1 After King Ahab's death the nation of Moab declared its independence and refused to pay tribute to Israel any longer.
2 Israel's new king, Ahaziah, had fallen off the upstairs porch of his palace at Samaria and was seriously injured. He sent messengers to the temple of the god Baal-zebub at Ekron to ask whether he would recover.
3 But an angel of the Lord told Elijah the prophet, "Go and meet the messengers and ask them, 'Is it true that there is no God in Israel? Is that why you are going to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether the king will get well?
4 Because King Ahaziah has done this, the Lord says that he will never leave the bed he is lying on; he will surely die.' " When Elijah told the messengers this,
5 they returned immediately to the king. "Why have you returned so soon?" he asked them.
6 "A man came up to us," they said, "and told us to go back to the king and tell him, 'The Lord wants to know why you are asking questions of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. Is it because there is no God in Israel? Now, since you have done this, you will not leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die.' "
7 "Who was this fellow?" the king demanded. "What did he look like?"
8 "He was a hairy man," they replied, "with a wide leather belt." "It was Elijah the prophet!" the king exclaimed.
9 Then he sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, "O man of God, the king has commanded you to come along with us."
10 But Elijah replied, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!" Then lightning struck them and killed them all!
11 So the king sent another captain with fifty men to demand, "O man of God, the king says that you must come down right away."
12 Elijah replied, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men." And again the fire from God burned them up.
13 Once more the king sent fifty men, but this time the captain fell to his knees before Elijah and pleaded with him, "O man of God, please spare my life and the lives of these, your fifty servants.
14 Have mercy on us! Don't destroy us as you did the others."
15 Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, "Don't be afraid. Go with him." So Elijah went to the king.
16 "Why did you send messengers to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask about your sickness?" Elijah demanded. "Is it because there is no God in Israel to ask? Because you have done this, you shall not leave this bed; you will surely die."
17 So Ahaziah died as the Lord had predicted through Elijah, and his brother Joram became the new king--for Ahaziah did not have a son to succeed him. This occurred in the second year of the reign of King Jehoram (son of Jehoshaphat) of Judah.
18 The rest of the history of Ahaziah's reign is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
1 Now the time came for the Lord to take Elijah to heaven--by means of a whirlwind!
2 Elijah said to Elisha as they left Gilgal, "Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to Bethel." But Elisha replied, "I swear to God that I won't leave you!" So they went on together to Bethel.
3 There the young prophets of Bethel Seminary came out to meet them and asked Elisha, "Did you know that the Lord is going to take Elijah away from you today?" "Quiet!" Elisha snapped. "Of course I know it."
4 Then Elijah said to Elisha, "Please stay here in Bethel, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho." But Elisha replied again, "I swear to God that I won't leave you." So they went on together to Jericho.
5 Then the students at Jericho Seminary came to Elisha and asked him, "Do you know that the Lord is going to take away your master today?" "Will you please be quiet?" he commanded. "Of course I know it!"
6 Then Elijah said to Elisha, "Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan River." But Elisha replied as before, "I swear to God that I won't leave you."
7 So they went on together and stood beside the Jordan River as fifty of the young prophets watched from a distance.
8 Then Elijah folded his cloak together and struck the water with it; and the river divided and they went across on dry ground!
9 When they arrived on the other side Elijah said to Elisha, "What wish shall I grant you before I am taken away?" And Elisha replied, "Please grant me twice as much prophetic power as you have had."
10 "You have asked a hard thing," Elijah replied. "If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won't."
11 As they were walking along, talking, suddenly a chariot of fire, drawn by horses of fire, appeared and drove between them, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.
12 Elisha saw it and cried out, "My father! My father! The Chariot of Israel and the charioteers!" As they disappeared from sight he tore his robe.
13 Then he picked up Elijah's cloak and returned to the bank of the Jordan River,
14 and struck the water with it. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" he cried out. And the water parted and Elisha went across!
15 When the young prophets of Jericho saw what had happened, they exclaimed, "The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha!" And they went to meet him and greeted him respectfully.
16 "Sir," they said, "just say the word and fifty of our best athletes will search the wilderness for your master; perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has left him on some mountain or in some ravine." "No," Elisha said, "don't bother."
17 But they kept urging until he was embarrassed and finally said, "All right, go ahead." Then fifty men searched for three days, but didn't find him.
18 Elisha was still at Jericho when they returned. "Didn't I tell you not to go?" he growled.
19 Now a delegation of the city officials of Jericho visited Elisha. "We have a problem," they told him. "This city is located in beautiful natural surroundings, as you can see; but the water is bad and causes our women to have miscarriages."
20 "Well," he said, "bring me a new bowl filled with salt." So they brought it to him.
21 Then he went out to the city well and threw the salt in and declared, "The Lord has healed these waters. They shall no longer cause death or miscarriage."
22 And sure enough! The water was purified, just as Elisha had said.
23 From Jericho he went to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, a gang of young men from the city began mocking and making fun of him because of his bald head.
24 He turned around and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and two female bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of them.
25 Then he went to Mount Carmel and finally returned to Samaria.
1 Ahab's son Joram began his reign over Israel during the eighteenth year of the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah; and he reigned twelve years. His capital was Samaria.
2 He was a very evil man, but not as wicked as his father and mother had been, for he at least tore down the pillar to Baal that his father had made.
3 Nevertheless he still clung to the great sin of Jeroboam (the son of Nebat), who had led the people of Israel into the worship of idols.
4 King Mesha of Moab and his people were sheep ranchers. They paid Israel an annual tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams;
5 but after Ahab's death, the king of Moab rebelled against Israel.
6 So King Joram mustered the Israeli army and
7 sent this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you help me fight him?" "Of course I will," Jehoshaphat replied. "My people and horses are yours to command.
8 What are your battle plans?" "We'll attack from the wilderness of Edom," Jehoram replied.
9 So their two armies, now joined also by troops from Edom, moved along a roundabout route through the wilderness for seven days; but there was no water for the men or their pack animals.
10 "Oh, what shall we do?" the king of Israel cried out. "The Lord has brought us here to let the king of Moab defeat us."
11 But Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, asked, "Isn't there a prophet of the Lord with us? If so, we can find out what to do!" "Elisha is here," one of the king of Israel's officers replied. Then he added, "He was Elijah's assistant."
12 "Fine," Jehoshaphat said. "He's just the man we want." So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom went to consult Elisha.
13 "I want no part of you," Elisha snarled at King Jehoram of Israel. "Go to the false prophets of your father and mother!" But King Jehoram replied, "No! For it is the Lord who has called us here to be destroyed by the king of Moab!"
14 "I swear by the Lord God that I wouldn't bother with you except for the presence of King Jehoshaphat of Judah," Elisha replied.
15 "Now bring me someone to play the lute." And as the lute was played, the message of the Lord came to Elisha:
16 "The Lord says to fill this dry valley with trenches to hold the water he will send.
17 You won't see wind nor rain, but this valley will be filled with water, and you will have plenty for yourselves and for your animals!
18 But this is only the beginning, for the Lord will make you victorious over the army of Moab!
19 You will conquer the best of their cities--even those that are fortified--and ruin all the good land with stones."
20 And sure enough, the next day at about the time when the morning sacrifice was offered--look! Water! It was flowing from the direction of Edom, and soon there was water everywhere.
21 Meanwhile, when the people of Moab heard about the three armies marching against them, they mobilized every man who could fight, old and young, and stationed themselves along their frontier.
22 But early the next morning the sun looked red as it shone across the water!
23 "Blood!" they exclaimed. "The three armies have attacked and killed each other! Let's go and collect the loot!"
24 But when they arrived at the Israeli camp, the army of Israel rushed out and began killing them; and the army of Moab fled. Then the men of Israel moved forward into the land of Moab, destroying everything as they went.
25 They destroyed the cities, threw stones on every good piece of land, stopped up the wells, and felled the fruit trees; finally, only Fort Kir-hareseth was left, but even that finally fell to them.
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle had been lost, he led 700 of his swordsmen in a last desperate attempt to break through to the king of Edom; but he failed.
27 Then he took his oldest son, who was to have been the next king, and to the horror of the Israeli army, killed him and sacrificed him as a burnt offering upon the wall. So the army of Israel turned back in disgust to their own land.
1 One day the wife of one of the seminary students came to Elisha to tell him of her husband's death. He was a man who had loved God, she said. But he had owed some money when he died, and now the creditor was demanding it back. If she didn't pay, he said he would take her two sons as his slaves.
2 "What shall I do?" Elisha asked. "How much food do you have in the house?" "Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil," she replied.
3 "Then borrow many pots and pans from your friends and neighbors!" he instructed.
4 "Go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Then pour olive oil from your jar into the pots and pans, setting them aside as they are filled!"
5 So she did. Her sons brought the pots and pans to her, and she filled one after another!
6 Soon every container was full to the brim! "Bring me another jar," she said to her sons. "There aren't any more!" they told her. And then the oil stopped flowing!
7 When she told the prophet what had happened, he said to her, "Go and sell the oil and pay your debt, and there will be enough money left for you and your sons to live on!"
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem. A prominent woman of the city invited him in to eat, and afterwards, whenever he passed that way, he stopped for dinner.
9 She said to her husband, "I'm sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy prophet.
10 Let's make a little room for him on the roof; we can put in a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, and he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by."
11 Once when he was resting in the room he said to his servant Gehazi, "Tell the woman I want to speak to her." When she came,
12
13 he said to Gehazi, "Tell her that we appreciate her kindness to us. Now ask her what we can do for her. Does she want me to put in a good word for her to the king or to the general of the army?" "No," she replied, "I am perfectly content."
14 "What can we do for her?" he asked Gehazi afterwards. He suggested, "She doesn't have a son, and her husband is an old man."
15 "Call her back again," Elisha told him. When she returned, he talked to her as she stood in the doorway.
16 "Next year at about this time you shall have a son!" "O man of God," she exclaimed, "don't lie to me like that!"
17 But it was true; the woman soon conceived and had a baby boy the following year, just as Elisha had predicted.
18 One day when her child was older, he went out to visit his father, who was working with the reapers.
19 He complained about a headache and soon was moaning in pain. His father said to one of the servants, "Carry him home to his mother."
