king.
Reign of Pekaía
23 In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah son of Menahem reigned over Israel in Samaria for two years.
24 He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin.
25 So Pekah son of Remaliah, his commander, conspired against him and struck him down in Samaria, in the palace of the king’s house, with Argob, Arieh, and fifty men of the Gileadites. He killed him and succeeded him as king.
26 The rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all that he did, are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
Reign of Peka
27 In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years.
28 He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin.
29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and took Ihon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali, and carried them away captive to Assyria.
30 Hoshea son of Elah conspired against Pekah son of Remaliah, and struck him down and killed him, and reigned in his place in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah.
31 The rest of the acts of Pekah, and all that he did, are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.
Reign of Jotam
32 In the second year of Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
33 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.
34 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord; he did everything his father Uzziah had done.
35 Nevertheless, the high places were not removed, for the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. He also built the Upper Gate of the house of the Lord.
36 As for the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
37 At that time the Lord began to send Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah son of Remaliah, against Judah.
38 And Jotham slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David his father, and Ahaz his son reigned in his place.
2 Kings Chapter 16
Reign of Ahaz
1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his father David had done.
3 Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
4 He also sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every spreading tree.
5 Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to Jerusalem to wage war and besiege Ahaz, but they could not take it.
6 At that time the king of Edom recovered Elath for Edom and drove out the men of Judah from Elath. And the Edomites came to Elath and dwelt there to this day.
7 Then Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son; come up and defend me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me.”
8 So Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent a present to the king of Assyria.
9 And the king of Assyria listened to him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured it, and carried its inhabitants captive to Kir, and killed Rezin.
10 Afterward, King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria in Damascus; and when King Ahaz saw the altar that was in Damascus, he sent to Uriah the priest the pattern and description of the altar, according to all its workmanship.
11 Uriah the priest built the altar, just as King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, while King Ahaz was on his way from Damascus.
12 When the king came from Damascus and saw the altar, he went up to it and offered sacrifices on it.
13 He burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, poured out his drink offerings, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings beside the altar.
14 He brought the bronze altar that was before the Lord in front of the temple, between the altar and the temple of the Lord, and placed it beside the altar on the north side.
15 King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar you shall burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering and their drink offerings. You shall sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. The bronze altar shall be mine for inquiries.”
16 Uriah the priest did everything King Ahaz commanded him.
17 King Ahaz cut down the boards of the bases and removed the basins. He also removed the Sea from the bronze oxen that were under it and set it on the stone floor.
18 He also removed the Sabbath portico, which they had built in the temple, and the outer passageway, the king’s passage, from the temple of the Lord, because of the king of Assyria.
19 Now the rest of the acts that Ahaz performed, are they not all written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
20 So King Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David, and his son Hezekiah reigned in his place.
2 Kings Chapter 17
Fall of Samaria and captivity of Israel
1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years.
2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like the kings of Israel who were before him.
3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid him tribute.
4 But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was plotting against him, for he had sent ambassadors to So king of Egypt and was not paying tribute to the king of Assyria as he did year after year. So the king of Assyria arrested him and put him in prison.
5 The king of Assyria invaded the whole land and besieged Samaria for three years.
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried the Israelites away captive to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Habor on the Gozan River, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 For the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of Egypt, from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and
8 followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites, as well as the practices of the kings of Israel.
9 The Israelites secretly did evil in the sight of the Lord their God. They built high places for themselves in all their towns, from watchtowers to fortified cities.
10 They set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.
11 They burned incense there at all the high places, like the nations the Lord had driven out before them. They did very wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger.
12 They worshiped idols, about which the Lord had said, “You must not do this.”
13 The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all the prophets and seers, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commands and decrees, in accordance with all the laws I commanded your ancestors and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”
14 But they did not obey; instead, they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their ancestors, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
15 They rejected his decrees, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had prescribed for them. They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They imitated the nations around them, even though the Lord had commanded them not to do as they did.
