The Book of Kings—Book Second

1 And Moab rebelled against Israel after Ahab’s death.

2* And Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his roof-chamber in Samaria, and suffered internal injuries; and he sent men with the commission “Go inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of ʽEkron whether I shall recover from this ailment of mine.” 3 And the Angel of Jehovah told Elijah the Tishbite “Go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and tell them ‘Is it for want of any such thing as a God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of ʽEkron? 4 therefore Jehovah says, The bed you have got into you shall not get out of, but die’”; and Elijah went away.

5 And the messengers went back to him, and he said to them “What does your coming back mean?” 6 and they said to him “A man came up to meet us and said to us ‘Go back to the king who sent you and tell him “Says Jehovah, Is it for want of any such thing as a God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of ʽEkron? therefore the bed you have got into you shall not get out of, but die.”’” 7 And he said to them “What type of man was it that came up to meet you and told you these things?” 8 and they said to him “A hairy man with a leather breechclout tied round him”; and he said “It is Elijah the Tishbite,” 9* and sent a captain of fifty for him, with his fifty.

And he went up to him and found him sitting on a mountaintop, and told him “Man of God, the king has spoken: come down.” 10 And Elijah answered the captain of fifty “Well, if I am a man of God, let fire come down out of the sky and consume you and your fifty”; and it did.

11 And he tried again and sent another captain of fifty for him, with his fifty; and he told him “Man of God, by order of the king, come down at once”; 12 and Elijah answered him “If I am a man of God, let fire come down out of the sky and consume you and your fifty”; and it did.

13 And he tried again and sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty; and the third captain of fifty came and knelt in Elijah’s presence and made his petition to him in the words “Man of God, please regard my life and the lives of these servants of yours as of value; 14 fire has come down out of the sky and consumed the two other captains of fifties; but now regard my life as of value.” 15 And the Angel of Jehovah told Elijah “Go down with him, do not be afraid of him”; and he rose and went down with him to the king, 16 and told him “Says Jehovah, Since you sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub the god of ʽEkron, therefore the bed you have got into you shall not get out of, but die.” 17 And he died in accordance with Jehovah’s prediction that Elijah gave.

18* And as to the rest of the history of Ahaziah, what he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

2 And when Jehovah was taking Elijah up to the sky in a tempest, Elijah and Elishaʽ went out from the Gilgal, 2 and Elijah said to Elishaʽ “Stay here, because Jehovah has sent me to Bethel”; and Elishaʽ said “By Jehovah and by your life, I will not leave you”; and they went down to Bethel. 3 And the members of the prophets’ fellowship at Bethel came out to Elishaʽ and said to him “Do you know that today Jehovah is taking away your master from over you?” and he said “I know it myself: don’t talk.” 4 And Elijah said to him “Elishaʽ, stay here, because Jehovah has sent me to Jericho”; and he said “By Jehovah and by your life, I will not leave you”; and they came to Jericho. 5 And the members of the prophets’ fellowship at Jericho approached Elishaʽ and said to him “Do you know that today Jehovah is taking away your master from over you?” and he said “I know it myself; don’t talk.” 6 And Elijah said to him “Stay here, because Jehovah has sent me to the Jordan”; and he said “By Jehovah and by your life, I will not leave you”; and the two went on. 7 And fifty men, members of the prophets’ fellowship, went and stood opposite at a distance.

And the two stopped by the Jordan; 8 and Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water split apart and the two went across dry-shod. 9 And when they had gone across, Elijah said to Elishaʽ “Ask for what I shall do for you before I am taken from you”; and Elishaʽ said “Let a double portion of your spirit come to me.” 10 And he said “You have asked for a hard thing: if you see me taken from you, have it so; and if not, you shall not.” 11 And as they went on, talking as they went, in came chariots of fire and ponies of fire and separated the two, and Elijah went up to the sky in a tempest, 12 with Elishaʽ looking on and crying out “Father, father, Israel’s chariots and cavalry!”—and he saw no more of him. 13 And he took hold of his clothes and tore them in two.

14 And he took up Elijah’s mantle, which had fallen off him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. And he took Elijah’s mantle which had fallen off him and struck the water, and said “Where is Elijah’s God Jehovah, O where?” and he struck the water, and the water split apart and Elishaʽ went across. 15 And the members of the prophets’ fellowship at Jericho saw it, and said “Elijah’s spirit rests on Elishaʽ,” and came to meet him and put their heads to the ground in reverence to him; 16 and they said to him “Here, your servants have with them fifty stalwart men: let them go and look for your master, in case Jehovah’s spirit should have lifted him away and thrown him on one of the mountains or in one of the valleys.” And he said “You shall not send.” 17 But they urged him till it grew awkward, and he said “Send them”; and they sent fifty men, and they searched three days, but did not find him. 18 And they came back to him, while he was staying at Jericho; and he said to them “Did I not tell you ‘Do not go’?”

19 And the men of the city said to Elishaʽ “Here, the site of the city is good, as you see, but the water is bad and the country goes childless.” 20 And he said “Fetch me a new saucer, and put salt in it”; and they fetched it to him. 21** And he went out to where the water gushed out and threw in salt and said “Says Jehovah, I make this water wholesome: there shall no longer be disease and childlessness from it.” 22 And the water became wholesome and remains so to this day, in accordance with the promise given by Elishaʽ.

23 And he went up from there to Bethel. And as he was on the way up, small boys came out of a city and gibed at him, and said to him “Go up, baldhead; go up, baldhead”; 24* and he turned round and saw them, and cursed them in Jehovah’s name. And two she-bears came out of the Badlands and mangled forty-two children there. 25 And from Bethel he went to Mount Carmel, and from there back to Samaria.

3 And Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the year eighteen of Jehoshaphat as king of Judah, and he reigned twelve years. 2 And he did what displeased Jehovah, only not like his father and mother: he removed the Baal obelisk that his father had made; 3 only he stuck to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; he did not turn from it.

4 And King Meshaʽ of Moab was a breeder of short-legged sheep, and had been paying the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams in wool; 5 but when Ahab died the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 And King Jehoram went out of Samaria on that day and mustered the Israelites and went. 7* And he sent word to King Ahaziah, of Judah “The king of Moab has rebelled against me; will you go to Moab with me for the war?” And he said “Yes, I will do the same as you do, my people the same as your people, my ponies the same as your ponies.”

8 And he said “Which way shall we go up?” and he said “By way of the wilderness of Edom”; 9 and the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom went. And they made a seven days’ circuit; and there was no water for the army and for the beasts in the rear. 10 And the king of Israel said “O, O! Jehovah has called these three kings to give them into the hands of the Moabites!” 11 And the king of Judah said “Is there no prophet of Jehovah’s here for us to inquire of Jehovah from?” and one of the king of Israel’s officers answered “Elishaʽ the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on Elijah’s hands.” 12 And the king of Judah said “He has Jehovah’s word with him”; and the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom went down to him.

13* And Elishaʽ said to the king of Israel “What business have you with me? go to your father’s prophets and to your mother’s.” And the king of Israel said to him “Do not say that, because Jehovah has called these three kings to give them into the hands of the Moabites.” 14 And Elishaʽ said “By Jehovah of Armies, in whose service I am, if it were not that I am willing to favor the king of Judah I would not look at you nor see you. 15* But now get me a musician.” (When the musician played, Jehovah’s hand would be on him.) 16 And he said “Says Jehovah, Make this arroyo all trenches. 17 For, says Jehovah, you shall not see wind nor rain, but this arroyo shall be filled with water, and you and your armies and your beasts shall drink. 18 And Jehovah looks on this as too trifling a thing: he will give the Moabites into your hands, 19 and you shall sack every fortified city, and fell every good tree, and choke up all springs of water, and gall every piece of good ground with stones.”

20 And in the morning, at the time for making the offering, water was coming from the direction of Edom, and the ground was filled with water. 21 And all the Moabites had heard that the kings had gone up to fight them, and they had come out in arms, everyone who was old enough to wear a belt, and were standing at the boundary; 22 and the first thing in the morning, the sun having risen on the water, the Moabites saw the water over there looking red like blood, 23 and said “That is blood; the kings have been and fallen foul of each other and killed each other off: now to the plunder, Moab!” 24 and they came into the Israelite camp. And the Israelites rose to their feet and attacked the Moabites, and they ran from them. And they went in, killing the Moabites as they went in, 25* and demolishing the cities, and throwing a stone apiece on every lot of good ground and filling it, and choking up every spring of water, and felling every good tree, till they left the walls of Kir-Haresheth standing. But the slingers surrounded it and beat it up; 26 and the king of Moab saw that the fighting was too hard for him, and he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not. 27 And he took his eldest son, who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt-offering on the wall; and there came great wrath over Israel, and they moved away, raising the siege, and went back to their own country.

4 And a certain woman, the widow of a member of the prophets’ fellowship, complained to Elishaʽ “Your servant my husband is dead; and you know your servant was a fearer of Jehovah; and a creditor has come to take my two boys for slaves.” 2 And Elishaʽ said to her “What shall I do for you? Tell me what you have in the house.” And she said “Your servant has nothing at all in the house but a flask of oil.” 3* And he said “Go borrow jars from outside, from all your neighbors—empty jars; don’t scrimp yourself. 4 And go in and shut the door on yourself and your sons, and pour, oil into those jars, and set aside what gets full.” 5 And she went from him and did so; and she shut the door on herself and her sons, they bringing to her and she pouring; 6* and when the jars were full she said to her son “Bring me another jar,” and he said to her “There isn’t any,” and the oil stopped. 7 And she came and told the man of God, and he said “Go sell the oil and pay your debt, and maintain your sons on what is left.”

8* And one day Elishaʽ went over to Shunem; and there was a wealthy woman there, who detained him to take a meal; and it came about that as often as he went past he turned in to take a meal. 9 And she said to her husband “Here, I have found out that he is a holy man of God who is always passing by us: 10* let us make a little upper room on the wall, and put a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp there for him, and have him turn in there when he comes to us.”

11* And one day he came there and turned in to the upper room and slept there. 12 And he said to his man Gehazi “Call this Shunammite lady”; and he called her, and she came standing before him, 13 and he said to him “Say to her ‘Here you have taken all this trouble for us—what has to be done for you? have you occasion for my speaking to the king or the general?’”—and she said “I live among my own people.” 14 And he said “Well, what is there to do for her?” and Gehazi said “Why, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 15 And he said “Call her”; and he called her, and she came standing in the doorway, 16* and he said “At this season next year you shall be embracing a son”; and she said “Don’t, sir, don’t lie to your servant.” 17 And the woman conceived, and had a son at the season Elishaʽ had promised her.

