On one of their raids to the territory of Israel, Aram had taken captive a young girl when she was an infant, who had eventually become an attendant to Naaman's wife.

Aren't the Abana and Pharpar rivers in Damascus better than all of the water in Israel? Couldn't I just bathe in them and become clean?" So he turned away and left, filled with anger.

where they made offerings on all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD had expelled before them. They also practiced other wickedness, provoking the LORD to become angry,

"Some of your descendants your very own seed, whom you will father will be carried away to become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.'"

I will abandon the survivors of my heritage and hand them over to their enemies. They will become war booty and spoil to all of their enemies,

because your heart was sensitive, and you humbled yourself in the LORD's presence when you heard what I had to say against this place and against its inhabitants that they would become a desolation and a curse and you have torn your clothes and cried out before me, be assured that I have truly heard you,' declares the LORD.

By the ninth day of the fourth month, the resulting famine had become so severe in the city that no food remained for the people who lived in the land.