16They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves molten images of two calves and Asherah poles. They worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal.
17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire, practiced divination and sorcery, and devoted themselves to doing evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left.
19 Even Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but followed the statutes of Israel, which they themselves had made.
20 So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel, afflicted them, and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he cast them out of his presence.
21 For he separated Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam led Israel astray from following the Lord, and caused them to commit great sin.
22 And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he committed, without turning away from them,
23 until the Lord removed Israel from his presence, as he had said through all his servants the prophets; and Israel was carried away captive from their land to Assyria, to this day.
Assyria repopulates Samaria
24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria instead of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.
25 At the beginning of their settlement there, they did not fear the Lord, so the Lord sent lions among them, and they were killing them.
26 So they said to the king of Assyria, “The people you have brought into the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the God of that land. He has set lions among them, and they are killing them because they do not know the law of the God of the land.”
27 The king of Assyria gave the order, saying, “Take some of the priests you brought from there, and let him go and live there and teach them the law of the God of the land.”
28 One of the priests who had been taken captive from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and he taught them how they should fear the Lord.
29 But each nation made its own gods and set them up in the temples of the high places that the Samarians had made, each nation in the city where they lived.
30 The Babylonians made Succoth-benoth, the Cuthians made Nergal, and the Hamathians made Ashima.
31 The Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvaim burned their children in the fire to worship Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
32 They feared the Lord and appointed priests from among the common people for the high places, who sacrificed to them in the temples of the high places.
33 They feared the Lord and honored their gods, according to the customs of the nations from which they had been carried away.
34 To this day they do as before: they neither fear the Lord nor keep his statutes and ordinances, nor do according to the law and the commandments that the Lord prescribed for the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel;
35 with whom the Lord had made a covenant, and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor worship them, nor serve them, nor offer sacrifices to them.
36 But the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, him you shall fear, and him you shall worship, and to him you shall offer sacrifices.
37 You shall always be careful to do the statutes, the ordinances, the law, and the commandments that he gave you in writing, and you shall not fear other gods.
38 You shall not forget the covenant that I made with you, nor fear other gods;
39 but you shall fear the Lord your God, and he will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.
40 But they did not listen; They did as they had done in their ancient custom.
41So those nations feared the Lord, and at the same time served their idols; and their children and grandchildren, just as their fathers did, do to this day.
2 Kings Chapter 18
Reign of Hezekiah
1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah.
3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.
4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and broke in pieces the bronze serpent Moses had made, for until those days the Israelites had been burning incense to it. He called it Nehushtan.
5 He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after him.
6 He held fast to the Lord and did not turn away from him, but kept all the commands the Lord had given Moses.
7 The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.
8 He also struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from the watchtowers to the fortified city.
Fall of Samaria
9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it,
10 and at the end of three years they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured.
11 The king of Assyria carried Israel away captive to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12 because they had not obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, but had broken his covenant; and all the things that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded they had not listened to or done.
Sennacherib invades Judah
13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have sinned; withdraw from me, and I will do everything you impose on me.” So the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.
15 Therefore Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
16 Then Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts that King Hezekiah had overlaid with gold and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17 Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh with a large army from Lachish against King Hezekiah, and they went up to Jerusalem. When they had gone up, they came and camped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field.
18 They summoned the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to meet them.
19 The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king of Assyria says: “What is this confidence you are placing in?
20 You say (but it is empty talk), ‘I have counsel and strength for war.’ But on what are you relying, that you have rebelled against me?
21 Look, you are trusting in this staff of broken reed, in Egypt, which, if anyone leans on it, will pierce his hand and go through it.”’” Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.
22 And if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, and who said to Judah and Jerusalem, “Before this altar you shall worship in Jerusalem”?
23 Now therefore, I urge you to give hostages to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you can provide riders for them.
24 But how then can you resist one of the least of my master’s officers, even though you are relying on Egypt with its chariots and horsemen?