18 And the child grew; and one day he went out to his father where the reapers were. 19 And he said to his father “My head, my head!” and he said to a man “Carry him to his mother.” 20 And he took him up and brought him to his mother; and he sat in her lap till noon, and then died. 21 And she went up and laid him on the man of God’s bed, and shut the door on him, 22 and went out and called to her husband “Send me one of the boys and one of the donkeys, to make a quick run to the man of God and back.” 23 And he said “How is it you are going to him? it is neither new moon nor sabbath today”; but she said “It is all right.” 24 And she saddled the donkey and said to her boy “Drive ahead; do not slow down the pace unless I tell you to”; 25 and off she went, and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. And when the man of God saw her in the distance he said to his man Gehazi “Here is yonder Shunammite lady: 26 now run to meet her, and ask her ‘Are you all right? is your husband all right? is the child all right?’” And she said “Yes,” 27 and came to the mountain to the man of God and took hold of his feet. And Gehazi approached to push her away; but the man of God said “Let her alone, because she has an aching heart and Jehovah has left me in the dark and not told me.” 28 And she said “Did I ask you for a son, sir? didn’t I say ‘don’t delude me’?”

29 And he said to Gehazi “Belt yourself up and take my staff in your hand, and go: when you find a man do not bless him, and when a man blesses you do not answer him; and lay my staff on the boy’s face.” 30 And the boy’s mother said “By Jehovah and by your life, I will not leave you”; and he rose and followed her. 31 And Gehazi went over before them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but he made no sound and took no notice; and he came back to meet him and told him the boy had not waked up.

32 And Elishaʽ came to the house and found the boy dead, lying on his bed. 33 And he went in and shut the door on the two of them, and prayed to Jehovah; 34 and he got up on the bed and lay down on the child, and laid his mouth on his, and his eyes on his, and his hands on his, and crouched over him; and the child’s flesh grew warm. 35* And he walked again the length of the house and back, and got up and crouched over him; and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. 36 And he called Gehazi and said “Call this Shunammite lady”; and he called her, and she came to him, and he said “Take up your son.” 37 And she went in and threw herself down at his feet and put her head to the ground in reverence, and took up her son and went out.

38 And Elishaʽ went back to the Gilgal, and the famine was in the country. And the members of the prophets’ fellowship were sitting before him; and he said to his man “Put the great pot on and stew a mess for the fellowship.” 39*** And one went out on the range to gather greens, and found a vine and gathered his cloak full of gourds from it, and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, because they did not know them. 40 And they poured it out for the men; and when they ate some of the stew they cried out “There is death in the pot, man of God,” and could not eat it. 41 And he said “Then get meal”; and he threw it into the pot and said “Pour out for the people and let them eat”; and there was no harm in the pot.

42* And a man came from Baal-Shalishah and brought the man of God firstfruit-bread, twenty barley cakes and green ears of grain, in his sack; and he said “Give it to the people to eat.” 43 And his attendant said “What, set this before a hundred men?” but he said “Give it to the people and let them eat, for Jehovah says it will be a case of eating and leaving.” 44 And he set it before them, and they ate and left, in accordance with Jehovah’s promise.

5 And Naʽaman, the general of the Syrians, was an important man at court and influential, because by him Jehovah had given victory to Syria; and the man became a leper. 2 And the Syrians had gone out on raids and carried off out of the country of Israel a little girl, who had come into the service of Naʽaman’s wife; 3 and she said to her mistress “I wish master was before the prophet in Samaria, then he would restore him from his leprosy”; 4 and he went in and told his sovereign “The girl out of the country of Israel spoke thus and so.” 5 And the king of Syria said “Go ahead, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” And he went, and took with him ten hundredweight of silver and three thousand ounces of gold and ten suits of clothes; 6 and he brought the letter to the king of Israel, “and now, when this letter comes to you, here I have sent my officer Naʽaman to you for you to restore him from his leprosy.”

7 And when the king of Israel read the letter he tore his clothes and said “Am I God, to send death and life, that this man is sending to me to restore a man from his leprosy? do just see for yourselves how he is picking a quarrel with me.” 8 And when Elishaʽ heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes he sent word to the king “Why have you torn your clothes? let him come to me and he shall know there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 And Naʽaman came with his ponies and his chariots and halted at the door of Elishaʽ’s house; 10 and Elishaʽ sent word to him “Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and you shall have your flesh renew itself and become clean.” 11* And Naʽaman was incensed, and went off saying “Here I thought he was going to come out to me and stand and call on the name of his God and make passes with his hand and restore the leprous. 12* Are not Damascus’s rivers Abana and Parpar better than all the waters of Israel? might I not bathe in them and be clean?”—and he turned round and went off in an angry mood. 13* But his servants approached and spoke to him, saying “If the prophet had told you a great thing you would do it, would you not? how much more when he says to you ‘Bathe and be clean’!” 14 And he went down and dipped in the Jordan seven times in accordance with Elishaʽ’s words, and his flesh renewed itself like a little child’s and he became clean.

15 And he went back to Elishaʽ, he and all his brigade, and went in and stood before him and said “There, I have found out that there is no God anywhere on earth except in Israel: accept a token of goodwill from your servant.” 16 But he said “By Jehovah, in whose service I am, I will not.” And he urged him to accept it, but he refused. 17 And Naʽaman said “If not, let your servant be given a mule-team-load of earth; for your servant will no longer make burnt-offerings or sacrifices to other gods than Jehovah. 18* For this matter may Jehovah pardon your servant, when my sovereign goes into Rimmon’s house to do reverence there, leaning on my arm, and I do reverence in Rimmon’s house when he does reverence in Rimmon’s house, may Jehovah pardon your servant in this matter.” 19 And he said to him “Go, and good betide you”; and he went from him a considerable way.

20 And Elishaʽ’s man Gehazi said “Here my master has let off this Syrian Naʽaman, not taking at his hands what he brought; by Jehovah, but I will run after him and have something from him”; 21* and Gehazi gave chase to Naʽaman. And Naʽaman saw him running after him, and dropped from his chariot to meet him and said “Is all well?” 22* And he said “All is well. My master has sent me to say ‘Here there have just now come to me two young men from the highland of Ephraim, members of the prophets’ fellowship; please give me a hundredweight of silver for them.” 23*** And Naʽaman said “Do take two hundredweight,” and urged him, and tied up two hundredweight of silver in two bags and gave it to his two servants, and they carried it before him. 24 And he came to the castle hill and took it out of their hands and stowed it in the house, and dismissed the men; and they went away, 25* and he went in and stood before his master. And Elishaʽ said to him “Where have you been, Gehazi?” and he said “Your servant did not go anywhere at all.” 26** And he said to him “No? my mind went when a man turned from his chariot to meet you. And now you have got the silver, and you have got clothes and olive-trees and vineyards and sheep and cattle and slaves— 27 and Naʽaman’s leprosy, sticking to you and your descendants forever.” And he went out from before him a snowy leper.

6 And the members of the prophets’ fellowship said to Elishaʽ “The place where we are living before you is too cramped for us; 2 let us go to the Jordan and get one timber apiece there and make ourselves a residence there.” And he said “Go.” 3 And one said “Do go with your servants”; and he said “I will,” 4 and went with them; and they came to the Jordan and cut the wood. 5* And as one was felling a timber the iron ax-head dropped into the water; and he cried out “O, O, sir! and it was borrowed!” 6* And the man of God said “Where did it fall?” and he showed him the place. And he cut a stick and threw it there, and it made the iron float; 7 and he said “Pick it up,” and he put out his hand and took it.

8* And the king of Syria was at war with Israel; and he concerted a plan with his officers, telling them “You will post yourselves in such and such a place,” 9 and Elishaʽ sent word to the king of Israel “Keep away from this place, because the Syrians are posted there,” 10 and the king of Israel sent to the place Elishaʽ had told him of; and he warned him, and he kept away from there, not once or twice. 11 And the king of Syria was in a fume over this, and called his officers and said to them “Will you not tell me which of our people is for the king of Israel?” 12 and one of his officers said “No, your majesty, but Elishaʽ, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel the things you say in your bedroom.” 13* And he said “Go and see where he is, so that I can send and get him”; and they reported to him “He is at Dothan.” 14 And he sent there ponies and chariots and a formidable force, who came by night and encircled the city; 15* and when Elishaʽ rose and went out the first thing in the morning he found troops surrounding the city, and ponies and chariots; and his man said to him “O, O, sir, what shall we do?” 16 But he said “Do not be afraid, because there are more on our side than on theirs.” 17 And Elishaʽ prayed “Jehovah, open his eyes so that he will see”; and Jehovah opened the man’s eyes so that he saw, and he found the mountain full of ponies with chariots of fire around Elishaʽ.

18 And they came down to him; and Elishaʽ prayed to Jehovah “Strike these heathens with an illusion”; and he struck them with an illusion in accordance with Elishaʽ’s word. 19 And Elishaʽ said to them “This is not the way nor the city; follow me and I will take you to the man you are looking for”—and he took them to Samaria. 20 And when they came into Samaria Elishaʽ said “Jehovah, open these men’s eyes so that they will see”; and Jehovah opened their eyes so that they saw, and they found themselves in the middle of Samaria. 21 And the king of Israel said, when he saw them, “Shall I kill, shall I kill, father?” 22 But he said “You shall not; do you kill those whom you have taken prisoners by your sword and your bow? set bread and water before them and let them eat and drink and go to their sovereign.” 23 And he brought out a great collation for them, and they ate and drank; and he sent them off to their sovereign. And no more Syrian raiders came into the country of Israel.

24 And after this King Ben-Hadad of Syria gathered his entire army and came up and besieged Samaria. 25* And there was a great famine in Samaria: they besieged it till a donkey’s head was priced at eighty shekels of silver and a pint of pigeons’ droppings at five shekels. 26 And as the king of Israel was passing along the wall, a woman called out to him “Help, your majesty!” 27 And he said “Jehovah help you not! how should I help you? out of the threshing-floor or the winepress?” 28 And the king said to her “What is the matter?” and she said “This woman said to me ‘Let us have your son to eat today, and we will eat mine tomorrow’; 29 and we boiled my son and ate him. And next day I said to her ‘Let us have your son to eat,’ and she hid her son.” 30 And when the king heard the woman’s story he tore his clothes as he was passing along the wall, and the people saw that he had a sackcloth underneath on his flesh. 31* And he said “God do so to me, and more, if Elishaʽ the son of Shaphat keeps his head on his shoulders today”; 32*** and Elishaʽ was sitting in his house, and the elders sitting with him. And he sent one of the men he had before him; but when the messenger had not yet come to him he said to the elders “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take off my head? Look here: when the messenger comes, shut the door in his face; can you not hear his master’s feet behind him?” 33* While he was still speaking with them the king made his appearance, and said “Here we have from Jehovah this disaster, why should I wait for Jehovah any longer?”

7* But Elishaʽ said “Listen to Jehovah’s word. Says Jehovah, Right away tomorrow, farina twelve quarts for a shekel and barley three pecks for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.” 2* And the adjutant on whose arm the king leaned answered Elishaʽ “Here is Jehovah making hatchways in the sky! will any such thing happen?” and he said “You will find yourself looking on at it but not eating any of it.”