20 So he took him home, and his mother held him on her lap; but around noontime he died.
21 She carried him up to the bed of the prophet and shut the door;
22 then she sent a message to her husband: "Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the prophet and come right back."
23 "Why today?" he asked. "This isn't a religious holiday." But she said, "It's important. I must go."
24 So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, "Hurry! Don't slow down for my comfort unless I tell you to."
25 As she approached Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance and said to Gehazi, "Look, that woman from Shunem is coming.
26 Run and meet her and ask her what the trouble is. See if her husband is all right and if the child is well." "Yes," she told Gehazi, "everything is fine."
27 But when she came to Elisha at the mountain she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the prophet said, "Let her alone; something is deeply troubling her and the Lord hasn't told me what it is."
28 Then she said, "It was you who said I'd have a son. And I begged you not to lie to me!"
29 Then he said to Gehazi, "Quick, take my staff! Don't talk to anyone along the way. Hurry! Lay the staff upon the child's face."
30 But the boy's mother said, "I swear to God that I won't go home without you." So Elisha returned with her.
31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff upon the child's face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, "The child is still dead."
32 When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there upon the prophet's bed.
33 He went in and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord.
34 Then he lay upon the child's body, placing his mouth upon the child's mouth, and his eyes upon the child's eyes, and his hands upon the child's hands. And the child's body began to grow warm again!
35 Then the prophet went down and walked back and forth in the house a few times; returning upstairs, he stretched himself again upon the child. This time the little boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!
36 Then the prophet summoned Gehazi. "Call her!" he said. And when she came in, he said, "Here's your son!"
37 She fell to the floor at his feet and then picked up her son and went out.
38 Elisha now returned to Gilgal, but there was a famine in the land. One day as he was teaching the young prophets, he said to Gehazi, "Make some stew for supper for these men."
39 One of the young men went out into the field to gather vegetables and came back with some wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into a kettle without realizing that they were poisonous.
40 But after the men had eaten a bite or two they cried out, "Oh, sir, there's poison in this stew!"
41 "Bring me some meal," Elisha said. He threw it into the kettle and said, "Now it's all right! Go ahead and eat!" And then it didn't harm them.
42 One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought Elisha a sack of fresh corn and twenty individual loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Elisha told Gehazi to use it to feed the young prophets.
43 "What?" Gehazi exclaimed. "Feed one hundred men with only this?" But Elisha said, "Go ahead, for the Lord says there will be plenty for all, and some will even be left over!"
44 And sure enough, there was, just as the Lord had said!
1 The king of Syria had high admiration for Naaman, the commander-in-chief of his army, for he had led his troops to many glorious victories. So he was a great hero, but he was a leper.
2 Bands of Syrians had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a little girl who had been given to Naaman's wife as a maid.
3 One day the little girl said to her mistress, "I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy!"
4 Naaman told the king what the little girl had said.
5 "Go and visit the prophet," the king told him. "I will send a letter of introduction for you to carry to the king of Israel." So Naaman started out, taking gifts of $20,000 in silver, $60,000 in gold, and ten suits of clothing.
6 The letter to the king of Israel said: "The man bringing this letter is my servant Naaman; I want you to heal him of his leprosy."
7 When the king of Israel read it, he tore his clothes and said, "This man sends me a leper to heal! Am I God, that I can kill and give life? He is only trying to get an excuse to invade us again."
8 But when Elisha the prophet heard about the king of Israel's plight, he sent this message to him: "Why are you so upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet of God here in Israel."
9 So Naaman arrived with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's home.
10 Elisha sent a messenger out to tell him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed of every trace of his leprosy!
11 But Naaman was angry and stalked away. "Look," he said, "I thought at least he would come out and talk to me! I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call upon the name of the Lord his God and heal me!
12 Aren't the Abana River and Pharpar River of Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel put together? If it's rivers I need, I'll wash at home and get rid of my leprosy." So he went away in a rage.
13 But his officers tried to reason with him and said, "If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn't you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply to go and wash and be cured!"
14 So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the prophet had told him to. And his flesh became as healthy as a little child's, and he was healed!
15 Then he and his entire party went back to find the prophet; they stood humbly before him and Naaman said, "I know at last that there is no God in all the world except in Israel; now please accept my gifts."
16 But Elisha replied, "I swear by Jehovah my God that I will not accept them." Naaman urged him to take them, but he absolutely refused.
17 "Well," Naaman said, "all right. But please give me two muleloads of earth to take back with me, for from now on I will never again offer any burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord.
18 However, may the Lord pardon me this one thing--when my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow too."
19 "All right," Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.
20 But Gehazi, Elisha's servant, said to himself, "My master shouldn't have let this fellow get away without taking his gifts. I will chase after him and get something from him."
21 So Gehazi caught up with him. When Naaman saw him coming, he jumped down from his chariot and ran to meet him. "Is everything all right?" he asked.
22 "Yes," he said, "but my master has sent me to tell you that two young prophets from the hills of Ephraim have just arrived, and he would like $2,000 in silver and two suits to give to them."
23 "Take $4,000
24 But when they arrived at the hill where Elisha lived, Gehazi took the bags from the servants and sent the men back. Then he hid the money in his house.
25 When he went in to his master, Elisha asked him, "Where have you been, Gehazi?" "I haven't been anywhere," he replied.
26 But Elisha asked him, "Don't you realize that I was there in thought when Naaman stepped down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to receive money and clothing and olive farms and vineyards and sheep and oxen and servants?
27 Because you have done this, Naaman's leprosy shall be upon you and upon your children and your children's children forever." And Gehazi walked from the room a leper, his skin as white as snow.
1 One day the seminary students came to Elisha and told him, "As you can see, our dormitory is too small.
2 Tell us, as our president, whether we can build a new one down beside the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs." "All right," he told them, "go ahead."
3 "Please, sir, come with us," someone suggested. "I will," he said.
4 When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees;
5 but as one of them was chopping, his axhead fell into the river. "Oh, sir," he cried, "it was borrowed!"
6 "Where did it fall?" the prophet asked. The youth showed him the place, and Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water; and the axhead rose to the surface and floated!
7 "Grab it," Elisha said to him; and he did.
8 Once when the king of Syria was at war with Israel, he said to his officers, "We will mobilize our forces at . . ." (naming the place).
9 Immediately Elisha warned the king of Israel, "Don't go near . . ." (naming the same place) "for the Syrians are planning to mobilize their troops there!"
10 The king sent a scout to see if Elisha was right, and sure enough, he had saved him from disaster. This happened several times.
11 The king of Syria was puzzled. He called together his officers and demanded, "Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel about my plans?"
12 "It's not us, sir," one of the officers replied. "Elisha, the prophet, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!"
13 "Go and find out where he is, and we'll send troops to seize him," the king exclaimed. And the report came back, "Elisha is at Dothan."
14 So one night the king of Syria sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.
15 When the prophet's servant got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. "Alas, my master, what shall we do now?" he cried out to Elisha.
16 "Don't be afraid!" Elisha told him. "For our army is bigger than theirs!"
17 Then Elisha prayed, "Lord, open his eyes and let him see!" And the Lord opened the young man's eyes so that he could see horses of fire and chariots of fire everywhere upon the mountain!
18 As the Syrian army advanced upon them, Elisha prayed, "Lord, please make them blind." And he did.
19 Then Elisha went out and told them, "You've come the wrong way! This isn't the right city! Follow me and I will take you to the man you're looking for." And he led them to Samaria!
20 As soon as they arrived Elisha prayed, "Lord, now open their eyes and let them see." And the Lord did, and they discovered that they were in Samaria, the capital city of Israel!
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, "Oh, sir, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?"
22 "Of course not!" Elisha told him. "Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again."
23 So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their king. And after that the Syrian raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
24 Later on, however, King Ben-hadad of Syria mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria.
25 As a result there was a great famine in the city, and after a long while even a donkey's head sold for fifty dollars and a pint of dove's dung brought three dollars!
26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, "Help, my lord the king!"
27 "If the Lord doesn't help you, what can I do?" he retorted. "I have neither food nor wine to give you.
28 However, what's the matter?" She replied, "This woman proposed that we eat my son one day and her son the next.
29 So we boiled my son and ate him, but the next day when I said, 'Kill your son so we can eat him,' she hid him."
30 When the king heard this he tore his clothes. (The people watching noticed through the rip he tore in them that he was wearing an inner robe made of sackcloth next to his flesh.)
31 "May God kill me if I don't execute Elisha this very day," the king vowed.
32 Elisha was sitting in his house at a meeting with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, "This murderer has sent a man to kill me. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out, for his master will soon follow him."
33 While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived followed by the king. "The Lord has caused this mess," the king stormed. "Why should I expect any help from him?"
1 Elisha replied, "The Lord says that by this time tomorrow two gallons of flour or four gallons of barley grain will be sold in the markets of Samaria for a dollar!"
2 The officer assisting the king said, "That couldn't happen if the Lord made windows in the sky!" But Elisha replied, "You will see it happen, but you won't be able to buy any of it!"
3 Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. "Why sit here until we die?" they asked each other.
4 "We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better; but if they kill us, we would have died anyway."
5 So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there!
6 (For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and a loud galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. "The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us," they cried out.
7 So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else.)
8 When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it.
9 Finally they said to each other, "This isn't right. This is wonderful news, and we aren't sharing it with anyone! Even if we wait until morning, some terrible calamity will certainly fall upon us; come on, let's go back and tell the people at the palace."
10 So they went back to the city and told the watchmen what had happened--they had gone out to the Syrian camp and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there was not a soul around.
11 Then the watchmen shouted the news to those in the palace.
12 The king got out of bed and told his officers, "I know what has happened. The Syrians know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields, thinking that we will be lured out of the city. Then they will attack us and make slaves of us and get in."
13 One of his officers replied, "We'd better send out scouts to see. Let them take five of the remaining horses--if something happens to the animals it won't be any greater loss than if they stay here and die with the rest of us!"
14 Four chariot-horses were found and the king sent out two charioteers to see where the Syrians had gone.
15 They followed a trail of clothing and equipment all the way to the Jordan River--thrown away by the Syrians in their haste. The scouts returned and told the king,
16 and the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So it was true that two gallons of flour and four gallons of barley were sold that day for one dollar, just as the Lord had said!