25 Have I now come to this place without the Lord to destroy it? The Lord has told me, “Go up to this land and destroy it.”
26 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
27 The Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to you and your master, and not to the men who are on the wall, who are exposed to eating their own dung and drinking their own urine with you?”
28 Then the Rabshakeh stood up and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!”
29 This is what the king says: “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand.
30 Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’
31 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern,
32 until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey. You will live, not die.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is deceiving you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’
33 Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered their land from the hand of the king of Assyria?”
34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? Were they able to deliver Samaria from my hand?
35 What god of all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?
36 But the people kept silent and did not answer him a word, for there was a commandment from the king, saying, “Do not answer him.”
37 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
2 Kings Chapter 19
Judah is delivered from Sennacherib
1 When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.
2 He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, all in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz,
3 with the following words: “This is what Hezekiah says: ‘This day is a day of distress, rebuke, and blasphemy, because the children are about to be born, and she who is in labor has no strength.
4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to blaspheme the living God and to revile with words that the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, pray for the remnant that is left.’”
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6 Isaiah answered them, “Say this to your master: ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7 I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword there.’”
8 When the Rabshakeh returned, he found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had left Lachish.
9 He also heard that Tirhakah king of Ethiopia had come out to fight against him. So he returned and sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10 “Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
11 You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them. Will you escape?’”
12 Did their gods deliver the nations that my ancestors destroyed—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?
13 Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?
14 Hezekiah received the letters from the messengers and read them. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread them out before him.
15 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord: “O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
16 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to blaspheme the living God.”
17 It is true, O LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands;
18 and that they cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood or stone, and therefore they destroyed them.
19Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us, I pray, from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.
20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘What you asked of me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.
21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and scorns you; the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you.
22 Whom have you reviled and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel.
23 By the hand of your messengers you have reviled the Lord, and you have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the most inaccessible part of Lebanon; I cut down its tallest cedars, its choice cypresses; I will dwell in its most remote places, in the forest of its fertile fields.
24 I have dug and drunk the foreign waters, I have dried up with the soles of my feet all the rivers of Egypt.
25 Have you never heard that I planned it long ago, and that I devised it in ancient times? And now I have brought it about, and you will be desolate, reducing fortified cities to heaps of rubble.
26 Its inhabitants were powerless; they were dismayed and confounded; they became like the grass of the field, like a green herb, like hay on the housetops, withered before it is ripe.
27 I know your ways, your going out and your coming in, and your fury against me.
28 Because you have raged against me, because your arrogance has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your lips, and I will turn you back the way you came.
29 And this I will give you as a sign, Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows of itself, and the second year what springs from itself; and in the third year you will sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30 And what has escaped, what remains of the house of Judah, will again take root downwards and bear fruit upwards.
31 For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion those who escape. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
32 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not enter this city, nor shoot an arrow there; he shall not come before it with a shield, nor raise up a siege ramp against it.
33 By the same way that he came he shall return, and he shall not enter this city, says the Lord.
34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
35 And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck down in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, all were dead bodies.
36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned to Nineveh, where he remained.
37 And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him down with the sword, and they fled to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
2 Kings Chapter 20
Hezekiah's Disease
1 In those days Hezekiah became deathly ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.’”
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,
3 “ Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4 Before Isaiah had gone halfway out of the court, the word of the Lord came to him:
5 “ Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day you will go up to the temple of the Lord.
6 I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver both you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. And I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
7 Then Isaiah said, “Take a lump of figs.” So they took it and placed it on the boil, and he recovered.
8 Now Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What sign will I have that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?”
9 Isaiah answered, “This will be the sign from the Lord that the Lord will do what he has promised: Will the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?”
10 Hezekiah replied, “It is easy for the shadow to go down ten steps, but not for it to go back ten steps.”
11 Then Isaiah the prophet called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back ten steps on the sundial of Ahaz.
Hezekiah receives the envoys from Babylon
12 At that time Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent messengers with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah was sick.