3 And there were four men on the outside of the gate, lepers; and they said to each other “What are we sitting here till we die for? 4 If we think we will go into the city, when the famine is in the city, then we die there; and if we stay here, then we die; come on now, let us desert to the Syrian camp: if they spare our lives we shall live, and if they put us to death, then we die”; 5 and they rose in the morning twilight to go to the Syrian camp. And they came to the edge of the Syrian camp and found that there was not a man there, 6 but the Lord had caused the Syrian army to hear a sound of chariots and of ponies, the sound of a large body of troops, and they had said to each other “Here the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us”— 7* and they had made off in the morning twilight and left their tents and their donkeys, the camp as it was, and fled for their lives. 8 And these lepers came to the edge of the camp and went into a tent and ate and drank, and took away from there silver and gold and clothes and went and buried them, and went back and went into another tent and took things away from there and went and buried them.

9* And they said to each other “We are not doing right: this is a day of good news, and we are lying still and shall be waiting till morning daylight and suffering for it. Come on now, let us report to the palace.” 10* And they came and called to the city gatemen, and told them “We have gone into the Syrian camp and found not a man there, nor a human sound, but the ponies tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.” 11 And the gatemen called out and reported it to the palace inside; 12 and the king got up in the night and said to his officers “Let me tell you what the Syrians have done with us: they know we are starving, and they have gone out of the camp to hide out in the country, thinking ‘When they come out of the city we shall capture them alive and get into the city.’” 13* But one of his officers answered “Then let them get out half a dozen of the remaining ponies that are left here—they are just like all the drove that are gone—and let us send and see.” 14 And they got out two teams of ponies, and the king sent them after the Syrian army, telling them “Go and see”; 15 and they went after them to the Jordan, and found all the road full of clothes and things that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste; and the messengers came back and reported to the king.

16 And the people went out and plundered the Syrian camp; and farina was twelve quarts for a shekel, and barley three pecks for a shekel, in accordance with Jehovah’s promise. 17* And the king put in charge of the gate the adjutant on whose arm he had leaned; and the people trampled him to death in the gate, as the man of God had predicted when the king came down to him. 18 As the man of God had said to the king “Barley shall be three pecks for a shekel, and farina twelve quarts for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria right away tomorrow,” 19* and the adjutant had answered the man of God “But here is Jehovah making hatchways in the sky; will such a thing as this happen?” and he had said “You are to see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it,” 20 so it befell him: the people trampled him to death in the gate.

8 And Elishaʽ had told the woman whose son he had brought to life “Off with you, you and your family, and live abroad wherever you may, because Jehovah announces a famine”; and it did come upon the country for seven years. 2 And the woman bestirred herself and did in accordance with the words of the man of God, and went, she and her family, and lived abroad in the Philistine country seven years. 3** And at the end of seven years the woman came back from the Philistine country, and went out to appeal to the king for her house and her land. 4 And the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and saying “Tell me all the miracles Elishaʽ did”; 5 and he was telling the king how Elishaʽ raised the dead, when the woman whose son he had raised made her appearance appealing to the king for her house and her land; and Gehazi said “Your majesty, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elishaʽ raised.” 6* And the king questioned the woman, and she told him the story; and the king gave her an official with the commission “Restore everything that belonged to her, and all the produce of the land from the day she left the country till now.”

7 And Elishaʽ came to Damascus. And King Ben-Hadad of Syria was sick; and he was told “The man of God is arriving here.” 8* And the king said to Hazael “Take with you a present and go to meet the man of God and inquire of Jehovah through him whether I shall recover from this sickness of mine”; 9 and Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, and forty camel-loads of all the best there was in Damascus, and came and stood before him and said “Your son King Ben-Hadad of Syria sends me to you with the question ‘Shall I recover from this sickness of mine?’” 10 And Elishaʽ said to him “Go tell him ‘You will.’ But Jehovah has showed me that he will die”; 11 and he stood aghast, with a fixed stare, till Hazael grew uncomfortable. And the man of God wept; 12* and Hazael said “How is it that you weep, sir?” and he said “Because I know what you will do to the sons of Israel: you will set fire to their fortified cities, and kill their young men in warfare, and dash out their children’s brains, and cut open their pregnant women.” 13* And Hazael said “But what is a dog like your servant, to do this great thing?” and Elishaʽ said “Jehovah has showed me you king over Syria.” 14 And he went away from Elishaʽ and went in to his sovereign; and he said to him “What did Elishaʽ tell you?” and he said “He told me you would recover.” 15* And on the next day he took the coverlet and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, and he died, and Hazael succeeded him.

16 And in the year five of Jehoram the son of Ahab as king of Israel, Jehoram the son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah became king. 17 He was thirty-two years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned eight years at Jerusalem. 18 And he followed the path of the kings of Israel, as the family of Ahab did, because he had Ahab’s daughter for his wife; and he did what displeased Jehovah. 19* And Jehovah was not willing to make away with Judah on account of his servant David, as he had told him he would give him a lamp before him through all time. 20 In his time Edom rebelled against the jurisdiction of Judah, and set up a king over themselves; 21* and Jehoram went over to Saghir, and all the chariots with him. And he rose in the night and defeated the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of the chariots; but the people fled to their homes, 22* and Edom is in rebellion against the jurisdiction of Judah to this day. Libnah rebelled then, at that time. 23 And as to the rest of the history of Jehoram, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 24 And Jehoram went to rest with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in David’s City; and his son Ahaziah succeeded him.

25 In the year twelve of Jehoram the son of Ahab as king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of King Jehoram of Judah began to reign. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned one year at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was ʽAthaliah the daughter of King ʽOmri of Israel. 27 And he followed the path of the family of Ahab, and did what displeased Jehovah like the family of Ahab, because he had married into Ahab’s family. 28* And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to war with King Hazael of Syria at Ramoth-Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram. 29 And King Joram went back to recover at Jezreʽel from the wounds the Syrians had given him in his fighting with King Hazael of Syria; and Ahaziah the son of Joram went down to see Joram at Jezreʽel, because he was sick.

9 And the prophet Elishaʽ called one of the members of the prophets’ fellowship and said to him “Belt yourself up and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth-Gilead; 2* and when you get there find out Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi there, and go in and have him get up from among his mates, and take him into a closet 3 and take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say ‘Says Jehovah, I anoint you king over Israel,’ and open the door and be off without waiting.” 4 And the young man (the prophet) went to Ramoth-Gilead, 5 and when he got there he found the captains of the army sitting together, and said “I have an errand to you, captain.” And Jehu said “To which of us all?” and he said “You, captain”; 6 and he rose and went into the house. And he poured the oil on his head and said to him “Says Jehovah the God of Israel, I anoint you king over Israel, Jehovah’s people; 7 and you shall kill off the family of your master Ahab, and I will make Jezebel 8 and all Ahab’s family pay for the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the Jehovah-worshipers, and will exterminate every male person that belongs to Ahab, barred and unbarred in Israel, 9 and make Ahab’s family like the families of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and Baʽasha the son of Ahijah; 10 and Jezebel the dogs shall eat on Jezreʽel common, with nobody burying her”—and he opened the door and was off.

11 And Jehu went out to the officers, and they said to him “Is everything all right? how came this lunatic to come to you?” And he said to them “You know the man and his concern.” 12 And they said “You lie; tell us.” And he said “He said like this to me: ‘Says Jehovah, I anoint you king over Israel.’” 13 And in haste they took their cloaks and laid them under him on the bare steps and blew the ram-horn and said “Jehu is king!” 14 And Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi organized a revolution against Joram. Joram had been in garrison at Ramoth-Gilead, he and all Israel, for fear of King Hazael of Syria; 15 but Joram had gone back to recover at Jezreʽel from the wounds the Syrians had given him in his fighting with King Hazael of Syria.

And Jehu said “If it is your mind, let nobody get out of the city to go and tell at Jezreʽel”; 16 and Jehu rode off to Jezreʽel, for Joram was abed there, and King Ahaziah of Judah had come down to see Joram. 17 And there was a watchman standing on the tower at Jezreʽel; and he saw Jehu’s cloud of dust as he came, and said “I see a cloud of dust”; and Joram said “Get a chariot-rider and send him to meet them and say “Is all well?” 18 And a pony-rider went to meet him and said “Says the king, Is all well?” and Jehu said “What business of yours is all’s being well? turn in behind me.” And the watchman reported “The messenger came to them and did not come back”; 19 and he sent a second pony-rider, and he came to them and said “Says the king, All well?” and Jehu said “What business of yours is all’s being well? turn in behind me.” 20 And the watchman reported “He came to them and did not come back; and the driving is like Jehu the son of Nimshi’s driving, for he drives furiously.”

21 And Joram said “Harness!” and his chariot was harnessed, and King Joram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah went out in their chariots to meet Jehu. And they met him on Naboth the Jezreʽelite’s lot; 22 and when Joram saw Jehu he said “Is all well, Jehu?” and he said “What is all well while your mother Jezebel’s loose living and witchcraft go on at such a rate?” 23 And Joram turned his ponies and fled, saying to Ahaziah “Treachery, Ahaziah!” 24* but Jehu drew an arrow to the head and hit Joram between the shoulders, the arrow coming out at his heart, and he collapsed in his chariot. 25 And he said to his adjutant Bidkar “Take him up and throw him into Naboth the Jezreʽelite’s lot; because I remember you and I were riding paired behind his father Ahab, and Jehovah pronounced this sentence on him, 26 ‘I did see the blood of Naboth and of his sons yesterday, quoth Jehovah, and I will pay you back in this lot, quoth Jehovah’; now take him up and throw him into the lot as Jehovah said.”

27 And King Ahaziah of Judah saw it and fled toward Beth-hag-Gan; and Jehu pursued him and said “Him too,” and they hit him in the chariot going up Gur Hill near Ibleam; and he got away to Megiddo, and died there. 28 And his officers took him to Jerusalem in the chariot and buried him in his grave in David’s City. 29 It was in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab that Ahaziah came to the throne of Judah.

30 And Jehu came to Jezreʽel; and Jezebel had heard, and she put antimony round her eyes and did up her hair and looked out of the window 31 as Jehu was coming in at the gate, and said “Is all well, Zimri that killed his master?” 32 And he turned up his face to the window and said “Who is with me, who?” and two or three eunuchs looked out. 33 And he said “Fling her down”; and they flung her down, and drops of her blood splashed on the wall and on the ponies, and they trampled her. 34 And he went in and ate and drank, and said “Look after that cursed creature and bury her, because she was a princess”; 35 and they went to bury her, but found nothing of her but the skull and legs and hands. 36 And they went back and told him, and he said “It is Jehovah’s prediction that he made by Elijah the Tishbite, ‘On the common of Jezreʽel dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; 37 and Jezebel’s carcass shall be like dung lying out on the range, nobody saying “This is Jezebel.”’”

10 And there were seventy sons of Ahab’s at Samaria; and Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the captains of the city and the elders and the foster-fathers of Ahab’s sons, reading 2 “And now, when this letter reaches you, you having with you your sovereign’s sons, and the chariots and ponies, and a fortified city, and the arsenal, 3 pick out the best and most suitable of your sovereign’s sons and set him on his father’s throne and fight for your sovereign’s house.” 4 But they were very badly afraid, and said “Here the two kings did not stand before him, and how should we?” 5 and the steward of the palace and the provost of the city and the elders and the foster-fathers sent to Jehu “We are your subjects and will do whatever you tell us; we will not make anybody king; do as you think best.” 6** And he wrote them a second letter, “If you are for me and will obey me, take the heads of your sovereign’s sons and come to me at Jezreʽel right away tomorrow.”