17 The king appointed his special assistant to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled and killed as the people rushed out. This is what Elisha had predicted on the previous day when the king had come to arrest him,
18 and the prophet had told the king that flour and barley would sell for so little on the following day.
19 The king's officer had replied, "That couldn't happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!" And the prophet had said, "You will see it happen, but you won't be able to buy any of it!"
20 And he couldn't, for the people trampled him to death at the gate!
1 Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought back to life, "Take your family and move to some other country, for the Lord has called down a famine on Israel that will last for seven years."
2 So the woman took her family and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.
3 After the famine ended, she returned to the land of Israel and went to see the king about getting back her house and land.
4 Just as she came in, the king was talking with Gehazi, Elisha's servant, and saying, "Tell me some stories of the great things Elisha has done."
5 And Gehazi was telling the king about the time when Elisha brought a little boy back to life. At that very moment, the mother of the boy walked in! "Oh, sir!" Gehazi exclaimed. "Here is the woman now, and this is her son--the very one Elisha brought back to life!"
6 "Is this true?" the king asked her. And she told him that it was. So he directed one of his officials to see to it that everything she had owned was restored to her, plus the value of any crops that had been harvested during her absence.
7 Afterwards Elisha went to Damascus (the capital of Syria), where King Ben-hadad lay sick. Someone told the king that the prophet had come.
8 When the king heard the news, he said to Hazael, "Take a present to the man of God and tell him to ask the Lord whether I will get well again."
9 So Hazael took forty camel-loads of the best produce of the land as presents for Elisha and said to him, "Your son Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, has sent me to ask you whether he will recover."
10 And Elisha replied, "Tell him, 'Yes.' But the Lord has shown me that he will surely die!"
11 Elisha stared at Hazael until he became embarrassed, and then Elisha started crying.
12 "What's the matter, sir?" Hazael asked him. Elisha replied, "I know the terrible things you will do to the people of Israel: you will burn their forts, kill the young men, dash their babies against the rocks, and rip open the bellies of the pregnant women!"
13 "Am I a dog?" Hazael asked him. "I would never do that sort of thing." But Elisha replied, "The Lord has shown me that you are going to be the king of Syria."
14 When Hazael went back, the king asked him, "What did he tell you?" And Hazael replied, "He told me that you would recover."
15 But the next day Hazael took a blanket and dipped it in water and held it over the king's face until he smothered to death. And Hazael became king instead.
16 King Jehoram, the son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, began his reign during the fifth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel, the son of Ahab.
17 Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years.
18 But he was as wicked as Ahab and the other kings of Israel; he even married one of Ahab's daughters.
19 Nevertheless, because God had promised his servant David that he would watch over and guide his descendants, he did not destroy Judah.
20 During Jehoram's reign, the people in Edom revolted from Judah and appointed their own king.
21 King Jehoram tried unsuccessfully to crush the rebellion: he crossed the Jordan River and attacked the city of Zair, but was quickly surrounded by the army of Edom. Under cover of night he broke through their ranks, but his army deserted him and fled.
22 So Edom has maintained its independence to this day. Libnah also rebelled at that time.
23 The rest of the history of King Jehoram is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
24 He died and was buried in the royal cemetery in the City of David--the old section of Jerusalem. Then his son Ahaziah became the new king
25 during the twelfth year of the reign of King Jehoram of Israel, the son of Ahab.
26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, but he reigned only one year, in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, the granddaughter of King Omri of Israel.
27 He was an evil king, just as all of King Ahab's descendants were--for he was related to Ahab by marriage.
28 He joined King Joram of Israel (son of Ahab) in his war against Hazael, the king of Syria, at Ramoth-gilead. King Joram was wounded in the battle,
29 so he went to Jezreel to rest and recover from his wounds. While he was there, King Ahaziah of Judah (son of Jehoram) came to visit him.
1 Meanwhile Elisha had summoned one of the young prophets. "Get ready to go to Ramoth-gilead," he told him. "Take this vial of oil with you
2 and find Jehu (the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi). Call him into a private room away from his friends,
3 and pour the oil over his head. Tell him that the Lord has anointed him to be the king of Israel; then run for your life!"
4 So the young prophet did as he was told. When he arrived in Ramoth-gilead,
5 he found Jehu sitting around with the other army officers. "I have a message for you, sir," he said. "For which one of us?" Jehu asked. "For you," he replied.
6 So Jehu left the others and went into the house, and the young man poured the oil over his head and said, "The Lord God of Israel says, 'I anoint you king of the Lord's people, Israel.
7 You are to destroy the family of Ahab; you will avenge the murder of my prophets and of all my other people who were killed by Jezebel.
8 The entire family of Ahab must be wiped out--every male, no matter who.
9 I will destroy the family of Ahab as I destroyed the families of Jeroboam (son of Nebat) and of Baasha (son of Ahijah).
10 Dogs shall eat Ahab's wife Jezebel at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.' " Then he opened the door and ran.
11 Jehu went back to his friends and one of them asked him, "What did that crazy fellow want? Is everything all right?" "You know very well who he was and what he wanted," Jehu replied.
12 "No, we don't," they said. "Tell us." So he told them what the man had said and that he had been anointed king of Israel!
13 They quickly carpeted the bare steps with their coats and blew a trumpet, shouting, "Jehu is king!"
14 That is how Jehu (son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi) rebelled against King Joram. (King Joram had been with the army at Ramoth-gilead, defending Israel against the forces of King Hazael of Syria.
15 But he had returned to Jezreel to recover from his wounds.) "Since you want me to be king," Jehu told the men who were with him, "don't let anyone escape to Jezreel to report what we have done."
16 Then Jehu jumped into a chariot and rode to Jezreel himself to find King Joram, who was lying there wounded. (King Ahaziah of Judah was there too, for he had gone to visit him.)
17 The watchman on the Tower of Jezreel saw Jehu and his company approaching and shouted, "Someone is coming." "Send out a rider and find out if he is friend or foe," King Joram shouted back.
18 So a soldier rode out to meet Jehu. "The king wants to know whether you are friend or foe," he demanded. "Do you come in peace?" Jehu replied, "What do you know about peace? Get behind me!" The watchman called out to the king that the messenger had met them but was not returning.
19 So the king sent out a second rider. He rode up to them and demanded in the name of the king to know whether their intentions were friendly or not. Jehu answered, "What do you know about friendliness? Get behind me!"
20 "He isn't returning either!" the watchman exclaimed. "It must be Jehu, for he is driving so furiously."
21 "Quick! Get my chariot ready!" King Joram commanded. Then he and King Ahaziah of Judah rode out to meet Jehu. They met him at the field of Naboth,
22 and King Joram demanded, "Do you come as a friend, Jehu?" Jehu replied, "How can there be friendship as long as the evils of your mother Jezebel are all around us?"
23 Then King Joram reined the chariot-horses around and fled, shouting to King Ahaziah, "There is treachery, Ahaziah! Treason!"
24 Then Jehu drew his bow with his full strength and shot Joram between the shoulders; and the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank down dead in his chariot.
25 Jehu said to Bidkar, his assistant, "Throw him into the field of Naboth, for once when you and I were riding along behind his father Ahab, the Lord revealed this prophecy to me:
26 'I will repay him here on Naboth's property for the murder of Naboth and his sons.' So throw him out on Naboth's field, just as the Lord said."
27 Meanwhile, King Ahaziah of Judah had fled along the road to Beth-haggan. Jehu rode after him, shouting, "Shoot him too." So they shot him in his chariot at the place where the road climbs to Gur, near Ibleam. He was able to go on as far as Megiddo, but died there.
28 His officials took him by chariot to Jerusalem where they buried him in the royal cemetery.
29 (Ahaziah's reign over Judah had begun in the twelfth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel.)
30 When Jezebel heard that Jehu had come to Jezreel, she painted her eyelids and fixed her hair and sat at a window.
31 When Jehu entered the gate of the palace, she shouted at him, "How are you today, you murderer! You son of a Zimri who murdered his master!"
32 He looked up and saw her at the window and shouted, "Who is on my side?" And two or three eunuchs looked out at him.
33 "Throw her down!" he yelled. So they threw her out the window, and her blood spattered against the wall and on the horses; and she was trampled by the horses' hoofs.
34 Then Jehu went into the palace for lunch. Afterwards he said, "Someone go and bury this cursed woman, for she is the daughter of a king."
35 But when they went out to bury her, they found only her skull, her feet, and her hands.
36 When they returned and told him, he remarked, "That is just what the Lord said would happen. He told Elijah the prophet that dogs would eat her flesh
37 and that her body would be scattered like manure upon the field, so that no one could tell whose it was."
1 Then Jehu wrote a letter to the city council of Samaria and to the guardians of Ahab's seventy sons--all of whom were living there.
2 "Upon receipt of this letter,
3 select the best one of Ahab's sons to be your king, and prepare to fight for his throne. For you have chariots and horses and a fortified city and an armory."
4 But they were too frightened to do it. "Two kings couldn't stand against this man! What can we do?" they said.
5 So the manager of palace affairs and the city manager, together with the city council and the guardians of Ahab's sons, sent him this message: "Jehu, we are your servants and will do anything you tell us to. We have decided that you should be our king instead of one of Ahab's sons."
6 Jehu responded with this message: "If you are on my side and are going to obey me, bring the heads of your master's sons to me at Jezreel at about this time tomorrow." (These seventy sons of King Ahab were living in the homes of the chief men of the city, where they had been raised since childhood.)
7 When the letter arrived, all seventy of them were murdered, and their heads were packed into baskets and presented to Jehu at Jezreel.
8 When a messenger told Jehu that the heads of the king's sons had arrived, he said to pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the city gate, and to leave them there until the next morning.
9 In the morning he went out and spoke to the crowd that had gathered around them. "You aren't to blame," he told them. "I conspired against my master and killed him, but I didn't kill his sons! The
10 Lord has done that, for everything he says comes true. He declared through his servant Elijah that this would happen to Ahab's descendants."
11 Jehu then killed all the rest of the members of the family of Ahab who were in Jezreel, as well as all of his important officials, personal friends, and private chaplains. Finally, no one was left who had been close to him in any way.