13 Hezekiah listened to them and showed them all his treasures: the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious ointments, his armory, and all that was in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say, and where did they come from?” Hezekiah answered, “They came from a distant land, from Babylon.”
15 Isaiah asked him, “What did they see in your palace?” Hezekiah answered, “They saw everything in my palace; there was nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord:
17 The days are coming when everything in your house, and all that your ancestors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left,” declares the Lord.
18 “And some of your own children, your own flesh and blood, will be taken away and made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” He added, “At least there will be peace and security in my days.”
20 The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.
Death of Hezekiah
20 The rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.
2 Kings Chapter 21
Reign of Manasseh
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, following the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
3 He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.
4 He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “I will put my name in Jerusalem.”
5 He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
6 He made his son pass through the fire, practiced divination and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
7 He set up an Asherah pole that he had made in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “I will put my name forever in this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.
8 I will never again move the foot of Israel from the land that I gave to their fathers, provided they are careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.”
9 But they did not listen, and Manasseh enticed them to do more evil than the nations that the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.
10 Therefore the Lord spoke through his servants the prophets, saying,
11 “ Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations, and has done more evil than all that the Amorites who were before him had done, and has also caused Judah to sin with his idols;
12 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears about it will tingle.
13 I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line from Samaria and the plumb line from the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a dish—wrapping it and turning it upside down.
14 I will abandon the remnant of my inheritance and give them into the hands of their enemies, and they will become plunder and spoil for all their adversaries,
15 because they have done evil in my sight and have provoked me to anger, from the day their ancestors came out of Egypt until this day.”
16 Besides this, Manasseh shed a great deal of innocent blood, filling Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to his sin, which he caused Judah to commit, so that it did evil in the sight of the Lord.
17The other events of Manasseh’s reign, all that he did, and the sin he committed, are they not all written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
Reign of Amun
18 And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his house, in the garden of Uzza; and Amon his son reigned in his place.
19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.
20 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.
21 He walked in all the ways in which his father had walked, and he served and worshiped the idols his father had served.
22 He forsook the Lord, the God of his ancestors, and did not walk in the ways of the Lord.
23 So the servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house.
24 Then the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.
25 Now the rest of the acts of Amon are they not all written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
26 And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza, and Josiah his son reigned in his place.
2 Kings Chapter 22
Reign of Josiah
1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.
Discovery of the Book of the Law
3In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying,
4Go to Hilkiah the high priest and tell him to collect the money that has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the gatekeepers have collected from the people,
5and to put it into the hands of those who do the work, who are in charge of repairing the house of the Lord, so that they may give it to the carpenters, the master builders, and the masons to buy timber and hewn stone to repair the house;
7and that no account be made of the money entrusted to them, for they are honest.
8Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
9Then Shaphan the scribe came to the king and reported to him, saying, “Your servants have collected the money that was found in the temple and have delivered it into the hands of those who do the work, who are in charge of repairing the house of the Lord.”
10Shaphan the scribe also told the king, saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.
11When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes.
12Then the king gave orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant, saying,
13Go and inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers did not listen to the words of this book, to do according to all that is written about us.
14Then Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe, who lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter, and they spoke with her.
15 And she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me,
16 Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am bringing on this place and on its inhabitants all the evil spoken of in this book that the king of Judah has read,
17 because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods, provoking me to anger with all the work of their hands; my anger is kindled against this place and will not be quenched.”
18 But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, you shall say thus: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Because you heard the words of the book,
19 and your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I pronounced against this place and against its inhabitants, that they shall become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you,’ declares the Lord.”
20 Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be carried to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil that I bring upon this place. And they gave the king their answer.
2 Kings Chapter 23
1 Then the king summoned all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him.
2 The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with the priests and prophets and all the people, from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord.
3 The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, and to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood by the covenant.
Josiah's Reforms
4 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the gatekeepers to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that had been made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the Kidron Valley and carried their ashes to Bethel.