And the princes, seventy men, were with the wealthiest men of the city, who were bringing them up. 7 And when the letter reached them they took the princes and cut their throats, seventy men, and put their heads in baskets and sent to him at Jezreʽel; 8 and men came and told him “They have brought the princes’ heads,” and he said “Put them in two piles at the gate till morning.” 9 And in the morning he went out and stood and said to all the people “You are honest men; here I plotted against my sovereign and killed him—and who killed all these? 10 Take it for a fact that no part of Jehovah’s prediction that he made against Ahab’s family shall fall to the ground, and Jehovah has done what he predicted by his servant Elijah.” 11 And Jehu killed all that were left in Jezreʽel of Ahab’s family, and all his kinsmen and intimates and priests, till he had left no survivor to him; 12 and off he went to Samaria. 13* He was at Beth-ʽEked-ha-Roʽim on the road when he found the brothers of King Ahaziah of Judah; and he said “Who are you?” and they said “We are Ahaziah’s brothers, and have come down to pay a visit to the princes.” 14 And he said “Take them alive”; and they took them alive, and cut their throats and let the blood run into the Beth-ʽEked cistern, forty-two men; he did not leave a man of them.

15* And he went on from there, and found Jonadab the son of Recab coming to meet him; and he greeted him with a blessing. And he said to him “Is your heart squarely with me as mine is with yours?” (And Jonadab said “It is.”) “That being so, give me your hand”; and he gave him his hand, and he took him up into the chariot where he was, 16 and said “Come with me and see my jealousy for Jehovah.” And he carried him with him in the chariot, 17 and came to Samaria and killed all of Ahab’s blood that were left in Samaria till he rooted out the line in accordance with Jehovah’s prediction which he had made to Elijah.

18 And Jehu gathered all the people and said to them “Ahab worshiped the Baal on a small scale; Jehu will do it on a great scale; 19 now summon to me all the Baal’s prophets and priests, let not a man be missing, because I have a big sacrifice to kill for the Baal; anyone who is not in his place shall not live”; but Jehu was playing a trick in order to destroy the Baal-worshipers. 20 And Jehu said “Ordain a national holiday for the Baal”; and they called it, 21 and Jehu sent throughout Israel, and all the Baal-worshipers came, not a man being left who did not, and went into the Baal’s house, and the Baal’s house was filled from portal to portal. 22 And Jehu said to the vesturer “Bring out clothes for all the worshipers of the Baal”; and he brought out clothes for them. 23 And Jehu and Jonadab the son of Recab went into the Baal’s house, and he said to the Baal-worshipers “Search and see that there are none of the Jehovah-worshipers here with you, but only Baal-worshipers”; 24* and they went in to make sacrifices and burnt-offerings. And Jehu had stationed eighty men outside, and had said “Whoever allows any of the men I turn over to you to escape, his life goes in place of his.” 25* And when he had finished making the burnt-offering, Jehu said to the runners and the adjutants “Come in! down with them! let no one get out!” and they massacred them and threw them on the ground, and went clear to the wall of the Baal’s house. 26** And they brought out the obelisk of the Baal and burned it; 27 and they pulled down the Baal’s house and made it a site of latrines, which it is until today. 28 And Jehu rooted out the Baal from Israel; 29 only the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, Jehu did not turn from following—the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan.

30 And Jehovah said to Jehu “Since you did what I approve and did it well, did to Ahab’s family just as I had in mind, great-great-grandchildren of yours shall sit on the throne of Israel.” 31 But Jehu did not take care to go by the code of Israel’s God Jehovah with all his heart; he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin.

32* In those days Jehovah began to be tired of Israel, and Hazael made havoc of them in all Israel’s territory 33 from the Jordan eastward, all the country of Gilead, the Gadites and the Reubenites and the Manassites, from ʽAroʽer by Arnon Arroyo on, and Gilead and the Bashan.

34 And as to the rest of the history of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his exploits, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 35 And Jehu went to rest with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria; and his son Jehoahaz succeeded him. 36 And the time that Jehu had reigned over Israel was twenty-eight years, at Samaria.

11 And Ahaziah’s mother ʽAthaliah saw that her son was dead, and she stood up and destroyed all of the royal blood. 2 But King Joram’s daughter Jehoshebaʽ, Abaziah’s sister, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and spirited him away from among the princes who were being dispatched, and put him and his nurse in the bedding-closet, and they concealed him from ʽAthaliah and he was not put to death. 3 And he was with her in Jehovah’s house in hiding for six years, and ʽAthaliah reigned over the country.

4** And in the seventh year Jehojadaʽ sent and fetched the captains of the Carians and the runners and had them come to him in Jehovah’s house, and he made an agreement with them and had them swear by Jehovah’s house, and let them see the prince; 5* and he gave them orders, “This is the thing you are to do; the third of you that go in on the sabbath and keep guard at the palace, 6 —— 7* and the two thirds of you that all come out on the sabbath and keep guard at Jehovah’s house, 8* shall encircle the king weapon in hand, and whoever comes in up to the cordon shall be put to death; be with the king when he goes out and when he goes in.” 9* And the captains did just as Jehojadaʽ ordered them, and each fetched his men, those who went in on the sabbath with those who came out on the sabbath, and came to Priest Jehojadaʽ, 10 and the priest gave the captains the spears and bucklers that had belonged to King David, that were in Jehovah’s house, 11* and the runners stood weapon in hand from the southeast corner of the house to the northeast corner, for the altar and the house, around the king; 12* and he brought out the prince and put on him the diadem and the armlets, and they declared him king and anointed him, and clapped their hands and said “Long live the king!”

13 And ʽAthaliah heard the voices of the people, and came to the people in Jehovah’s house 14 and saw the scene: there was the king standing by the pillar according to usage, and the captains and the trumpets beside the king, and all the populace rejoicing and blowing trumpets; and ʽAthaliah tore her garments and cried out “Treason! treason!” 15 And Priest Jehojadaʽ gave orders to the captains, the officers of the forces, “Let her out inside the cordon, and put to the sword anyone that goes in after her”; for the priest thought “She must not be put to death in Jehovah’s house.” 16* And they stood away from her, and she went into the driveway to the palace and was put to death there.

17* And Jehojadaʽ made a covenant between Jehovah and the king and the people, that they should be Jehovah’s people and for constitutional relations between the king and the people. 18 And all the populace went into the Baal’s house and tore it down, thoroughly broke to pieces its altars and images, and killed Mattan, the priest of the Baal, in front of the altars. 19 And the priest set guards over Jehovah’s house, and took the captains and the Carians and the runners and the whole populace, and they brought the king down from Jehovah’s house and into the palace by way of the runners’ gate, and he took his seat on the royal throne; 20 and all the populace rejoiced, and the city quieted down; and ʽAthaliah they put to death by the sword in the palace.

21 Joash was seven years old at his accession to the throne,

12 and reigned forty years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Sibjah, from Beer-Shebaʽ. 2 And Joash did what Jehovah approved all his life, Priest Jehojadaʽ instructing him. 3 Only the heights were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made burnings on the heights.

4 And Joash said to the priests “All the sacred money that is brought to Jehovah’s house in cash, each man’s tax on polls and all the money that each voluntarily brings to Jehovah’s house, 5 the priests are to take for themselves, each from his acquaintances, and they are to repair the damages of the house, whatever part damages are found in.” 6 But in the year twenty-three of King Joash the priests had not repaired the damages of the house, 7 and King Joash summoned Priest Jehojadaʽ and the priests and said to them “How comes it you are not repairing the damages of the house? now you are not to take money from your acquaintances, but to let us have it for the damages of the house.” 8 And the priests agreed to not taking money from the people and not repairing the damages of the house.

9* And Priest Jehojadaʽ took a chest and bored a hole in its lid and put it beside the altar on the right as a man goes into Jehovah’s house, and there the priests who acted as threshold-keepers put all the money that was brought to Jehovah’s house. 10 And when they saw that there was a great amount of money in the chest the king’s secretary for documents and the high priest came up and wrapped and counted the money that was found in Jehovah’s house. 11 And they put the appropriated money into the hands of the contractors employed on Jehovah’s house, and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders that worked on Jehovah’s house 12 and to the masons and stonecutters and for buying wood and dressed stone to repair the damages of the house, and for all expenses on the house for repairing; 13 only there were not made in Jehovah’s house silver basins, snuffers, bowls, any articles of gold or of silver, out of the money that was brought to Jehovah’s house, 14 but it was given to the contractors, and they repaired Jehovah’s house with it. 15* And no accounts were demanded from the men into whose hands the money was put to be given to the workmen, but they worked on honor. 16 Money paid in expiation for guilt or propitiation for sin was not brought to Jehovah’s house; it belonged to the priests.

17* Then King Hazael of Syria came up and attacked Gath, and took it; and Hazael faced toward Jerusalem. 18 And King Joash of Judah took all the sacred things dedicated by his ancestors Kings Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah of Judah, and by him himself, and all the gold to be found in the treasuries of Jehovah’s house and of the royal palace, and sent it to King Hazael of Syria, and he withdrew from his campaign against Jerusalem.

19 And as to the rest of the history of Joash, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 20* And his officer entered into a conspiracy, and killed Joash at Beth-Millo that goes down to Silla; 21 and it was his officers Jozacar the son of Shimeath and Jozabad the son of Shomer who killed him. And they buried him with his fathers in David’s City, and his son Amasiah succeeded him.

13 In the year twenty-three of Joash the son of Ahaziah as king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu became king over Israel for a reign of seventeen years at Samaria; 2 and he did what displeased Jehovah, and followed the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; he did not turn from it. 3 And Jehovah was angry with Israel, and he gave them into the hands of King Hazael of Syria, and Hazael’s son Ben-Hadad, all the time. 4 And Jehoahaz took steps to propitiate Jehovah; and Jehovah listened to him, because he saw Israel’s oppressed condition, for the king of Syria had crowded them hard; 5 and Jehovah gave Israel a deliverer, who brought them out from under the hand of Syria, and the sons of Israel lived in their homes as they used to. 6 (Only they did not turn from the sin of the family of Jeroboam who made Israel sin; they walked in it, and the asherah too was standing in Samaria.) 7 For he had not left to Jehoahaz any men but fifty horsemen and ten chariots and ten thousand infantry; for the king of Syria had destroyed them and taken them for dust to trample on.

8 And as to the rest of the history of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his exploits, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 9 And Jehoahaz went to rest with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria; and his son Joash succeeded him.

10 In the year thirty-nine of Joash as king of Judah, Joash the son of Jehoahaz became king over Israel for a reign of sixteen years at Samaria; 11 and he did what displeased Jehovah, he did not turn from all the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; in it he walked. 12 And as to the rest of the history of Joash, and all that he did, and his exploits of fighting with King Amasiah of Judah, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 13 And Joash went to rest with his fathers, and his son Jeroboam took his seat on his throne; and Joash was buried at Samaria with the kings of Israel.