12 Then he set out for Samaria and stayed overnight at a shepherd's inn along the way.
13 While he was there he met the brothers of King Ahaziah of Judah. "Who are you?" he asked them. And they replied, "We are brothers of King Ahaziah. We are going to Samaria to visit the sons of King Ahab and of the Queen Mother, Jezebel."
14 "Grab them!" Jehu shouted to his men. And he took them out to the cistern and killed all forty-two of them.
15 As he left the inn, he met Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, who was coming to meet him. After they had greeted each other, Jehu said to him, "Are you as loyal to me as I am to you?" "Yes," Jehonadab replied. "Then give me your hand," Jehu said, and he helped him into the royal chariot.
16 "Now come along with me," Jehu said, "and see how much I have done for the Lord." So Jehonadab rode along with him.
17 When he arrived in Samaria he butchered all of Ahab's friends and relatives, just as Elijah, speaking for the Lord, had predicted. Then Jehu called a meeting of all the people of the city and said to them, "Ahab hardly worshiped Baal at all in comparison to the way I am going to!
18 Summon all the prophets and priests of Baal, and call together all his worshipers.
19 See to it that every one of them comes, for we worshipers of Baal are going to have a great celebration to praise him. Any of Baal's worshipers who don't come will be put to death." But Jehu's plan was to exterminate them.
20 He sent messengers throughout all Israel summoning those who worshiped Baal; and they all came and filled the temple of Baal from one end to the other.
21
22 He instructed the head of the robing room, "Be sure that every worshiper wears one of the special robes."
23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab (son of Rechab) went into the temple to address the people: "Check to be sure that only those who worship Baal are here; don't let anyone in who worships the Lord!"
24 As the priests of Baal began offering sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu surrounded the building with eighty of his men and told them, "If you let anyone escape, you'll pay for it with your own life."
25 As soon as he had finished sacrificing the burnt offering, Jehu went out and told his officers and men, "Go in and kill the whole bunch of them. Don't let a single one escape." So they slaughtered them all and dragged their bodies outside. Then Jehu's men went into the inner temple,
26 dragged out the pillar used for the worship of Baal, and burned it.
27 They wrecked the temple and converted it into a public toilet, which it still is today.
28 Thus Jehu destroyed every trace of Baal from Israel.
29 However, he didn't destroy the gold calves at Bethel and Dan--this was the great sin of Jeroboam (son of Nebat), for it resulted in all Israel sinning.
30 Afterwards the Lord said to Jehu, "You have done well in following my instructions to destroy the dynasty of Ahab. Because of this I will cause your son, your grandson, and your great-grandson to be the kings of Israel."
31 But Jehu didn't follow the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he continued to worship Jeroboam's gold calves that had been the cause of such great sin in Israel.
32 At about that time the Lord began to whittle down the size of Israel. King Hazael conquered several sections of the country
33 east of the Jordan River, as well as all of Gilead, Gad, and Reuben; he also conquered parts of Manasseh from the Aroer River in the valley of the Arnon as far as Gilead and Bashan.
34 The rest of Jehu's activities are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
35 When Jehu died, he was buried in Samaria; and his son Jehoahaz became the new king.
36 In all, Jehu reigned as king of Israel, in Samaria, for twenty-eight years.
1 When Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned that her son was dead, she killed all of his children,
2 except for his year-old son Joash. Joash was rescued by his Aunt Jehosheba, who was a sister of King Ahaziah (for she was a daughter of King Jehoram, Ahaziah's father).
3 She stole him away from among the rest of the king's children who were waiting to be slain and hid him and his nurse in a storeroom of the Temple. They lived there for six years while Athaliah reigned as queen.
4 In the seventh year of Queen Athaliah's reign, Jehoiada the priest summoned the officers of the palace guard and the queen's bodyguard. He met them in the Temple, swore them to secrecy, and showed them the king's son.
5 Then he gave them their instructions: "A third of those who are on duty on the Sabbath are to guard the palace.
6 The other two-thirds shall stand guard at the Temple; surround the king, weapons in hand, and kill anyone who tries to break through. Stay with the king at all times."
7
8
9 So the officers followed Jehoiada's instructions. They brought to Jehoiada the men who were going off duty on the Sabbath and those who were coming on duty,
10 and he armed them from the Temple's supply of spears and shields that had belonged to King David.
11 The guards, with weapons ready, stood across the front of the sanctuary and surrounded the altar, which was near Joash's hideaway.
12 Then Jehoiada brought out the young prince and put the crown upon his head and gave him a copy of the Ten Commandments, and anointed him as king. Then everyone clapped and shouted, "Long live the king!"
13 When Athaliah heard all the noise, she ran into the Temple
14 and saw the new king standing beside the pillar, as was the custom at times of coronation, surrounded by her bodyguard and many trumpeters; and everyone was rejoicing and blowing trumpets. "Treason! Treason!" she screamed, and began to tear her clothes.
15 "Get her out of here," shouted Jehoiada to the officers of the guard. "Don't kill her here in the Temple. But kill anyone who tries to come to her rescue."
16 So they dragged her to the palace stables and killed her there.
17 Jehoiada made a treaty between the Lord, the king, and the people, that they would be the Lord's people. He also made a contract between the king and the people.
18 Everyone went over to the temple of Baal and tore it down, breaking the altars and images and killing Mattan, the priest of Baal, in front of the altar. And Jehoiada set guards at the Temple of the Lord.
19 Then he and the officers and the guard and all the people led the king from the Temple, past the guardhouse, and into the palace. And he sat upon the king's throne.
20 So everyone was happy, and the city settled back into quietness after Athaliah's death.
21 Joash was seven years old when he became king.
1 It was seven years after Jehu had become the king of Israel that Joash became king of Judah. He reigned in Jerusalem for forty years. (His mother was Zibiah, from Beersheba.)
2 All his life Joash did what was right because Jehoiada the High Priest instructed him.
3 Yet even so he didn't destroy the shrines on the hills--the people still sacrificed and burned incense there.
4 One day King Joash said to Jehoiada, "The Temple building needs repairing.
5 Whenever anyone brings a contribution to the Lord, whether it is a regular assessment or some special gift, use it to pay for whatever repairs are needed."
6 But in the twenty-third year of his reign the Temple was still in disrepair.
7 So Joash called for Jehoiada and the other priests and asked them, "Why haven't you done anything about the Temple? Now don't use any more money for your own needs; from now on it must all be spent on getting the Temple into good condition."
8 So the priests agreed to set up a special repair fund that would not go through their hands, lest it be diverted to care for their personal needs.
9 Jehoiada the priest bored a hole in the lid of a large chest and set it on the right-hand side of the altar at the Temple entrance. The doorkeepers put all of the people's contributions into it.
10 Whenever the chest became full, the king's financial secretary and the High Priest counted it, put it into bags,
11 and gave it to the construction superintendents to pay the carpenters,
12 stonemasons, quarrymen, timber dealers, and stone merchants, and to buy the other materials needed to repair the Temple of the Lord.
13 It was not used to buy silver cups, gold snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or similar articles, but only for repairs to the building.
14
15 No accounting was required from the construction superintendents, for they were honest and faithful men.
16 However, the money that was contributed for guilt offerings and sin offerings was given to the priests for their own use. It was not put into the chest.
17 About this time, King Hazael of Syria went to war against Gath and captured it; then he moved on toward Jerusalem to attack it.
18 King Joash took all the sacred objects that his ancestors--Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah--had dedicated, along with what he himself had dedicated, and all the gold in the treasuries of the Temple and the palace, and sent it to Hazael. So Hazael called off the attack.
19 The rest of the history of Joash is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
20 But his officers plotted against him and assassinated him in his royal residence at Millo on the road to Silla.
21 The assassins were Jozachar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer--both trusted aides. He was buried in the royal cemetery in Jerusalem, and his son Amaziah became the new king.
1 Jehoahaz (the son of Jehu) began a seventeen-year reign over Israel during the twenty-third year of the reign of King Joash of Judah.
2 But he was an evil king, and he followed the wicked paths of Jeroboam, who had caused Israel to sin.
3 So the Lord was very angry with Israel, and he continually allowed King Hazael of Syria and his son Ben-hadad to conquer them.
4 But Jehoahaz prayed for the Lord's help, and the Lord listened to him; for the Lord saw how terribly the king of Syria was oppressing Israel.
5 So the Lord raised up leaders among the Israelis to rescue them from the tyranny of the Syrians; and then Israel lived in safety again as they had in former days.
6 But they continued to sin, following the evil ways of Jeroboam; and they continued to worship the goddess Asherah at Samaria.
7 Finally the Lord reduced Jehoahaz's army to fifty mounted troops, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry; for the king of Syria had destroyed the others as though they were dust beneath his feet.
8 The rest of the history of Jehoahaz is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
9 Jehoahaz died and was buried in Samaria, and his son Joash reigned in Samaria for sixteen years. He came to the throne in the thirty-seventh year of the reign of King Joash of Judah.
10
11 But he was an evil man, for, like Jeroboam, he encouraged the people to worship idols and led them into sin.
12 The rest of the history of the reign of Joash, including his wars against King Amaziah of Judah, are written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
13 Joash died and was buried in Samaria with the other kings of Israel; and Jeroboam II became the new king.
14 When Elisha was in his last illness, King Joash visited him and wept over him. "My father! My father! You are the strength of Israel!" he cried.
15 Elisha told him, "Get a bow and some arrows," and he did.
16 "Open that eastern window," he instructed. Then he told the king to put his hand upon the bow, and Elisha laid his own hands upon the king's hands.
17 "Shoot!" Elisha commanded, and he did. Then Elisha proclaimed, "This is the Lord's arrow, full of victory over Syria; for you will completely conquer the Syrians at Aphek.
18 Now pick up the other arrows and strike them against the floor." So the king picked them up and struck the floor three times.
19 But the prophet was angry with him. "You should have struck the floor five or six times," he exclaimed, "for then you would have beaten Syria until they were entirely destroyed; now you will be victorious only three times."
20 So Elisha died and was buried. In those days bandit gangs of Moabites used to invade the land each spring.
21 Once some men who were burying a friend spied these marauders so they hastily threw his body into the tomb of Elisha. And as soon as the body touched Elisha's bones, the dead man revived and jumped to his feet!
