They replied, "He was a hairy man and had a leather belt tied around his waist." The king said, "He is Elijah the Tishbite."

He died just as the Lord had prophesied through Elijah. In the second year of the reign of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat over Judah, Ahaziah's brother Jehoram replaced him as king of Israel, because he had no son.

When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, "What can I do for you, before I am taken away from you?" Elisha answered, "May I receive a double portion of the prophetic spirit that energizes you."

He picked up Elijah's cloak, which had fallen off him, and went back and stood on the shore of the Jordan.

He took the cloak that had fallen off Elijah, hit the water with it, and said, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" When he hit the water, it divided and Elisha crossed over.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.

So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom set out together. They wandered around on the road for seven days and finally ran out of water for the men and animals they had with them.

Now all Moab had heard that the kings were attacking, so everyone old enough to fight was mustered and placed at the border.

The woman did conceive, and at the specified time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

So he set it before them; they ate and had some left over, just as the Lord predicted.

Now Naaman, the commander of the king of Syria's army, was esteemed and respected by his master, for through him the Lord had given Syria military victories. But this great warrior had a skin disease.

Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.

When Elisha the prophet heard that the king had torn his clothes, he sent this message to the king, "Why did you tear your clothes? Send him to me so he may know there is a prophet in Israel."

His servants approached and said to him, "O master, if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, you would have been willing to do it. It seems you should be happy that he simply said, "Wash and you will be healed."

So he went down and dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the prophet had instructed. His skin became as smooth as a young child's and he was healed.

Elisha said to him, "Go in peace." When he had gone a short distance,

So the king of Israel sent a message to the place the prophet had pointed out, warning it to be on its guard. This happened on several occasions.

When they had entered Samaria, Elisha said, "O Lord, open their eyes, so they can see." The Lord opened their eyes and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.

The Lord had caused the Syrian camp to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a large army. Then they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has paid the kings of the Hittites and Egypt to attack us!"

When the men with a skin disease reached the edge of the camp, they entered a tent and had a meal. They also took some silver, gold, and clothes and went and hid it all. Then they went back and entered another tent. They looted it and went and hid what they had taken.

So they tracked them as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. The scouts went back and told the king.

Then the people went out and looted the Syrian camp. A seah of finely milled flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said they would.

Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. This fulfilled the prophet's word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him.

Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, "You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years."

While Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. Gehazi said, "My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!"

He followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel, just as Ahab's dynasty had done, for he married Ahab's daughter. He did evil in the sight of the Lord.

But the Lord was unwilling to destroy Judah. He preserved Judah for the sake of his servant David to whom he had promised a perpetual dynasty.

Joram crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. The Israelite army retreated to their homeland.

But they said, "You're lying! Tell us what he said." So he told them what he had said. He also related how he had said, "This is what the Lord says, 'I have designated you as king over Israel.'"

Then Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi conspired against Joram.Now Joram had been in Ramoth Gilead with the whole Israelite army, guarding against an invasion by King Hazael of Syria.

But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. Jehu told his supporters, "If you really want me to be king, then don't let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel."

Jehu drove his chariot to Jezreel, for Joram was recuperating there. (Now King Ahaziah of Judah had come down to visit Joram.)

Jehoram ordered, "Hitch up my chariot." When his chariot had been hitched up, King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah went out in their respective chariots to meet Jehu. They met up with him in the plot of land that had once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel.

Ahaziah had become king over Judah in the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab.

He went inside and had a meal. Then he said, "Dispose of this accursed woman's corpse. Bury her, for after all, she was a king's daughter."

Ahab had seventy sons living in Samaria. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the leading officials of Jezreel and to the guardians of Ahab's dynasty. This is what the letters said,

He wrote them a second letter, saying, "If you are really on my side and are willing to obey me, then take the heads of your master's sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow." Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent men of the city were raising them.

Therefore take note that not one of the judgments the Lord announced against Ahab's dynasty has failed to materialize. The Lord had done what he announced through his servant Elijah."

When he left there, he met Jehonadab, son of Rekab, who had been looking for him. Jehu greeted him and asked, "Are you as committed to me as I am to you?" Jehonadab answered, "I am!" Jehu replied, "If so, give me your hand." So he offered his hand and Jehu pulled him up into the chariot.

He went to Samaria and exterminated all the members of Ahab's family who were still alive in Samaria, just as the Lord had announced to Elijah.

They went inside to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside. He had told them, "If any of the men inside get away, you will pay with your lives!"