14 And Elishaʽ was taken with his last illness; and King Joash of Israel went down and shed tears over his face and said “Father, father, Israel’s chariots and cavalry!” 15 And Elishaʽ said to him “Fetch a bow and arrows”; and he fetched a bow and arrows to him. 16* And he said to the king “Take the bow ready for shooting”; and he did, and Elishaʽ put his own hands on the king’s hands. 17** And he said “Open the window”; and it was opened, and Elishaʽ said “Shoot,” and he shot. And he said “A victory-arrow for Jehovah! a victory-arrow against Syria! you shall defeat the Syrians at Aphek till you finish them.” 18 And he said “Take the arrows,” and he did; and he said to the king “Strike on the ground,” and he struck three times and stopped. 19 And the man of God was incensed against him, and said “Striking five or six times, then you would have defeated the Syrians till you had finished them; but now you are to defeat the Syrians three times.” 20* And Elishaʽ died, and they buried him.

And the raiders from Moab were coming into the country; 21 and they were burying a man, when they saw the raiders and threw the man into Elishaʽ’s tomb and went off; and the man touched Elishaʽ’s bones and came to life and stood up on his feet.

22* And King Hazael of Syria crowded the Israelites hard throughout the life of Jehoahaz; 23* and Hazael took Philistia out of his hands fro the western sea to Aphek. And Jehovah was gracious to them and took pity on them and turned toward them, on account of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was not willing to make away with them, and did not throw them aside from before his face; 24 and King Hazael of Syria died, and his son Ben-Hadad succeeded him, 25* and Joash the son of Jehoahaz retook out of the hands of Hazael’s son Ben-Hadad the cities Hazael had taken in war out of the hands of his father Jehoahaz. Three times Joash defeated him, and recovered the Israelite cities.

14 In the year two of Joash the son of Jehoahaz as king of Israel, Amasiah the son of King Joash of Judah became king; 2* he was twenty-five years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned twenty-nine years at Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoʽaddan, from Jerusalem. 3 And he did what Jehovah approved, only not as his father David had: he did just as his father Joash had— 4 only the heights were not removed, the people still sacrificed and made burnings on the heights. 5 And when he had the kingship firmly in his hands, he killed his officers who had killed the king his father, 6 but the assassins’ children he did not put to death, in accordance with what is written in the code of Moses, what Jehovah commanded, “Fathers shall not be put to death for children, nor children for fathers, but each shall be put to death for his own sin.” 7* It was he who defeated Edom in Salt Valley, killing ten thousand, and took Selaʽ by storm and gave it the name Joktheel, which it bears to this day.

8 Then Amasiah sent envoys to Joash the son of Jehoahaz the son of Jehu, the king of Israel, with the message “Come, let us come face to face.” 9* And King Joash of Israel sent word to King Amasiah of Judah “The brier in the Lebanon sent word to the cedar in the Lebanon ‘Give my son your daughter as wife’; and the wild beasts in the Lebanon came by and trampled the brier. 10 You have defeated Edom, and you are feeling confident: enjoy your glory and stay at home; why should you challenge trouble, and fall, and Judah with you?” 11 But Amasiah would not listen; and the king of Israel came up, and they came face to face at Beth-Shemesh, which belongs to Judah. 12 And the Judahites were beaten by the Israelites, and fled to their homes. 13 And King Joash of Israel captured Amasiah the son of Joash the son of Ahaziah at Beth-Shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem and breached the wall of Jerusalem for two hundred yards, from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate. 14 And he took all the gold and silver, and all the articles that were found in Jehovah’s house and in the palace treasuries, and the hostages, and went back to Samaria.

15 And as to the rest of the history of Joash, what he did and his exploits, and the war he had with King Amasiah of Judah, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 16 And Joash went to rest with his fathers, and was buried at Samaria with the kings of Israel, and his son Jeroboam succeeded him.

17 And Amasiah the son of Joash, the king of Judah, lived fifteen years after the death of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, the king of Israel. 18 And as to the rest of the history of Amasiah, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 19 And they organized a revolution against him at Jerusalem; and he fled to Lakish, and they sent to Lakish after him and put him to death there. 20 And they took him away on ponies, and he was buried at Jerusalem in David’s City with his fathers. 21 And all the people of Judah took ʽAzariah, who was sixteen years old, and installed him as successor to his father Amasiah. 22 He fortified Elath, and reannexed it to Judah, after the king had gone to rest with his fathers.

23* In the year fifteen of Amasiah the son of Joash as king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of King Joash of Israel became king for a reign of forty-one years at Samaria; 24 and he did what displeased Jehovah, he did not turn from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 25 He recovered Israel’s territory from Lebo-Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the prediction of Israel’s God Jehovah which he made by his servant the prophet Jonah the son of Amittai, of Gath-Hepher. 26 For Jehovah saw how very bitter was Israel’s wretched state, and how there was nobody unbarred and nobody barred, and no helper for Israel; 27 and Jehovah did not say the word to obliterate Israel’s name from under the heavens, but saved them through Jeroboam the son of Joash.

28* And as to the rest of the history of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his exploits in warring and reannexing Damascus and Hamath to Israel, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 29* And Jeroboam went to rest with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel, and his son Zecariah succeeded him.

15* In the year twenty-seven of King Jeroboam of Israel, ʽAzariah the son of King Amasiah of Judah became king; 2 he was twenty-six years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned fifty-two years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jecoliah, from Jerusalem. 3 And he did what Jehovah approved, just as his father Amasiah had; 4 only the heights were not removed: the people still sacrificed and made burnings on the heights. 5** And Jehovah marred the king, and he became leprous to the day of his death, and lived in the exempt house, while Crown Prince Jotham, as steward of the palace, acted as regent. 6 And as to the rest of the history of ʽAzariah, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 7* And ʽAzariah went to rest with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in David’s City; and his son Jotham succeeded him.

8* In the year thirty-eight of King ʽAzariah of Judah, Zecariah the son of Jeroboam became king over Israel for a reign of six months at Samaria; 9 and he did what displeased Jehovah, as his fathers had; he did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 10 And Shallum the son of Jabesh organized a revolution against him, and assassinated him at Ibleam, and succeeded him. 11 And the rest of the history of Zecariah will be found recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 12 It was Jehovah’s prediction that he had made to Jehu: “great-great-grandchildren of yours shall sit on the throne of Israel,” he had said, and so it was.

13** Shallum the son of Jabesh became king in the year thirty-nine of King ʽAzariah of Judah, and reigned a month at Samaria; 14 but Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirsah and came to Samaria and assassinated Shallum the son of Jabesh at Samaria, and succeeded him. 15 And the rest of the history of Shallum, and his revolution that he organized, will be found recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 16 Then Menahem ravaged Tappuah and everything in it, and all its territory, starting from Tirsah, because they did not open to him: he ravaged it and cut open its pregnant women.

17* In the year thirty-nine of King ʽAzariah of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi became king over Israel for a reign of ten years at Samaria; 18* and he did what displeased Jehovah, did not turn off from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 19 In his time King Pul of Assyria came up against the country, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand hundredweight of silver to have his cooperation for getting the kingship firmly into his hands; 20 and Menahem assessed the money on Israel, on all the solid men, having them give the king of Assyria fifty shekels per man; and the king of Assyria went back and did not stay there in the country. 21 And as to the rest of the history of Menahem, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 22 And Menahem went to rest with his fathers, and his son Pekahiah succeeded him.

23* In the year fifty of King ʽAzariah of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem became king over Israel for a reign of two years at Samaria; 24 and he did what displeased Jehovah, did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 25** And his adjutant Pekah the son of Remaliah organized a revolution against him, and assassinated him in Samaria, in the keep of the palace, having with him fifty men of the sons of Gilead, and succeeded him. 26 And the rest of the history of Pekahiah, and all that he did; will be found recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

27** In the year fifty-two of King ʽAzariah of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah became king over Israel for a reign of twenty years at Samaria. 28 And he did what displeased Jehovah, did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 29 In the times of King Pekah of Israel, King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria came and took ʽIjon and Abel-Beth-Maʽacah and Janoh and Kedesh and Hasor and Gilead and the Marchland, all the country of Naphtali, and deported them to Assyria. 30* And Hosheaʽ the son of Elah organized a revolution against Pekah the son of Remaliah and assassinated him and succeeded him. 31 And the rest of the history of Pekah, and all that he did, will be found recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

32* In the year two of Pekah the son of Remaliah as king of Israel, Jotham the son of King ʽUzzijah of Judah became king; 33 he was twenty-five years old at his accession to the throne, and he reigned sixteen years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Sadok. 34 And he did what Jehovah approved, just as his father ʽUzzijah had; 35 only the heights were not removed: the people still sacrificed and made burnings on the heights. He built the upper gate of Jehovah’s house. 36 And as to the rest of the history of Jotham, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 37 In his days Jehovah began to send upon Judah King Rason of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah. 38 And Jotham went to rest with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in his father David’s city, and his son Ahaz succeeded him.

16* In the year seventeen of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of King Jotham of Judah became king; 2 Ahaz was twenty years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned sixteen years at Jerusalem. And he did not do what his God Jehovah approved as his father David had, 3 but followed the path of the kings of Israel, and sent his son over through the fire besides, in accordance with the detestable ways of the nations Jehovah dispossessed before the sons of Israel, 4 and sacrificed and made burnings at the heights and on the hills and under every verdant tree.

5 Then King Rason of Syria and King Pekah the son of Remaliah of Israel came up to Jerusalem to attack it, and beleaguered Ahaz but could not attack. 6* (At that time the king of Edom reannexed Elath to Edom and cleared the Judahites out of Elath, and Edomites came into Elath and lived there, and are there to this day.) 7 And Ahaz sent envoys to King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria with the message “I am your subject and your son; come up and save me out of the hands of the king of Syria and of the king of Israel, who have come out against me”; 8 and Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in Jehovah’s house and in the palace treasuries and sent it to the king of Assyria as a present. 9* And the king of Assyria listened to him, and came up to Damascus and captured it and deported it to Kir, and put Rason to death.

10* And King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria, and saw the altar at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Priest Urijah the measurements and design of the altar, the complete specifications, 11 and Priest Urijah built the altar: as King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, just so Priest Urijah did, till King Ahaz came from Damascus. 12 And the king came from Damascus, and the king saw the altar, and the king approached the altar and went up it, 13 and burned his burnt-offering and grain-offering and poured his libations, and threw his welfare-sacrifice blood against the altar. 14* And the bronze altar that was before Jehovah he brought on from in front of the house, from between the altar and Jehovah’s house, and put it by the northwest corner of the altar; 15* and King Ahaz gave order to Priest Urijah “On the large altar burn the morning burnt-offering and the evening grain-offering, and the king’s burnt-offering and grain-offering, and the burnt-offerings of all the people and their grain-offerings and libations, and throw against it all burnt-offering blood and sacrifice blood; and the bronze altar shall be for my inspecting,” 16 and Priest Urijah did just as King Ahaz ordered.

17** And the king mutilated the stands and took the borders off them, and the laver; and the sea he took down off the cattle that had been under it and put it on a stone pavement; 18* and the sabbath canopy that they had built in the house, and the king’s outer entrance, he brought round to Jehovah’s house, because of the king of Assyria.