22 King Hazael of Syria had oppressed Israel during the entire reign of King Jehoahaz.
23 But the Lord was gracious to the people of Israel, and they were not totally destroyed. For God pitied them, and also he was honoring his contract with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this is still true.
24 Then King Hazael of Syria died, and his son Ben-hadad reigned in his place.
25 King Joash of Israel (the son of Jehoahaz) was successful on three occasions in reconquering the cities that his father had lost to Ben-hadad.
1 During the second year of the reign of King Joash of Israel, King Amaziah began his reign over Judah.
2 Amaziah was twenty-five years old at the time, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. (His mother was Jehoaddin, a native of Jerusalem.)
3 He was a good king in the Lord's sight, though not quite like his ancestor David; but he was as good a king as his father Joash.
4 However, he didn't destroy the shrines on the hills, so the people still sacrificed and burned incense there.
5 As soon as he had a firm grip on the kingdom, he killed the men who had assassinated his father;
6 but he didn't kill their children, for the Lord had commanded through the law of Moses that fathers shall not be killed for their children, nor children for the sins of their fathers: everyone must pay the penalty for his own sins.
7 Once Amaziah killed ten thousand Edomites in Salt Valley; he also conquered Sela and changed its name to Joktheel, as it is called to this day.
8 One day he sent a message to King Joash of Israel (the son of Jehoahaz and the grandson of Jehu), daring him to mobilize his army and come out and fight.
9 But King Joash replied, "The thistle of Lebanon demanded of the mighty cedar tree, 'Give your daughter to be a wife for my son.' But just then a wild animal passed by and stepped on the thistle and trod it into the ground!
10 You have destroyed Edom and are very proud about it; but my advice to you is, be content with your glory and stay home! Why provoke disaster for both yourself and Judah?"
11 But Amaziah refused to listen, so King Joash of Israel mustered his army. The battle began at Beth-shemesh, one of the cities of Judah,
12 and Judah was defeated and the army fled home.
13 King Amaziah was captured, and the army of Israel marched on Jerusalem and broke down its wall from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, a distance of about six hundred feet.
14 King Joash took many hostages and all the gold and silver from the Temple and palace treasury, also the gold cups. Then he returned to Samaria.
15 The rest of the history of Joash and his war with King Amaziah of Judah are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
16 When Joash died, he was buried in Samaria with the other kings of Israel. And his son Jeroboam became the new king.
17 Amaziah lived fifteen years longer than Joash,
18 and the rest of his biography is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
19 There was a plot against his life in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish; but his enemies sent assassins and killed him there.
20 His body was returned on horses, and he was buried in the royal cemetery, in the City of David section of Jerusalem.
21 Then his son Azariah became the new king at the age of sixteen.
22 After his father's death, he built Elath and restored it to Judah.
23 Meanwhile, over in Israel, Jeroboam II had become king during the fifteenth year of the reign of King Amaziah of Judah. Jeroboam's reign lasted forty-one years.
24 But he was as evil as Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat), who had led Israel into the sin of worshiping idols.
25 Jeroboam II recovered the lost territories of Israel between Hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the Lord God of Israel had predicted through Jonah (son of Amittai) the prophet from Gathhepher.
26 For the Lord saw the bitter plight of Israel--she had no one to help her.
27 And he had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel, so he used King Jeroboam II to save her.
28 The rest of Jeroboam's biography--all that he did, and his great power, and his wars, and how he recovered Damascus and Hamath (which had been captured by Judah)--is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
29 When Jeroboam II, died he was buried with the other kings of Israel, and his son Zechariah became the new king of Israel.
1 New king of Judah: Azariah Father's name: Amaziah, the former king
2 His age at the beginning of his reign: 16 years old Length of reign: 52 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Jecoliah of Jerusalem Reigning in Israel at that time: King Jeroboam, who had been the king there for 27 years
3 Azariah was a good king, and he pleased the Lord just as his father Amaziah had.
4 But like his predecessors, he didn't destroy the shrines on the hills where the people sacrificed and burned incense.
5 Because of this the Lord struck him with leprosy, which lasted until the day of his death; so he lived in a house by himself. And his son Jotham was the acting king.
6 The rest of the history of Azariah is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
7 When Azariah died, he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, and his son Jotham became king.
8 New king of Israel: Zechariah Father's name: Jeroboam Length of reign: 6 months, in Samaria Reigning in Judah at that time: King Azariah, who had been the king there for 38 years
9 But Zechariah was an evil king in the Lord's sight, just like his ancestors. Like Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat), he encouraged Israel in the sin of worshiping idols.
10 Then Shallum (the son of Jabesh) conspired against him and assassinated him at Ibleam and took the crown himself.
11 The rest of the history of Zechariah's reign is found in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
12 (So the Lord's statement to Jehu came true, that Jehu's son, grandson, and great-grandson would be kings of Israel.)
13 New king of Israel: Shallum Father's name: Jabesh Length of reign: 1 month, in Samaria Reigning in Judah at that time: King Uzziah, who had been the king there for 39 years
14 One month after Shallum became king, Menahem (the son of Gadi) came to Samaria from Tirzah and assassinated him and took the throne.
15 Additional details about King Shallum and his conspiracy are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
16 Menahem destroyed the city of Tappuah and the surrounding countryside, for its citizens refused to accept him as their king; he killed the entire population and ripped open the pregnant women.
17 New king of Israel: Menahem Length of reign: 10 years, in Samaria Reigning in Judah at that time: King Azariah, who had been the king there for 39 years
18 But Menahem was an evil king. He worshiped idols, as King Jeroboam I had done so long before, and he led the people of Israel into grievous sin.
19 Then King Pul of Assyria invaded the land; but King Menahem bought him off with a gift of $2,000,000, so he turned around and returned home.
20 Menahem extorted the money from the rich, assessing each one $2,000 in the form of a special tax.
21 The rest of the history of King Menahem is written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
22 When he died, his son Pekahiah became the new king.
23 New king of Israel: Pekahiah Father's name: King Menahem Length of reign: 2 years, in Samaria Reigning in Judah at that time: King Azariah, who had been the king there for 50 years
24 But Pekahiah was an evil king, and he continued the idol-worship begun by Jeroboam I (son of Nebat) who led Israel down that evil trail.
25 Then Pekah (son of Remaliah), the commanding general of his army, conspired against him with fifty men from Gilead and assassinated him in the palace at Samaria (Argob and Arieh were also slain in the revolt). So Pekah became the new king.
26 The rest of the history of King Pekahiah is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
27 New king of Israel: Pekah Father's name: Remaliah Length of reign: 20 years, in Samaria Reigning in Judah at that time: King Azariah, who had been the king there for 52 years
28 Pekah, too, was an evil king, and he continued in the example of Jeroboam I (son of Nebat), who led all of Israel into the sin of worshiping idols.
29 It was during his reign that King Tiglath-pileser led an attack against Israel. He captured the cities of Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali; and he took the people away to Assyria as captives.
30 Then Hoshea (the son of Elah) plotted against Pekah and assassinated him; and he took the throne for himself. New king of Israel: Hoshea Reigning in Judah at that time: King Jotham (son of Uzziah), who had been the king there for 20 years
31 The rest of the history of Pekah's reign is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel.
32 New king of Judah: Jotham Father's name: King Uzziah
33 His age at the beginning of his reign: 25 years old Length of reign: 16 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Jerusha (daughter of Zadok) Reigning in Israel at that time: King Pekah (son of Remaliah), who had been the king there for 2 years
34 Generally speaking, Jotham was a good king. Like his father Uzziah, he followed the Lord.
35 But he didn't destroy the shrines on the hills where the people sacrificed and burned incense. It was during King Jotham's reign that the upper gate of the Temple of the Lord was built.
36 The rest of Jotham's history is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
37 In those days the Lord caused King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of Israel to attack Judah.
38 When Jotham died he was buried with the other kings of Judah in the royal cemetery, in the City of David section of Jerusalem. Then his son Ahaz became the new king.
1 New king of Judah: Ahaz Father's name: Jotham His age at the beginning of his reign: 20 years old Length of reign: 16 years, in Jerusalem Character of his reign: evil Reigning in Israel at that time: King Pekah (son of Remaliah), who had been the king there for 17 years
2 But he did not follow the Lord as his ancestor David had;
3 he was as wicked as the kings of Israel. He even killed his own son by offering him as a burnt sacrifice to the gods, following the heathen customs of the nations around Judah--nations that the Lord destroyed when the people of Israel entered the land.
4 He also sacrificed and burned incense at the shrines on the hills and at the numerous altars in the groves of trees.
5 Then King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah (son of Remaliah) of Israel declared war on Ahaz and besieged Jerusalem; but they did not conquer it.
6 However, at that time King Rezin of Syria recovered the city of Elath for Syria; he drove out the Jews and sent Syrians to live there, as they do to this day.
7 King Ahaz sent a messenger to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, begging him to help him fight the attacking armies of Syria and Israel.
8 Ahaz took the silver and gold from the Temple and from the royal vaults and sent it as a payment to the Assyrian king.
9 So the Assyrians attacked Damascus, the capital of Syria. They took away the population of the city as captives, resettling them in Kir, and King Rezin of Syria was killed.
10 King Ahaz now went to Damascus to meet with King Tiglath-pileser, and while he was there he noticed an unusual altar in a heathen temple. He jotted down its dimensions and made a sketch and sent it back to Uriah the priest with a detailed description.
11 Uriah built one just like it by following these directions and had it ready for the king, who, upon his return from Damascus, inaugurated it with an offering.
12
13 The king presented a burnt offering and a grain offering, poured a drink offering over it, and sprinkled the blood of peace offerings upon it.
14 Then he removed the old bronze altar from the front of the Temple (it had stood between the Temple entrance and the new altar), and placed it on the north side of the new altar.
15 He instructed Uriah the priest to use the new altar for the sacrifices of burnt offering, the evening grain offering, the king's burnt offering and grain offering, and the offerings of the people, including their drink offerings. The blood from the burnt offerings and sacrifices was also to be sprinkled over the new altar. So the old altar was used only for purposes of divination. "The old bronze altar," he said, "will be only for my personal use."