5 He removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
6 He also brought out the Asherah pole from the house of the Lord outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, burned it in the Kidron Valley, ground it to powder, and scattered the powder on the graves of the people.
7 He also tore down the idolatrous shrines in the house of the Lord, where the women wove tents for Asherah.
8 He summoned all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He also tore down the altars at the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, on the left side of the city gate.
9 But the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but ate unleavened bread among their fellow believers.
10 He also defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that no one would pass their son or daughter through the fire to Molech.
11 He also removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the eunuch, who was in charge of the pasturelands. He burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 The king also tore down the altars that were on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord. He ran from there and threw the dust into the Kidron Valley.
13 The king also defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, to the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the detestable idol of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the detestable idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
14 He smashed the pillars and cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with human bones.
15Likewise, the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made—he destroyed that altar and the high place, burned it, ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole.
16 Then Josiah turned around and, seeing the tombs that were there on the mountain, he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God had prophesied, who had foretold these things.
17 Then he said, “What is this monument that I see?” And the people of the city answered him, “This is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and prophesied these things that you have done at the altar at Bethel.”
18 And he said, “Leave him alone; let no one move his bones.” So his bones were left undisturbed, and the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had built to provoke them to anger, and he did to them as he had done at Bethel.
20 He also killed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars, and burned human bones on them, and returned to Jerusalem.
Josiah celebrates Passover
21 Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, according to what is written in the book of this covenant.”
22 Such a Passover had not been kept since the days when the judges ruled Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
23 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, that Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.
The anger of the Lord persists against Judah
24 Josiah also removed the mediums, spiritists, household idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, to fulfill the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the Lord.
25 There was no king before him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses; nor was there any after him like him.
26 Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn from the fierce anger that burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.
27 And the Lord said, “I will remove Judah from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’”
Death of Josiah
28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
29 In those days Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the Euphrates River, and King Josiah went out against him; but when he saw him, he killed him at Megiddo.
30 Then his servants put him in a chariot and brought him slain from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son, and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.
Reign and dethronement of Jehoahaz
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestors had done.
33 So Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him at Riblah in the province of Hamath, so that he would not reign in Jerusalem. He also imposed a penalty on the land of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.
34 Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz and carried him to Egypt, where he died.
35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the silver and the gold. But he had the land appraised to give the money according to Pharaoh’s commandment, bringing out the silver and gold of the people of the land, from each one according to the estimate of his estate, to give it to Pharaoh Necho
Reign of Jehoiakim
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his ancestors had done.
2 Kings Chapter 24
1 In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon went up on a campaign. Jehoiakim became his servant for three years, but then he turned back and rebelled against him.
2 But the Lord sent against Jehoiakim troops of Chaldeans, troops of Syrians, troops of Moabites, and troops of Ammonites, whom he sent against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken through his servants the prophets.
3 Surely this came against Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove it from his presence, because of the sins of Manasseh, and because of all that he had done;
4 also because of the innocent blood that he had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; therefore the Lord would not spare.
5 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6 So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.
7 And the king of Egypt never again left his land, for the king of Babylon took from him all that was his, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates.
Joachim and the poor are taken captive to Babylon
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
9 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his father had done.
10 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon also came against the city while his servants were besieging it.
12 Then Jehoiachin king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon captured him in the eighth year of his reign.
13 He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace, and he broke in pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the house of the Lord, as the Lord had said.
14 And he carried away into captivity all Jerusalem, all the princes, and all the mighty men, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths; there was no one left, except the poor of the people of the land.
15 He also carried away captive to Babylon Jehoiachin, the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the mighty men of the land; he carried them away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16 The king of Babylon took captive all the fighting men, seven thousand in number, and the craftsmen and smiths, one thousand in number, all the mighty men of war.
17 The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, his uncle, king in place of Jehoiachin, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
Reign of Zedekiah
18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19 He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done.
20 So the anger of the Lord was against Jerusalem and Judah, until he cast them out of his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.