19 And as to the rest of the history of Ahaz, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 20 And Ahaz went to rest with his fathers, and was buried in David’s City; and his son Hezekiah succeeded him.

17** In the year twelve of King Ahaz of Judah, Hosheaʽ the son of Elah became king over Israel for a reign of nine years at Samaria; 2 and he did what displeased Jehovah, yet not like the kings of Israel that had been before him. 3* Against him King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up, and Hosheaʽ became his subject and paid him tribute. 4 But the king of Assyria detected Hosheaʽ in treason, in that he had sent envoys to King Seve of Egypt, and had not sent up tribute to the king of Assyria as he had annually done; and the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him. 5 And the king of Assyria came up all over the country, and came to Samaria and besieged it three years. 6* In the year nine of Hosheaʽ the king of Assyria took Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, in the cities of Media.

7 And because the sons of Israel had sinned against Jehovah, their God that had brought them up out of Egypt, from under the hand of the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and had feared other gods 8 and gone by the usages of the nations Jehovah dispossessed before the sons of Israel, and those of the kings of Israel that they had originated; 9* and the sons of Israel depraved themselves with doing against their God Jehovah things that were not right, and built themselves heights in all their cities, from watchmen’s tower to fortified city, 10 and set up obelisks and asherahs for themselves on every high hill and under every verdant tree, 11* and made burnings there, like the nations Jehovah had removed before them, 12 and established religious prostitutes of both sexes, provoking Jehovah, and worshiped fetishes, the thing of which Jehovah had said to them “You shall not do this”; 13 and Jehovah warned Israel by every prophet and every seer, saying “Turn back from your evil courses and keep my commandments, my usages, in conformity with all the instructions which I prescribed to your fathers and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets”; 14* but they did not listen, but stiffened their necks as had their fathers who had not believed in their God Jehovah, 15 and rejected his usages and his covenant which he had entered into with their fathers, and his lessons which he had inculcated upon them, and ran into superstitions and became slaves to them, and followed the nations around them, whom Jehovah had commanded them not to do like, 16 and left the commandments of their God Jehovah and made themselves statues, two calves, and made an asherah and did reverence to all the legions of the sky and worshiped the Baal; 17 and they sent their children over through the fire, and practiced soothsaying, and believed in signs, and sold themselves to do what displeased Jehovah, provoking him,— 18 Jehovah became very angry with Israel, and removed it from before his face: none at all were left but the tribe of Judah alone. 19 Neither did Judah keep the commandments of their God Jehovah, but went by the usages of the Israelites that they had originated; 20 and Jehovah condemned all the stock of Israel, and ground them down and gave them into the hands of pillagers, till he threw them aside; 21 because Jehovah had torn Israel off from the house of David and they had made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king, and Jeroboam had deluded Israel away from following Jehovah and had made them commit a great sin, 22 and the sons of Israel had walked in Jeroboam’s sin which he had originated and had not turned from it, 23 till Jehovah removed Israel from before his face, as he had threatened by all his servants the prophets, and deported Israel off their soil to Assyria to remain to this day.

24** And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and Cuthah and ʽAvvah and Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel, and they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. 25 And in the beginning of their settlement they did not fear Jehovah, and he sent the lions upon them, and they went to killing among them; 26 and the king of Assyria was told “The nations you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the observances for the god of the country, and he has sent the lions upon them, and here they are killing them off, as they do not know the observances for the god of the country.” 27** And the king of Assyria gave orders “Send there one of the priests you deported from there, to go and live there and instruct them in the observances for the god of the country”; 28 and one of the priests they had deported from Samaria came and settled at Bethel and went to instructing them how they should fear Jehovah. 29* And they went to making their various national gods and installing them in the height-houses the Samarians had made, each nation in their cities where they were living; 30* and the men of Babylon made Succoth-Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31*** and the ʽAvvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelec and ʽAnammelec the gods of Sepharvaim; 32* and they went to fearing Jehovah, and made out of the common people height-priests for themselves, who functioned for them in the height-houses. 33 They feared Jehovah, and worshiped their gods in accordance with the observances of the nations they had been deported from. 34** To this day they act as was their first fashion. They do not fear Jehovah and do not act in accordance with his usages and laws and with the instructions and commandments which Jehovah had enjoined upon the sons of Jacob, on whom he had bestowed the name Israel, 35 and Jehovah had made a covenant with them and given them orders, “You shall not fear other gods nor do them reverence nor sacrifice to them; 36 but Jehovah, who brought you up out of Egypt with great strength and outstretched arm, him you shall fear and to him you shall do reverence and to him you shall sacrifice, 37 and the usages and laws and instructions and commandments which he has written down for you you shall at all times be heedful to do, and not fear other gods. 38 And the covenant I have made with you you shall not forget, nor fear other gods; 39 but your God Jehovah you shall fear, and he will deliver you out of the hands of your enemies.” 40* But they have not listened, but are acting as was their first fashion.

41* And these nations went to fearing Jehovah while worshiping their carvings; their sons and grandsons too are to this day doing as their fathers did.

18 And in the year three of Hosheaʽ the son of Elah as king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of King Ahaz of Judah became king; 2 he was twenty-five years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned twenty-nine years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zecariah. 3 And he did what Jehovah approved, just as his father David had. 4*** It was he who cleared out the heights and broke up the obelisks and cut down the asherah, and pounded up the bronze snake that Moses made, because down to those days the sons of Israel had been making burnings to it; and he called it Nehushtan. 5* He trusted in Israel’s God Jehovah, and there was not his like after him among the kings of Judah, and those who had gone before him. 6 And he stood by Jehovah, did not turn aside from following him, and kept his commandments which Jehovah had commanded Moses. 7 And Jehovah was with him; he did well in everything he undertook, and broke his allegiance to the king of Assyria and became independent of him. 8 He made havoc of the Philistines down to Ghaza and its territories, from watchmen’s tower to fortified city.

9 And in the year four of King Hezekiah, that being the year seven of Hosheaʽ the son of Elah as king of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it, 10 and took it at the end of three years: in the year six of Hezekiah, that being the year nine of King Hosheaʽ of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11* And the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria, and planted them in Halah and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of Media, 12 for their not having obeyed their God Jehovah and having violated his covenant, all that Jehovah’s servant Moses commanded them, and not having listened nor done the things required of them.

13 And in the year fourteen of King Hezekiah King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities in Judah and captured them. 14* And King Hezekiah of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lakish “I have done wrong; break off your attack, I will accept the penalty you may impose on me.” And the king of Assyria sentenced Hezekiah to a fine of three hundred hundredweight of silver and thirty of gold; 15 and Hezekiah gave him all the silver that could be found in Jehovah’s house and in the palace treasuries. 16* It was at that time that Hezekiah mutilated the doors of Jehovah’s nave, and the jambs which King Hezekiah of Judah had gilded, and gave them to the king of Assyria.

17 And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lakish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a formidable force; and he came up and stood on the aqueduct of the upper reservoir, the one that is on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, 18 and called for the king; and Eljakim the son of Hilkijah, the steward of the palace, and Shebna, the secretary for documents, and Joah the son of Asaph, the king’s private secretary, went out to him. 19 And the Rabshakeh said to them “Say to Hezekiah ‘Says the Great King, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this that you are feeling? 20 you think policy and strength for war is just a matter of talk. Now in whom are you trusting, that you have broken your allegiance to me? 21 trusting to this cracked bamboo cane Egypt, which, when a man leans his weight on it, will run into his hand and transfix it—that is what the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is like for everybody who trusts to him. 22 And as for your saying to me “We are trusting on our God Jehovah,” is not he the one whose heights and altars Hezekiah has made away with, and has told Judah and Jerusalem “You shall do reverence before this altar”? 23 Now make a bet with my sovereign the king of Assyria, that I am to give you two thousand ponies if you can furnish riders for them; 24* and how are you to repel one of my sovereign’s minor officers? and you are trusting to Egypt for chariotry and cavalry. 25 And then, have I come up against this place independently of Jehovah to ravage it? Jehovah said to me “Go up against this country and ravage it.”’”

26 And Eljakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it: do not speak with us in Judaic in the hearing of the people on the wall.” 27 But the Rabshakeh said to them “Was it to your sovereign and you that my sovereign sent me to tell these things? was it not to the men that are sitting on the wall to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?” 28 And the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judaic “Listen to the word of the Great King, the king of Assyria! 29 Says the king, Do not let Hezekiah delude you, because he will not be able to deliver you. 30** Do not let Hezekiah get you to trusting on Jehovah, with his ‘Jehovah will deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ 31 Do not listen to Hezekiah; for the king of Assyria says, Have an understanding with me and come out to me, and eat from your home vines and fig-trees and drink the water of your home cisterns 32 till I come and take you to a country like your own,—a country of grain and grape-juice, of bread and vineyards, of oil-olives and honey,—and live and do not die; and do not listen to Hezekiah when he tries to influence you with his ‘Jehovah will deliver us.’ 33 Have the gods of the different nations delivered their countries out of the hands of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? 34* where are the gods of Sepharvaim? where are the gods of Samaria, did they deliver Samaria out of my hands? 35 Who are there among all the gods of the different countries that have delivered their countries out of my hands, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hands?”

36 But they kept still and made no answer to him; for the king’s order was “Do not answer him.”

37 And Eljakim the son of Hilkijah, the steward of the palace, and Shebna, the secretary for documents, and Joah the son of Asaph, the king’s private secretary, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the Rabshakeh’s words.

19 And when King Hezekiah heard them he tore his clothes and put a sackcloth about him and went into Jehovah’s house, 2 and sent Eljakim the steward of the palace and Shebna the secretary for documents and the elders of the priests, with sackcloths about them, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amos; 3 and they said to him “Says Hezekiah, This is a day of distress and castigation and contempt, because children have come to the mouth of the womb and we have not strength to complete a birth. 4 Perhaps your God Jehovah will listen to the Rabshakeh’s words with which his sovereign the king of Assyria has sent him to taunt a living God, and will chastise the words that your God Jehovah hears; and you shall put up a prayer for the remnant that still exists.”

5 And King Hezekiah’s officers came to Isaiah; 6 and Isaiah said to them “You shall say to your sovereign ‘Says Jehovah, Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, in which the king of Assyria’s servants have blasphemed me; 7 I am going to put a spirit in him, and he shall hear a report and go back to his own country, and I will have him fall by the sword in his own country.’”

8 And Rabshakeh went back, and found the king of Assyria attacking Libnah; for he had heard that he had moved away from Lakish.

9* And he heard say about King Tirhakah of Nubia “He has come out to fight you”; and, hearing it, he again sent envoys to Hezekiah with the message 10 “You shall say to King Hezekiah of Judah ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust delude you with the thought “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.” 11 You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them without quarter; and are you to be delivered? 12 Did the gods of the nations my fathers ravaged deliver them, Gozan and Haran and Reseph and the Bene-ʽEden at Telassar? 13 where is the king of Hamath, where the king of Arpad and the king of Sepharvaim city, of Henaʽ and ʽIvvah?’” 14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the envoys’ hands and read it; and he went up to Jehovah’s house.