16 Uriah the priest did as King Ahaz instructed him.
17 Then the king dismantled the wheeled stands in the Temple, removed their crosspieces and the water vats they supported, and removed the great tank from the backs of the bronze oxen and placed it upon the stone pavement.
18 In deference to the king of Assyria he also removed the festive passageway he had constructed between the palace and the Temple.
19 The rest of the history of the reign of King Ahaz is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
20 When Ahaz died he was buried in the royal cemetery, in the City of David sector of Jerusalem, and his son Hezekiah became the new king.
1 New king of Israel: Hoshea Father's name: Elah Length of reign: 9 years, in Samaria
2 Character of his reign: evil--but not as bad as some of the other kings of Israel Reigning in Judah at that time: King Ahaz, who had been the king there for 12 years
3 King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked and defeated King Hoshea, so Israel had to pay heavy annual taxes to Assyria.
4 Then Hoshea conspired against the king of Assyria by asking King So of Egypt to help him shake free of Assyria's power, but this treachery was discovered. At the same time he refused to pay the annual tribute to Assyria. So the king of Assyria put him in prison and in chains for his rebellion.
5 Now the land of Israel was filled with Assyrian troops for three years besieging Samaria, the capital city of Israel.
6 Finally, in the ninth year of King Hoshea's reign, Samaria fell and the people of Israel were exiled to Assyria. They were placed in colonies in the city of Halah and along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and among the cities of the Medes.
7 This disaster came upon the nation of Israel because the people worshiped other gods, thus sinning against the Lord their God who had brought them safely out of their slavery in Egypt.
8 They had followed the evil customs of the nations which the Lord had cast out from before them.
9 The people of Israel had also secretly done many things that were wrong, and they had built altars to other gods throughout the land.
10 They had placed obelisks and idols at the top of every hill and under every green tree;
11 and they had burned incense to the gods of the very nations which the Lord had cleared out of the land when Israel came in. So the people of Israel had done many evil things, and the Lord was very angry.
12 Yes, they worshiped idols, despite the Lord's specific and repeated warnings.
13 Again and again the Lord had sent prophets to warn both Israel and Judah to turn from their evil ways; he had warned them to obey his commandments which he had given to their ancestors through these prophets,
14 but Israel wouldn't listen. The people were as stubborn as their ancestors and refused to believe in the Lord their God.
15 They rejected his laws and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and despised all his warnings. In their foolishness they worshiped heathen idols despite the Lord's stern warnings.
16 They defied all the commandments of the Lord their God and made two calves from molten gold. They made detestable, shameful idols and worshiped Baal and the sun, moon, and stars.
17 They even burned their own sons and daughters to death on the altars of Molech; they consulted fortune-tellers and used magic and sold themselves to evil. So the Lord was very angry.
18 He swept them from his sight until only the tribe of Judah remained in the land.
19 But even Judah refused to obey the commandments of the Lord their God; they too walked in the same evil paths as Israel had.
20 So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Jacob. He punished them by delivering them to their attackers until they were destroyed.
21 For Israel split off from the kingdom of David and chose Jeroboam I (the son of Nebat) as its king. Then Jeroboam drew Israel away from following the Lord. He made them sin a great sin,
22 and the people of Israel never quit doing the evil things that Jeroboam led them into,
23 until the Lord finally swept them away, just as all his prophets had warned would happen. So Israel was carried off to the land of Assyria where they remain to this day.
24 And the king of Assyria transported colonies of people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and resettled them in the cities of Samaria, replacing the people of Israel. So the Assyrians took over Samaria and the other cities of Israel.
25 But since these Assyrian colonists did not worship the Lord when they first arrived, the Lord sent lions among them to kill some of them.
26 Then they sent a message to the king of Assyria: "We colonists here in Israel don't know the laws of the god of the land, and he has sent lions among us to destroy us because we have not worshiped him."
27 The king of Assyria then decreed that one of the exiled priests from Samaria should return to Israel and teach the new residents the laws of the god of the land.
28 So one of them returned to Bethel and taught the colonists from Babylon how to worship the Lord.
29 But these foreigners also worshiped their own gods. They placed them in the shrines on the hills near their cities.
30 Those from Babylon worshiped idols of their god Succoth-benoth; those from Cuth worshiped their god Nergal; and the men of Hamath worshiped Ashima.
31 The gods Nibhaz and Tartak were worshiped by the Avvites, and the people from Sephar even burned their own children on the altars of their gods Adrammelech and Anammelech.
32 They also worshiped the Lord, and they appointed from among themselves priests to sacrifice to the Lord on the hilltop altars.
33 But they continued to follow the religious customs of the nations from which they came.
34 And this is still going on among them today--they follow their former practices instead of truly worshiping the Lord or obeying the laws he gave to the descendants of Jacob (whose name was later changed to Israel).
35 For the Lord had made a contract with them--that they were never to worship or make sacrifices to any heathen gods.
36 They were to worship only the Lord who had brought them out of the land of Egypt with such tremendous miracles and power.
37 The descendants of Jacob were to obey all of God's laws and never worship other gods.
38 For God had said, "You must never forget the covenant I made with you; never worship other gods.
39 You must worship only the Lord; he will save you from all your enemies."
40 But Israel didn't listen, and the people continued to worship other gods.
41 These colonists from Babylon worshiped the Lord, yes--but they also worshiped their idols. And to this day their descendants do the same thing.
1 New king of Judah: Hezekiah Father's name: Ahaz
2 His age at the beginning of his reign: 25 years old Length of reign: 29 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Abi (daughter of Zechariah)
3 Character of his reign: good (similar to that of his ancestor David) Reigning in Israel at that time: King Hoshea (son of Elah), who had been the king there for 3 years
4 He removed the shrines on the hills, broke down the obelisks, knocked down the shameful idols of Asherah, and broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had begun to worship it by burning incense to it; even though, as King Hezekiah pointed out to them, it was merely a piece of bronze.
5 He trusted very strongly in the Lord God of Israel. In fact, none of the kings before or after him were as close to God as he was.
6 For he followed the Lord in everything, and carefully obeyed all of God's commands to Moses.
7 So the Lord was with him and prospered everything he did. Then he rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to pay tribute any longer.
8 He also conquered the Philistines as far distant as Gaza and its suburbs, destroying cities both large and small.
9 It was during the fourth year of his reign (which was the seventh year of the reign of King Hoshea in Israel) that King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked Israel and began a siege on the city of Samaria.
10 Three years later (during the sixth year of the reign of King Hezekiah and the ninth year of the reign of King Hoshea of Israel) Samaria fell.
11 It was at that time that the king of Assyria transported the Israelis to Assyria and put them in colonies in the city of Halath and along the banks of the Habor River in Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
12 For they had refused to listen to the Lord their God or to do what he wanted them to do. Instead, they had transgressed his covenant and disobeyed all the laws given to them by Moses the servant of the Lord.
13 Later, during the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria besieged and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.
14 King Hezekiah sued for peace and sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute you demand if you will only go away." The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of $1,500,000.
15 To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple and in the palace treasury.
16 He even stripped off the gold from the Temple doors, and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and gave it all to the Assyrian king.
17 Nevertheless the king of Assyria sent his field marshal, his chief treasurer, and his chief of staff from Lachish with a great army; and they camped along the highway beside the field where cloth was bleached, near the conduit of the upper pool.
18 They demanded that King Hezekiah come out to speak to them, but instead he sent a truce delegation of the following men: Eliakim, his business manager; Shebnah, his secretary; and Joah, his royal historian.
19 Then the Assyrian general sent this message to King Hezekiah: "The great king of Assyria says, 'No one can save you from my power!
20 You need more than mere promises of help before rebelling against me. But which of your allies will give you more than words? Egypt?
21 If you lean on Egypt, you will find her to be a stick that breaks beneath your weight and pierces your hand. The Egyptian Pharaoh is totally unreliable!
22 And if you say, "We're trusting the Lord to rescue us"--just remember that he is the very one whose hilltop altars you've destroyed. For you require everyone to worship at the altar in Jerusalem!'
23 I'll tell you what: Make a bet with my master, the king of Assyria! If you have two thousand men left who can ride horses, we'll furnish the horses!
24 And with an army as small as yours, you are no threat to even the least lieutenant in charge of the smallest contingent in my master's army. Even if Egypt supplies you with horses and chariots, it will do no good.
25 And do you think we have come here on our own? No! The Lord sent us and told us, 'Go and destroy this nation!' "
26 Then Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah said to them, "Please speak in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don't use Hebrew, for the people standing on the walls will hear you."
27 But the Assyrian general replied, "Has my master sent me to speak only to you and to your master? Hasn't he sent me to the people on the walls too? For they are doomed with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine!"
28 Then the Assyrian ambassador shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall, "Listen to the great king of Assyria!
29 'Don't let King Hezekiah fool you. He will never be able to save you from my power.
30 Don't let him fool you into trusting in the Lord to rescue you.
31 Don't listen to King Hezekiah. Surrender! You can live in peace here in your own land
32 until I take you to another land just like this one--with plentiful crops, grain, grapes, olive trees, and honey. All of this instead of death! Don't listen to King Hezekiah when he tries to persuade you that the Lord will deliver you.
33 Have any of the gods of the other nations ever delivered their people from the king of Assyria?
34 What happened to the gods of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they rescue Samaria?
35 What god has ever been able to save any nation from my power? So what makes you think the Lord can save Jerusalem?' "
36 But the people on the wall remained silent, for the king had instructed them to say nothing.
37 Then Eliakim (son of Hilkiah) the business manager, and Shebnah the king's secretary, and Joah (son of Asaph) the historian went to King Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the Assyrian general had said.
1 When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple to pray.
2 Then he told Eliakim, Shebnah, and some of the older priests to clothe themselves in sackcloth and to go to Isaiah (son of Amoz), the prophet, with this message:
3 "King Hezekiah says, 'This is a day of trouble, insult, and dishonor. It is as when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it.
4 Yet perhaps the Lord your God has heard the Assyrian general defying the living God and will rebuke him. Oh, pray for the few of us who are left.' "
5 Isaiah replied, "The Lord says, 'Tell your master not to be troubled by the sneers these Assyrians have made against me.'
6
7 For the king of Assyria will receive bad news from home and will decide to return; and the Lord will see to it that he is killed when he arrives there."