However, Jehu did not repudiate the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat had encouraged Israel to commit; the golden calves remained in Bethel and Dan.

But Jehu did not carefully and wholeheartedly obey the law of the Lord God of Israel. He did not repudiate the sins which Jeroboam had encouraged Israel to commit.

Jehoiada the priest ordered the officers of the units of hundreds, who were in charge of the army, "Bring her outside the temple to the guards. Put the sword to anyone who follows her." The priest gave this order because he had decided she should not be executed in the Lord's temple.

All the people of the land celebrated, for the city had rest now that they had killed Athaliah with the sword in the royal palace.

By the twenty-third year of King Jehoash's reign the priests had still not repaired the damage to the temple.

When they saw the chest was full of silver, the royal secretary and the high priest counted the silver that had been brought to the Lord's temple and bagged it up.

They would then hand over the silver that had been weighed to the construction foremen assigned to the Lord's temple. They hired carpenters and builders to work on the Lord's temple,

King Jehoash of Judah collected all the sacred items that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had consecrated, as well as his own sacred items and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord's temple and the royal palace. He sent it all to King Hazael of Syria, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord. He continued in the sinful ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat who had encouraged Israel to sin; he did not repudiate those sins.

Jehoahaz had no army left except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers. The king of Syria had destroyed his troops and trampled on them like dust.

Now Elisha had a terminal illness. King Joash of Israel went down to visit him. He wept before him and said, "My father, my father! The chariot and horsemen of Israel!"

The prophet got angry at him and said, "If you had struck the ground five or six times, you would have annihilated Syria! But now, you will defeat Syria only three times."

But the Lord had mercy on them and felt pity for them. He extended his favor to them because of the promise he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has been unwilling to destroy them or remove them from his presence to this very day.

Jehoahaz's son Jehoash took back from Ben Hadad son of Hazael the cities that he had taken from his father Jehoahaz in war. Joash defeated him three times and recovered the Israelite cities.

When he had secured control of the kingdom, he executed the servants who had assassinated his father.

Azariah built up Elat and restored it to Judah after the king had passed away.

The Lord saw Israel's intense suffering; everyone was weak and incapacitated and Israel had no deliverer.

The Lord had not decreed that he would blot out Israel's memory from under heaven, so he delivered them through Jeroboam son of Joash.

He did what the Lord approved, just as his father Amaziah had done.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestors had done. He did not repudiate the sinful ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat who encouraged Israel to sin.

He did what the Lord approved, just as his father Uzziah had done.

Uriah the priest built an altar in conformity to the plans King Ahaz had sent from Damascus. Uriah the priest finished it before King Ahaz arrived back from Damascus.

He also removed the Sabbath awning that had been built in the temple and the king's outer entranceway, on account of the king of Assyria.

The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. Hoshea had sent messengers to King So of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him.

they observed the practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out from before Israel, and followed the example of the kings of Israel.

They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry.

But they did not pay attention and were as stubborn as their ancestors, who had not trusted the Lord their God.

They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord's command.

So the Lord rejected all of Israel's descendants; he humiliated them and handed them over to robbers, until he had thrown them from his presence.

Finally the Lord rejected Israel just as he had warned he would do through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

So one of the priests whom they had deported from Samaria went back and settled in Bethel. He taught them how to worship the Lord.

But each of these nations made its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.

They were worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

He did what the Lord approved, just as his ancestor David had done.

He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.

He was loyal to the Lord and did not abandon him. He obeyed the commandments which the Lord had given to Moses.

This happened because they did not obey the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them. They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord's servant, had commanded.

At that time King Hezekiah of Judah stripped the metal overlays from the doors of the Lord's temple and from the posts which he had plated and gave them to the king of Assyria.

The people were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, "Don't respond to him."

Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning.

Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, "What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord's temple the day after tomorrow?"

At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah was ill.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them.

He built altars in the Lord's temple, about which the Lord had said, "Jerusalem will be my home."

He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, "This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home.

But they did not obey, and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just like his father Manasseh had done.

He followed in the footsteps of his father and worshiped and bowed down to the disgusting idols which his father had worshiped.

The people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

The king went up to the Lord's temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord's temple.

He eliminated the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. He tore down the high place of the goat idols situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.

He removed from the entrance to the Lord's temple the statues of horses that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.

The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz's upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord's temple. He crushed them up and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom.

When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord's announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this.

Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel.

He issued this edict because a Passover like this had not been observed since the days of the judges; it was neglected for the entire period of the kings of Israel and Judah.