And Hezekiah spread it out before Jehovah; 15* and Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah, “Jehovah, God of Israel, sitter upon the cherubs, you are God alone for all the kingdoms of the earth: it was you who made the heavens and the earth. 16 Bend down your ear, Jehovah, and listen; open your eyes, Jehovah, and see; and hear Sennacherib’s words which he has sent, taunting a living God. 17 The kings of Assyria have indeed, Jehovah, laid waste the nations and their countries, 18 and put their gods in the fire, because they are not gods but work of human hands, wood and stone, and destroyed them; 19 but now, Jehovah our God, save us out of his hands and let all the kingdoms on earth know that you, Jehovah, alone are God.”

20 And Isaiah the son of Amos sent word to Hezekiah “Says Israel’s God Jehovah, Whereas you have prayed to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria, 21 this is the word Jehovah has spoken against him: Sion’s maiden daughter despises and derides you; Jerusalem’s daughter shakes her head after you. 22 Whom have you taunted and blasphemed, and against whom have you clamored at the top of your voice and lifted your eyes high? against the Holy One of Israel. 23 By your servants you have taunted the Lord, and have said ‘With chariots, my chariots, I have gone up to the tops of the mountains, the recesses of Lebanon, and have cut down the tallest of its cedars, the choicest of its cypresses, and have come to its final lodgment, its wildwood of garden-land. 24 I have dug and drunk unknown waters, have dried off with my marching feet all the streams of Egypt’s Nile.’ 25* Do you hear? far back I acted, shaped it from days of old, have now brought it in, and you have been for crashing down fortified cities into ruined heaps; 26 and their puny-handed inhabitants were dismayed and abashed, became field herbage and greensward, roof-grass blighted before the east wind. 27 Your standing up and sitting down, your going out and coming in I know, and your raging against me. 28* Since your raging against me and your hubbub have come up to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle between your lips, and take you back the way you came.

29 “And this is the token you are to have, eating the self-sown crop this year and the crop run wild next year; and in the third year sow and reap, and set out vineyards and eat their fruit. 30 And the remaining survivors of the house of Judah shall more and more take root downward and bear fruit upward; 31 for out of Jerusalem shall a remnant come forth, and survivors out of Mount Sion; the championship of Jehovah of Armies will do this.

32 “So Jehovah says of the king of Assyria, He shall not come to this city nor shoot an arrow there nor push a shield up to it nor throw up a ramp against it: 33 by the road he came on he shall go back, and not come to this city, quoth Jehovah. 34 And I will shield this city, saving it on my own account and on my servant David’s.”

35 And that night Jehovah’s angel went out and killed a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp: the first thing in the morning they were all found dead corpses. 36 And King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and went back and stayed at Nineveh; 37** and as he was doing reverence in the house of his god Nisroc his sons Adrammelec and Sareser stabbed him; and they made their escape to Armenia, and his son Esar-Haddon succeeded him.

20 In those days Hezekiah fell sick and was at the point of death, and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amos came to him and said to him “Says Jehovah, Make your will, because you are a dead man and are not to recover.” 2 And he turned his face to the wall and prayed to Jehovah 3 “Ah, Jehovah, remember how I have walked before you in wholehearted loyalty and done what pleased you”—and Hezekiah wept copiously. 4 And the prophet Isaiah had not got out to the middle court when Jehovah’s word came to him 5 “Go back and say to Hezekiah, the warden of my people, ‘Says Jehovah, your father David’s God, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears: I am healing you: day after tomorrow you shall go up to Jehovah’s house; 6 and I will add to your days fifteen years, and will deliver you and this city out of the hands of the king of Assyria, and will shield this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s.’” 7 And Isaiah said “Take a cake of figs”; and they took it and laid it over the abscess, and he recovered.

8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah “What is the token that Jehovah will heal me and I shall go up to Jehovah’s house day after tomorrow?” 9* And Isaiah said “This is the token you are to have from Jehovah that Jehovah will do the thing he said he would: shall the shadow move on ten steps or back ten steps?” 10 And Hezekiah said “It is too easy for the shadow to slant down ten steps; no, let the shadow recede ten steps backward.” 11 And the prophet Isaiah called out to Jehovah, and he sent the shadow back on the steps, ten steps backward.

12 At that time Merodac Baladan the son of Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. 13 And Hezekiah was glad to see them, and showed them all his treasury, the silver and the gold and the spices and the fine oil, and his arsenal, and everything that was to be found in his hoards: there was not a thing that Hezekiah did not show them, in his palace and in all his dominions. 14 And the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and said to him “What did these men say, and where do they come to you from?” and Hezekiah said “They have come from a distant country, Babylon.” 15 And he said “What did they see in your palace?” and Hezekiah said “They saw everything that there was in my palace: there was not a thing that I did not show them in my hoards.” 16 And Isaiah said to Hezekiah “Listen to Jehovah’s word: 17 there are days coming when everything there is in your palace, and that your fathers have hoarded down to this day, will be carried away to Babylon: there will not be a thing left, says Jehovah. 18 And sons of yours, out of your body, of your begetting, will be taken and become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 19 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah “Jehovah’s word that you speak is good”; and he said “It is, is it not, if there will be peace and fairness in my time?”

20 And as to the rest of the history of Hezekiah, and all his exploits, and how he made the reservoir and the aqueduct and brought the water into the city, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 21 And Hezekiah went to rest with his fathers, and his son Manasseh succeeded him.

21 Manasseh was twelve years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned fifty-five years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hephsibah. 2 And he did what displeased Jehovah, like the detestable ways of the nations Jehovah dispossessed before the sons of Israel; 3 and he rebuilt the heights his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and set up altars to the Baal, as King Ahab of Israel had, and did reverence to all the legions of the sky and worshiped them, 4* and built altars in the house of Jehovah, who had said “In Jerusalem I will set my name”; 5 and he built altars to all the legions of the sky in both the courts of Jehovah’s house, 6 and sent his son over through the fire, and practiced fortune-telling and believed in signs, and employed spirit-mediums of different kinds: he did what displeased Jehovah on a great scale, provoking him. 7* And he set the statue of the asherah in the house of which Jehovah had said to David and his son Solomon “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will set my name forever, 8 and I will no more set Israel’s feet roving off the soil I gave to their fathers, if only they take care to do just as I commanded them, under all the instructions my servant Moses prescribed to them.” 9 And Manasseh demoralized them into misdoing more than had the nations Jehovah had rooted out before the sons of Israel.

10 And Jehovah said by his servants the prophets 11 “Since King Manasseh of Judah has done these detestable things, doing worse than everything the Amorites before him had done, and has brought Judah too into sin by his fetishes, 12 therefore Israel’s God Jehovah says ‘Here I am bringing on Jerusalem and Judah such an evil that when anybody hears of it both his ears will buzz; 13 and I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring-line of Samaria and hold up over it the scales of the house of Ahab, and wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wipe and turn upside down, 14 and abandon the remnant of my estate and give them into the hands of their enemies, and they shall be exposed to the pillaging and plundering of all their enemies, 15 since they have been doing what displeased me and provoking me from the day I brought their fathers out of Egypt to this day.”

16 And Manasseh shed innocent blood too in great quantities, till he had filled Jerusalem with it from portal to portal, besides his sin which he caused Judah to commit in doing what displeased Jehovah.

17 And as to the rest of the history of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin that he committed, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 18 And Manasseh went to rest with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his palace, ʽUzza’s garden; and his son Amon succeeded him.

19 Amon was twenty-two years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned two years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Harus, from Jotbah. 20 And he did what displeased Jehovah, as his father Manasseh had, 21 and went the whole length of the path his father had walked in, and worshiped the fetishes his father had worshiped, and did reverence to them, 22 and left his fathers’ God Jehovah and did not walk in Jehovah’s way. 23 And Amon’s officers organized a revolution against him and took the king’s life in his palace; 24 but the people killed all who had taken part in the conspiracy against King Amon, and the people installed his son Josiah as his successor. 25 And as to the rest of the history of Amon, what he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 26* And they buried him in his grave in ʽUzza’s garden, and his son Josiah succeeded him.

22* Josiah was eight years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned thirty-one years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of ʽAdajah, from Boskath. 2 And he did what Jehovah approved, and went the whole length of the path of his father David, and did not turn off to right or to left.

3 And in the year eighteen of King Josiah the king sent Shaphan the son of Asaliah the son of Meshullam, the secretary for documents, to Jehovah’s house with the order 4 “Go up to High Priest Hilkijah and have him sum up the money that has been brought into Jehovah’s house, that the threshold-keepers have collected from the people, 5* and put it into the hands of the contractors employed on Jehovah’s house, to be given to the workmen on Jehovah’s house for repairing the damages of the house, 6 to the carpenters and builders and masons, and for buying wood and dressed stone to repair the house. 7 Only let no accounts of the money put into their hands be demanded from them, because they are working on honor.”

8 And High Priest Hilkijah said to Secretary Shaphan “I have found the Code in Jehovah’s house”; and Hilkijah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 And he went in to the king and made his report to him, “Your officers have poured out the money that was found in the house, and have put it into the hands of the contractors employed on Jehovah’s house.” 10 And Secretary Shaphan told the king “Priest Hilkijah has given me a book”; and Shaphan read it before the king; 11 and when the king heard the words of the Code he tore his clothes. 12 And the king gave Priest Hilkijah and Ahikam the son of Shaphan and ʽAcbor the son of Micajah and Secretary Shaphan and King’s Sergeant ʽAsajah the order 13** “Go inquire of Jehovah on my behalf and on behalf of the people and on behalf of what is left of Israel and Judah about the words of this book that has been found, because it is a great ire of Jehovah’s that is kindled against us for our fathers’ not having listened to the words of this book and acted in accordance with all that is written in it.” 14 And Priest Hilkijah and Ahikam and ʽAcbor and Shaphan and ʽAsajah went to the prophetess Huldah the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah the son of Harhas the keeper of the wardrobe (she lived in Jerusalem, in the second quarter), and spoke to her. 15 And she said to them “Says Israel’s God Jehovah, Say to the man who sent you to me 16 ‘Says Jehovah, I am bringing mischief upon this place and its inhabitants, all the things that are spoken of in the book the king of Judah has read. 17 In return for their having left me and made burnings to other gods, provoking me with their manufactures, my ire is kindled against this people and will not die down.’ 18* And to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Jehovah you shall say ‘Says Israel’s God Jehovah, Because you gave heed to the words you heard, 19 since your heart quailed, and you humbled yourself before me when you heard what I had denounced against this place and its inhabitants, that it should be a horror and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before me, I on my part have heard it, quoth Jehovah; 20 so I am taking you home to your fathers, and you shall be taken home to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not look upon all the mischief I am bringing on this place.’” And they reported it to the king.

23* And the king sent and brought together to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem; 2 and the king went up to Jehovah’s house, and all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people from smallest to greatest, and he read to them all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in Jehovah’s house. 3 And the king stood by the pillar and ratified the covenant before Jehovah, to follow Jehovah and keep his commandments and his lessons and his usages unreservedly and heartily, making good the provisions of this covenant which are recorded in this book; and all the people stood as participants in the covenant.