8 Then the Assyrian general returned to his king at Libnah (for he received word that he had left Lachish).
9 Soon afterwards news reached the king that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was coming to attack him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent back this message to King Hezekiah:
10 "Don't be fooled by that god you trust in. Don't believe it when he says that I won't conquer Jerusalem.
11 You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone; they have completely destroyed everything. Why would you be any different?
12 Have the gods of the other nations delivered them--such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and Eden in the land of Telassar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all!
13 What happened to the king of Hamoth and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
14 Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers, read it, and went over to the Temple and spread it out before the Lord.
15 Then he prayed this prayer: "O Lord God of Israel, sitting on your throne high above the angels, you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You created the heavens and the earth.
16 Bend low, O Lord, and listen. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Listen to this man's defiance of the living God.
17 Lord, it is true that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all those nations
18 and have burned their idol-gods. But they weren't gods at all; they were destroyed because they were only things that men had made of wood and stone.
19 O Lord our God, we plead with you to save us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone are God."
20 Then Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: "The Lord God of Israel says, 'I have heard you!
21 And this is my reply to King Sennacherib: The virgin daughter of Zion isn't afraid of you! The daughter of Jerusalem scorns and mocks at you.
22 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And toward whom have you felt so cocky? It is the Holy One of Israel!
23 'You have boasted, "My chariots have conquered the highest mountains, yes, the peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down the tallest cedars and choicest cypress trees and have conquered the farthest borders.
24 I have been refreshed at many conquered wells, and I destroyed the strength of Egypt just by walking by!"
25 'Why haven't you realized long before this that it is I, the Lord, who lets you do these things? I decreed your conquest of all those fortified cities!
26 So of course the nations you conquered had no power against you! They were like grass shriveling beneath the hot sun, and like grain blighted before it is half grown.
27 I know everything about you. I know all your plans and where you are going next; and I also know the evil things you have said about me.
28 And because of your arrogance against me, I am going to put a hook in your nose and a bridle in your mouth and turn you back on the road by which you came.
29 And this is the proof that I will do as I have promised: This year my people will eat the volunteer wheat and use it as seed for next year's crop; and in the third year they will have a bountiful harvest.
30 'O my people Judah, those of you who have escaped the ravages of the siege shall become a great nation again; you shall be rooted deeply in the soil and bear fruit for God.
31 A remnant of my people shall become strong in Jerusalem. The Lord is eager to cause this to happen.
32 'And my command concerning the king of Assyria is that he shall not enter this city. He shall not stand before it with a shield, nor build a ramp against its wall, nor even shoot an arrow into it.
33 He shall return by the road he came,
34 for I will defend and save this city for the sake of my own name and for the sake of my servant David.' "
35 That very night the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian troops, and dead bodies were seen all across the landscape in the morning.
36 Then King Sennacherib returned to Nineveh;
37 and as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him. They escaped into eastern Turkey--the land of Ararat--and his son Esarhaddon became the new king.
1 Hezekiah now became deathly sick, and Isaiah the prophet went to visit him. "Set your affairs in order and prepare to die," Isaiah told him. "The Lord says you won't recover."
2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall.
3 "O Lord," he pleaded, "remember how I've always tried to obey you and to please you in everything I do. . . . " Then he broke down and cried.
4 So before Isaiah had left the courtyard, the Lord spoke to him again.
5 "Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people, and tell him that the Lord God of his ancestor David has heard his prayer and seen his tears. I will heal him, and three days from now he will be out of bed and at the Temple!
6 I will add fifteen years to his life and save him and this city from the king of Assyria. And it will all be done for the glory of my own name and for the sake of my servant David."
7 Isaiah then instructed Hezekiah to boil some dried figs and to make a paste of them and spread it on the boil. And he recovered!
8 Meanwhile, King Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, "Do a miracle to prove to me that the Lord will heal me and that I will be able to go to the Temple again three days from now."
9 "All right, the Lord will give you a proof," Isaiah told him. "Do you want the shadow on the sundial to go forward ten points or backward ten points?"
10 "The shadow always moves forward," Hezekiah replied; "make it go backward."
11 So Isaiah asked the Lord to do this, and he caused the shadow to move ten points backward on the sundial of Ahaz!
12 At that time Merodach-baladan (the son of King Baladan of Babylon) sent ambassadors with greetings and a present to Hezekiah, for he had learned of his sickness.
13 Hezekiah welcomed them and showed them all his treasures--the silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, the armory--everything.
14 Then Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked him, "What did these men want? Where are they from?" "From far away in Babylon," Hezekiah replied.
15 "What have they seen in your palace?" Isaiah asked. And Hezekiah replied, "Everything. I showed them all my treasures."
16 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Listen to the word of the Lord:
17 The time will come when everything in this palace shall be carried to Babylon. All the treasures of your ancestors will be taken--nothing shall be left.
18 Some of your own sons will be taken away and made into eunuchs who will serve in the palace of the king of Babylon."
19 "All right," Hezekiah replied, "if this is what the Lord wants, it is good." But he was really thinking, "At least there will be peace and security during the remainder of my own life!"
20 The rest of the history of Hezekiah and his great deeds--including the pool and conduit he made and how he brought water into the city--are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
21 When he died, his son Manasseh became the new king.
1 New king of Judah: Manasseh His age at the beginning of his reign: 12 years old Length of reign: 55 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Hephzibah
2 Character of his reign: evil; he did the same things the nations had done that were thrown out of the land to make room for the people of Israel
3 He rebuilt the hilltop shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed.
4 He built altars for Baal and made a shameful Asherah idol, just as Ahab the king of Israel had done.
5 Heathen altars to the sun god, moon god, and the gods of the stars were placed even in the Temple of the Lord--in the very city and building that the Lord had selected to honor his own name.
6 And he sacrificed one of his sons as a burnt offering on a heathen altar. He practiced black magic and used fortune-telling, and patronized mediums and wizards. So the Lord was very angry, for Manasseh was an evil man, in God's sight.
7 Manasseh even set up a shameful Asherah-idol in the Temple--the very place that the Lord had spoken to David and Solomon about when he said, "I will place my name forever in this Temple, and in Jerusalem--the city I have chosen from among all the cities of the tribes of Israel.
8 If the people of Israel will only follow the instructions I gave them through Moses, I will never again expel them from this land of their fathers."
9 But the people did not listen to the Lord, and Manasseh enticed them to do even more evil than the surrounding nations had done, even though Jehovah had destroyed those nations for their evil ways when the people of Israel entered the land.
10 Then the Lord declared through the prophets,
11 "Because King Manasseh has done these evil things and is even more wicked than the Amorites who were in this land long ago, and because he has led the people of Judah into idolatry:
12 I will bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror.
13 I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, and as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe away the people of Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish and turns it upside down to dry.
14 Then I will reject even those few of my people who are left, and I will hand them over to their enemies.
15 For they have done great evil and have angered me ever since I brought their ancestors from Egypt."
16 In addition to the idolatry which God hated and into which Manasseh led the people of Judah, he murdered great numbers of innocent people. And Jerusalem was filled from one end to the other with the bodies of his victims.
17 The rest of the history of Manasseh's sinful reign is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
18 When he died he was buried in the garden of his palace at Uzza, and his son Amon became the new king.
19 New king of Judah: Amon His age at the beginning of his reign: 22 years old Length of reign: 2 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Meshullemeth (daughter of Haruz, of Jotbah)
20 Character of his reign: evil
21 He did all the evil things his father had done: he worshiped the same idols
22 and turned his back on the Lord God of his ancestors. He refused to listen to God's instructions.
23 But his aides conspired against him and killed him in the palace.
24 Then a posse of civilians killed all the assassins and placed Amon's son Josiah upon the throne.
25 The rest of Amon's biography is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
26 He was buried in a crypt in the garden of Uzza, and his son Josiah became the new king.
1 New king of Judah: Josiah His age at the beginning of his reign: 8 years old Length of reign: 31 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Jedidah (daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath)
2 Character of his reign: good; he followed in the steps of his ancestor King David, obeying the Lord completely
3 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent his secretary Shaphan (son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam) to the Temple to give instruction to Hilkiah, the High Priest:
4 "Collect the money given to the priests at the door of the Temple when the people come to worship.
5 Give this money to the building superintendents so that they can hire carpenters and masons to repair the Temple, and to buy lumber and stone."
6
7 (The building superintendents were not required to keep account of their expenditures, for they were honest men.)
8 One day Hilkiah the High Priest went to Shaphan the secretary and exclaimed, "I have discovered a scroll in the Temple, with God's laws written on it!" He gave the scroll to Shaphan to read.
9 When Shaphan reported to the king about the progress of the repairs at the Temple, he also mentioned the scroll found by Hilkiah. Then Shaphan read it to the king.
10
11 When the king heard what was written in it, he tore his clothes in terror.
12 He commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Shaphan, and Asaiah, the king's assistant, and Ahikam (Shaphan's son), and Achbor (Michaiah's son) to
13 ask the Lord, "What shall we do? For we have not been following the instructions of this book: you must be very angry with us, for neither we nor our ancestors have followed your commands."
14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the Mishneh section of Jerusalem to find Huldah the prophetess. (She was the wife of Shallum--son of Tikvah, son of Harhas--who was in charge of the palace tailor shop.)
15 She gave them this message from the Lord God of Israel: "Tell the man who sent you to me that I am going to destroy this city and its people, just as I stated in that book you read.
16
17 For the people of Judah have thrown me aside and have worshiped other gods and have made me very angry; and my anger can't be stopped.
18 But because you were sorry and concerned
19 and humbled yourself before the Lord when you read the book and its warnings that this land would be cursed and become desolate, and because you have torn your clothing and wept before me in contrition, I will listen to your plea.
20 The death of this nation will not occur until after you die--you will not see the evil that I will bring upon this place." So they took the message to the king.
1 Then the king sent for the elders and other leaders of Judah and Jerusalem to go to the Temple with him.
2 So all the priests and prophets and the people, small and great, of Jerusalem and Judah gathered there at the Temple so that the king could read to them the entire book of God's laws which had been discovered in the Temple.
3 He stood beside the pillar in front of the people, and he and they made a solemn promise to the Lord to obey him at all times and to do everything the book commanded.