4 And the king ordered Hilkijah and the second priest and the threshold-keepers to take out of Jehovah’s temple all the things that had been used for the Baal and the asherah and all the legions of the sky, and he burned them outside Jerusalem on the terraces of Kidron and carried their dust away to Bethel; 5** and he made an end of the komers whom the kings of Judah had installed and who made burnings on the heights in the cities of Judah and the environs of Jerusalem, and of the burners to the Baal and the sun and the moon and the mazzaloth and all the legions of the sky, 6 and took the asherah from Jehovah’s house outside Jerusalem to Kidron Arroyo and burned it in Kidron Arroyo and reduced it to dust and threw the dust of it on the public burying-ground; 7** and he pulled down the kiosk for religious prostitution that there was in Jehovah’s house, where the women wove cases for the asherah. 8* And he brought in all the priests from the cities of Judah, and desecrated the heights where the priests had made burnings, from Gebaʽ to Beer-Shebaʽ, and pulled down the Gate Heights at the gate of Joshuaʽ the captain of the city, on the left of a man entering the city gate. 9 Only the height-priests did not go up Jehovah’s altar at Jerusalem; but they ate matzoth among their brothers. 10 And he desecrated the fire-pit that was in Ben-Hinnom’s Valley for a man to send his child over through the fire to Melec, 11** and made an end of the ponies the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of Jehovah’s house, putting them in the vestry of Eunuch Nathan-Melec, in the addition; and the chariot of the sun he burned up. 12* And the altars on the roof, Ahaz’s upper story, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars Manasseh had made in the two courts of Jehovah’s house, the king pulled down; and he smashed them up on the spot, and threw the dust of them into Kidron Arroyo. 13* And the heights along to the east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Olives, which King Solomon of Israel had built to ʽAshtart the goddess of the Phenicians and to Kemosh the god of Moab and to Melec the god of the Bene-ʽAmmon, the king desecrated, 14 and broke up the obelisks and cut down the asherahs and filled their places full of human bones.

15** And the altar at Bethel too, the height Jeroboam the son of Nebat had made, he who made Israel sin, that altar too and the height the king pulled down, and broke up its stones, pounding them to dust, and burned its asherah. 16* And Josiah turned and saw the graves there on the mountainside, and sent and took the bones out of the graves and burned them on the altar and defiled it, in accordance with Jehovah’s prediction which the man of God had proclaimed when Jeroboam was standing by the altar at the feast; and he turned and raised his eyes toward the grave of the man of God who had proclaimed these things, and said 17** “What is yonder marker that I see?” and the men of the city said to him “The grave is the grave of the man of God who came out of Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar.” 18 And he said “Leave it alone; let nobody disturb his bones”; and they left his bones in security, with the bones of the prophet that came from Samaria.

19 And Josiah also cleared away all the height-houses in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made by way of provocation, and did to them just such things as he had at Bethel. 20 And he killed on the altars like sacrificed animals all the height-priests there, and burned human bones on them, and came back to Jerusalem.

21 And the king gave orders to all the people “Celebrate a passover to your God Jehovah in accordance with what is written in this book of the code”; 22 for the like of that passover had not been celebrated since the time of the judges who had judged Israel, and all the time of the kings of Israel and of Judah, 23 but in the year eighteen of King Josiah this passover was celebrated in Jehovah’s honor at Jerusalem.

24 And the spirit-mediums of different kinds too, and the teraphim and the fetishes, and all the disgustments that were to be seen in the country of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah routed out, in order to put in effect the words of the code, written in the book that Priest Hilkijah had found in Jehovah’s house. 25 And there had not been the like of him before him, a king who went back to Jehovah with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his being, in full accordance with the code of Moses, nor did there arise another the like of him after him.

26 Yet Jehovah did not turn back from his great anger which he had conceived against Judah for all the provocations Manasseh had given him. 27 And Jehovah thought “I will remove Judah too from before my face, as I did Israel, and reject this city that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said ‘My name shall be there.’”

28 And as to the rest of the history of Josiah, and all that he did, it is recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 29 In his time King Pharaoh Necoh of Egypt went up the river Euphrates against the king of Assyria, and King Josiah went to meet him, and he killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. 30 And his officers set him in his chariot dead and took him away from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own grave; and the populace took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz and anointed him, and installed him as his father’s successor.

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned three months at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 32 And he did what displeased Jehovah, just as his fathers had. 33*** And Pharaoh Necoh put, him under arrest at Riblah in the country of Hamath, and gave the country a fine of a hundred hundredweight of silver and a hundredweight of gold; 34 and Pharaoh Necoh installed Josiah’s son Eljakim as successor to his father Josiah, and renamed him Jehojakim. And Jehoahaz he took and brought to Egypt, and he died there; 35* and the silver and the gold Jehojakim gave to the Pharaoh, but he assessed the country to give the silver, by the Pharaoh’s directions—each man in accordance with his assessment exacted the silver and gold to give to Pharaoh Necoh.

36 Jehojakim was twenty-five years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned eleven years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedajah, from Rumah. 37 And he did what displeased Jehovah, just as his fathers had.

24 In his time King Nebucadnessar of Babylon came up, and Jehojakim became his subject for three years, but went back and threw off his allegiance to him. 2* And Jehovah sent upon him the raiders of the Chaldeans and of Syria and of Moab and of the Bene-ʽAmmon, in accordance with Jehovah’s prediction which he had made by his servants the prophets. 3* It was all a matter of Jehovah’s anger at Judah, to remove it from before his face for Manasseh’s sins, appropriately to everything he had done, 4 including the innocent blood he had shed and filled Jerusalem full of innocent blood, and Jehovah would not forgive. 5 And as to the rest of the history of Jehojakim, and all that he did, they are recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 6* And Jehojakim went to rest with his fathers, and his son Jehojakin succeeded him.

7 And the king of Egypt never again came out of his country; for the king of Babylon had taken everything that had belonged to the king of Egypt from Egypt Arroyo to the river Euphrates.

8 Jehojakin was eighteen years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned three months at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem. 9 And he did what displeased Jehovah, just as his father had. 10* At that time King Nebucadnessar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. 11 And King Nebucadnessar of Babylon came against the city while his officers were besieging it, 12 and King Jehojakin of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his officials, and his generals and his eunuchs, and the king of Babylon took him, in the year eight of his reign. 13* And he brought out from there all the treasures of Jehovah’s house and of the palace, and mutilated all the golden things that King Solomon of Israel had made in Jehovah’s temple, as Jehovah had foretold. 14 And he deported all Jerusalem, and all the generals, and all the leading men, a deportation of ten thousand, and all the carpenters and smiths; there was nobody left but the proletariat; 15 and he deported Jehojakin to Babylon, and the queen-mother and the king’s wives and his eunuchs, and the notables of the country, he sent along from Jerusalem to Babylon as a deportation; 16 and all the leading men, seven thousand in number, and the carpenters and smiths, one thousand, the whole number fighting men, the king of Babylon brought to Babylon as a deportation. 17 And the king of Babylon installed his uncle Mattaniah as his successor, and renamed him Sidkijah.

18 Sidkijah was twenty-one years old at his accession to the throne, and reigned eleven years at Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 19 And he did what displeased Jehovah just as Jehojakim had, 20 because it was a matter of Jehovah’s anger at Jerusalem and Judah, till he threw them away from before his face.

25* And Sidkijah broke his allegiance to the king of Babylon. And in the year nine of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, King Nebucadnessar of Babylon came against Jerusalem, he and all his forces, and beleaguered it and built a wall of investment around it; 2 and the city was besieged till the year eleven of King Sidkijah in the fourth month, the ninth of the month. 3 And hunger was pressing hard in the city, and there was no bread for the populace; 4 and the city was breached. And the king and all the men of war went out in the night by way of the gate between the two walls along the king’s garden, the city being beset all round by the Chaldeans, and went in the direction of the Rift Valley. 5 And the Chaldean forces pursued the king and overtook him on the flats at Jericho, all his forces being scattered away from him, 6* and they captured the king and took him up to Riblah to the king of Babylon, and he held a court and tried him. 7** And he cut the throats of Sidkijah’s sons before his eyes, and put out Sidkijah’s eyes, and put him in fetters and brought him to Babylon.

8* And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, it being the year nineteen of King Nebucadnessar of Babylon, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s officer, came to Jerusalem 9* and burned down Jehovah’s house and the royal palace and all the houses in Jerusalem; 10 and all the Chaldean forces that the Chief Guardsman had with him pulled down the walls of Jerusalem all around. 11* And the rest of the people, those who were left of the people in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen, Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan deported; 12 but some of the proletariat the Chief Guardsman left for vineyardists and farmers.

13 And the bronze pillars at Jehovah’s house, and the stands and the bronze sea in Jehovah’s house, the Chaldeans broke up, and carried the bronze of them away to Babylon; 14* and they took the pots and shovels and snuffers and pans, and all the bronze articles with which the priests officiated. 15 And the firepans and the bowls, gold what was gold and silver what was silver, the Chief Guardsman took. 16* And the pillars two, and the sea one, and the stands ten, which Solomon had made for Jehovah’s house—there was no weighing the bronze of all these articles. 17** Twenty-seven feet was the height of one pillar, and it had on it a bronze capital, the height of the capital being seven and a half feet, and on the capital, surrounding it, a network and pomegranates, all bronze; and the second pillar had the like on the network.

18 And the Chief Guardsman took High Priest Seraiah and Second Priest Sephaniah and the three threshold-keepers, 19* and out of the city he took a eunuch who had had the oversight of the fighting men, and five of such men having the right of seeing the king’s face as were to be found in the city, and the general’s secretary who had had the summoning of the militia, and sixty of the civilians who were found in the city; 20 Chief Guardsman Nebuzaradan took them and brought them to Riblah to the king of Babylon, 21 and the king of Babylon struck them dead at Riblah, in the country of Hamath; and Judah was deported off its soil.

22 And as for the people left in the country of Judah, those whom King Nebucadnessar of Babylon had left, he put Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan in charge of them; 23 and all the captains of partisan troops, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had put Gedaliah in charge, and they came to Mispah to Gedaliah—Ishmaʽel the son of Nethaniah and Johanan the son of Kareah and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite and Jaazaniah the Ben-Maacathite, they and their men— 24 and Gedaliah swore to his good faith toward them and their men, and said to them “Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans’ soldiery; live in the country and be subject to the king of Babylon and be well off.” 25 But in the seventh month Ishmaʽel the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishamaʽ, of the royal blood, came and assassinated Gedaliah and the Jews and Chaldeans he had with him at Mispah. 26 And all the people, small and great, and the partisan captains, went off into Egypt because they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

27 And in the thirty-seventh year of the deportation of King Jehojakin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, King Evil-Merodac of Babylon, in the year of his accession to the throne, released King Jehojakin of Judah from jail 28 and had a friendly conversation with him, and put his throne above the thrones of the kings he had with him at Babylon, 29 and changed his jail clothes, and he ate before him regularly as long as he lived. 30 And his allowance was a regular one given him daily out of the royal supplies as long as he lived.

MARGINAL NOTES TO SECOND KINGS