4 Then the king instructed Hilkiah the High Priest and the rest of the priests and the guards of the Temple to destroy all the equipment used in the worship of Baal, Asherah, and the sun, moon, and stars. The king had it all burned in the fields of the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and he carried the ashes to Bethel.
5 He killed the heathen priests who had been appointed by the previous kings of Judah, for they had burned incense in the shrines on the hills throughout Judah and even in Jerusalem. They had also offered incense to Baal and to the sun, moon, stars, and planets.
6 He removed the shameful idol of Asherah from the Temple and took it outside Jerusalem to Kidron Brook; there he burned it and beat it to dust and threw the dust on the graves of the common people.
7 He also tore down the houses of male prostitution around the Temple, where the women wove robes for the Asherah-idol.
8 He brought back to Jerusalem the priests of the Lord, who were living in other cities of Judah, and tore down all the shrines on the hills where they had burned incense, even those as far away as Geba and Beersheba. He also destroyed the shrines at the entrance of the palace of Joshua, the former mayor of Jerusalem, located on the left side as one enters the city gate.
9 However, these priests did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, even though they ate with the other priests.
10 Then the king destroyed the altar of Topheth in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, so that no one could ever again use it to burn his son or daughter to death as a sacrifice to Molech.
11 He tore down the statues of horses and chariots located near the entrance of the Temple, next to the quarters of Nathan-melech the eunuch. These had been dedicated by former kings of Judah to the sun god.
12 Then he tore down the altars that the kings of Judah had built on the palace roof above the Ahaz Room. He also destroyed the altars that Manasseh had built in the two courts of the Temple; he smashed them to bits and scattered the pieces in Kidron Valley.
13 Next he removed the shrines on the hills east of Jerusalem and south of Destruction Mountain. (Solomon had built these shrines for Ashtoreth, the evil goddess of the Sidonians; and for Chemosh, the evil god of Moab; and for Milcom, the evil god of the Ammonites.)
14 He smashed the obelisks and cut down the shameful idols of Asherah; then he defiled these places by scattering human bones over them.
15 He also tore down the altar and shrine at Bethel that Jeroboam I had made when he led Israel into sin. He crushed the stones to dust and burned the shameful idol of Asherah.
16 As Josiah was looking around, he noticed several graves in the side of the mountain. He ordered his men to bring out the bones in them and to burn them there upon the altar at Bethel to defile it, just as the Lord's prophet had declared would happen to Jeroboam's altar.
17 "What is that monument over there?" he asked. And the men of the city told him, "It is the grave of the prophet who came from Judah and proclaimed that what you have just done would happen here at the altar at Bethel!"
18 So King Josiah replied, "Leave it alone. Don't disturb his bones." So they didn't burn his bones or those of the prophet from Samaria.
19 Josiah demolished the shrines on the hills in all of Samaria. They had been built by the various kings of Israel and had made the Lord very angry. But now he crushed them into dust, just as he had done at Bethel.
20 He executed the priests of the heathen shrines upon their own altars, and he burned human bones upon the altars to defile them. Finally he returned to Jerusalem.
21 The king then issued orders for his people to observe the Passover ceremonies as recorded by the Lord their God in The Book of the Covenant.
22 There had not been a Passover celebration like that since the days of the judges of Israel, and there was never another like it in all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah.
23 This Passover was in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Josiah, and it was celebrated in Jerusalem.
24 Josiah also exterminated the mediums and wizards, and every kind of idol worship, both in Jerusalem and throughout the land. For Josiah wanted to follow all the laws that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the Temple.
25 There was no other king who so completely turned to the Lord and followed all the laws of Moses; and no king since the time of Josiah has approached his record of obedience.
26 But the Lord still did not hold back his great anger against Judah, caused by the evils of King Manasseh.
27 For the Lord had said, "I will destroy Judah just as I have destroyed Israel; and I will discard my chosen city of Jerusalem and the Temple that I said was mine."
28 The rest of the biography of Josiah is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
29 In those days King Neco of Egypt went out to help the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. Then King Josiah went out with his troops to fight King Neco; but King Neco withstood him at Megiddo and killed him.
30 His officers took his body back in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in the grave he had selected. And his son Jehoahaz was chosen by the nation as its new king.
31 New king of Judah: Jehoahaz His age at the beginning of his reign: 23 years old Length of reign: 3 months, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Hamutal (the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah)
32 Character of his reign: evil, like the other kings who had preceded him
33 Pharaoh-Neco jailed him at Riblah in Hamath to prevent his reigning in Jerusalem, and he levied a tax against Judah totaling $230,000.
34 The Egyptian king then chose Eliakim, another of Josiah's sons, to reign in Jerusalem; and he changed his name to Jehoiakim. Then he took King Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died.
35 Jehoiakim taxed the people to get the money that the Pharaoh had demanded.
36 New king of Judah: Jehoiakim His age at the beginning of his reign: 25 years old Length of reign: 11 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Zebidah (daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah)
37 Character of his reign: evil, like the other kings who had preceded him
1 During the reign of King Jehoiakim, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem. Jehoiakim surrendered and paid him tribute for three years, but then rebelled.
2 And the Lord sent bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against Judah in order to destroy the nation, just as the Lord had warned through his prophets that he would.
3 It is clear that these disasters befell Judah at the direct command of the Lord. He had decided to wipe Judah out of his sight because of the many sins of Manasseh,
4 for he had filled Jerusalem with blood, and the Lord would not pardon it.
5 The rest of the history of the life of Jehoiakim is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah.
6 When he died, his son Jehoiachin became the new king.
7 (The Egyptian Pharaoh never returned after that, for the king of Babylon occupied the entire area claimed by Egypt--all of Judah from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.)
8 New king of Judah: Jehoiachin His age at the beginning of his reign: 18 years old Length of reign: 3 months, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Nehushta (daughter of Elnathan, a citizen of Jerusalem)
9
10 During his reign the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged the city of Jerusalem.
11 Nebuchadnezzar himself arrived during the siege,
12 and King Jehoiachin, all of his officials, and the queen mother surrendered to him. The surrender was accepted, and Jehoiachin was imprisoned in Babylon during the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
13 The Babylonians carried home all the treasures from the Temple and the royal palace; and they cut apart all the gold bowls which King Solomon of Israel had placed in the Temple at the Lord's directions.
14 King Nebuchadnezzar took ten thousand captives from Jerusalem, including all the princes and the best of the soldiers, craftsmen, and smiths. So only the poorest and least skilled people were left in the land.
15 Nebuchadnezzar took King Jehoiachin, his wives and officials, and the queen mother, to Babylon.
16 He also took seven thousand of the best troops and one thousand craftsmen and smiths, all of whom were strong and fit for war.
17 Then the king of Babylon appointed King Jehoiachin's great-uncle, Mattaniah, to be the next king; and he changed his name to Zedekiah.
18 New king of Judah: Zedekiah His age at the beginning of his reign: 21 years old Length of reign: 11 years, in Jerusalem Mother's name: Hamutal (daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah)
19 Character of his reign: evil, like that of Jehoiakim
20 So the Lord finally, in his anger, destroyed the people of Jerusalem and Judah. But now King Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1 Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon mobilized his entire army and laid siege to Jerusalem, arriving on March 25 of the ninth year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah.
2 The siege continued into the eleventh year of his reign.
3 The last food in the city was eaten on July 24,
4 and that night the king and his troops made a hole in the inner wall and fled out toward the Arabah through a gate that lay between the double walls near the king's garden.
5 The Babylonian troops surrounding the city took out after him and captured him in the plains of Jericho, and all his men scattered.
6 He was taken to Riblah, where he was tried and sentenced before the king of Babylon.
7 He was forced to watch as his sons were killed before his eyes; then his eyes were put out, and he was bound with chains and taken away to Babylon.
8 General Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal bodyguard, arrived at Jerusalem from Babylon on July 22 of the nineteenth year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar.
9 He burned down the Temple, the palace, and all the other houses of any worth.
10 He then supervised the Babylonian army in tearing down the walls of Jerusalem.
11 The remainder of the people in the city and the Jewish deserters who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon were all taken as exiles to Babylon.
12 But the poorest of the people were left to farm the land.
13 The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars of the Temple and the bronze tank and its bases and carried all the bronze to Babylon.
14 They also took all the pots, shovels, firepans, snuffers, spoons, and other bronze instruments used for the sacrifices.
15 The gold and silver bowls, with all the rest of the gold and silver, were melted down to bullion.
16 It was impossible to estimate the weight of the two pillars and the great tank and its bases--all made for the Temple by King Solomon--because they were so heavy.
17 Each pillar was 27 feet high, with an intricate bronze network of pomegranates decorating the 4 1/2-foot capitals at the tops of the pillars.
18 The general took Seraiah, the chief priest, his assistant Zephaniah, and the three Temple guards to Babylon as captives.
19 A commander of the army of Judah, the chief recruiting officer, five of the king's counselors, and sixty farmers, all of whom were discovered hiding in the city,
20 were taken by General Nebuzaradan to the king of Babylon at Riblah,
21 where they were put to the sword and died. So Judah was exiled from its land.
22 Then King Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah (the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan) as governor over the people left in Judah.
23 When the Israeli guerrilla forces learned that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, some of these underground leaders and their men joined him at Mizpah. These included Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah; Johanan, the son of Kareah; Seraiah, the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite; and Jaazaniah, son of Maachathite, and their men.
24 Gedaliah vowed that if they would give themselves up and submit to the Babylonians, they would be allowed to live in the land and would not be exiled.
25 But seven months later, Ishmael, who was a member of the royal line, went to Mizpah with ten men and killed Gedaliah and his court--both the Jews and the Babylonians.
26 Then all the men of Judah and the guerrilla leaders fled in panic to Egypt, for they were afraid of what the Babylonians would do to them.
27 King Jehoiachin was released from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the last month of the thirty-seventh year of his captivity. This occurred during the first year of the reign of King Evil-merodach of Babylon.
28 He treated Jehoiachin kindly and gave him preferential treatment over all the other kings who were being held as prisoners in Babylon.
29 Jehoiachin was given civilian clothing to replace his prison garb, and for as long as he lived, he ate regularly at the king's table.
30 The king also gave him a daily cash allowance for the rest of his life.