Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice in his upper room, which [was] in Samaria, and he was injured. So he sent messengers, and he said to them, "Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, if I will survive this injury."

So he died, according to the word of Yahweh which Elijah had spoken, and Joram became king in his place in the second year of Joram the son of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, because he had no son.

Then he picked up Elijah's cloak that had fallen off of him, and he returned and stood on the bank of the Jordan.

He took Elijah's cloak that had fallen from upon him and struck the water. Then he said, "Where is Yahweh, the God of Elijah?" So he also struck the water, and it divided {in two}, and Elisha crossed over.

Now Joram the son of Ahab had become king over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. He reigned twelve years

and did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, yet not as his father or his mother, as he removed the stone pillars of Baal that his father had made.

Now all of Moab had heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, and all {who were fighting age and up} were called up, and they stood at the border.

But the woman conceived, and she bore a son {in the spring}, which Elisha had promised to her.

Then he said to his father, "My head, my head!" So he said to the servant, "Carry him to his mother."

So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of Yahweh.

Now Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man before his master and {highly regarded}, for by him Yahweh had given victory to Aram. Now the man was a mighty warrior, [but he was] afflicted with a skin disease.

It happened that as soon as Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, "Why did you tear your clothes? Please may he come to me, that he might know that there is a prophet in Israel."

But his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, [if] the prophet had spoken a difficult thing to you to do, would you not have done [it]? [Why not] even when he says to you, 'Wash and you shall be clean'?"

They came down to him, and Elisha prayed to Yahweh and said, "Please strike this people with blindness," so he struck them with blindness as {Elisha had spoken}.

There was a great famine in Samaria, and behold, a siege [was] against it, until the head of a donkey [went] for eighty shekels of silver, and one fourth of the measure of the dung of doves [went] for five shekels of silver.

So we cooked my son and ate him, and I said to her the next day, 'Give your son that we may eat him.' But she had hidden her son."

It happened that when the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he had been walking on the wall, and the people saw, and behold, sackcloth was over his flesh underneath.

Then he said, "May God do to me and thus may he add, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!"

Now Elisha [was] sitting in his house and the elders [were] sitting with him, and [the king] dispatched a man from before him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Did you see that this son of a murderer has sent to remove my head? Look, when the messenger comes, close the door; and you must {hold the door closed against him}. [Is] not the sound of the feet of his master behind him?"

Now four men who had a skin disease were [at] the entrance of the gate, and they said {to each other}, "Why [are] we sitting here until we die?

Now the Lord had caused the camp of [the] Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, the sound of horses, and the sound of a great army. So they said {to one another}, "Look, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us!"

When these who had the skin disease came to the edge of the camp, they went into a certain tent and they ate, drank, and took from there silver and gold and clothes. Then they went and hid [them], then returned and came to another tent, and they took from there and went and hid [them].

The king got up in the night and said to his servants, "Please let me tell you what [the] Arameans have done to us. [The] Arameans know that we [are] hungry, so they went out from the camp to hide in the field, saying, 'When they go out from the city, we shall seize them alive and go into the city.'"

and they went after them to the Jordan. Look, all of the way [was] littered with clothes and equipment which [the] Arameans had thrown away in their haste. Then the messengers returned and told the king.

Then the king appointed the officer he was depending on over the gate, but the people trampled him and he died, according to that which the man of God had said which he spoke when the king came down to him.

Then the officer had replied to the man of God and said, "Look, even if Yahweh is opening the windows in heaven, could this thing happen?" And he had said, "Look you [are about to] see it with your eyes, but you will not eat from it."

So it had happened to him; the people trampled him in the gate and he died.

Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, "Get up and go, you and your household, and dwell as an alien wherever you can, for Yahweh has called for a famine, and it will come to the land [for] seven years."

It happened that as he [was] telling the king how he had restored the dead to life, suddenly the woman whose son he had restored to life [was] crying out to the king about her household and about her field. Then Gehazi said, "My lord the king, this [is] the woman and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life!"

He walked in the way of the kings of Israel as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab became his wife, and he did evil in the eyes of Yahweh.

Yet Yahweh was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David his servant, as he had promised to give him a lamp for his sons always.

So Joram crossed over to Zair and all the chariots with him. It happened that he arose [by] night and attacked Edom who had surrounded him and the commanders of the chariots; but the army fled to their tents.

Joram the king returned to Jezreel to heal from the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted at Ramah when Hazael king of Aram fought him. Ahaziah the son of Joram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he [was] ill.

You must take the flask of olive oil and pour it out on his head. You must say, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I hereby anoint you as king over Israel." ' Then you must open the door and flee; do not linger!"

He got up and went to the house, and poured the olive oil on his head and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: 'I hereby anoint you as king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel.

But Joram the king had returned to heal in Jezreel from the wound which the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought with Hazael king of Aram. Jehu said, "{If this is what you want}, do not let him go out as a fugitive from the city to go to make it known in Jezreel."

Jehu mounted his chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram [was] lying there, and Ahaziah king of Judah had gone down to visit Joram.

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

When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard [of it], so she painted her eyes with black eye paint and adorned her head and looked through the window.

Now Jehu had come in the gate, so she said, "[Is it] peace, O Zimri, murderer of his master?"

Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria, and Jehu wrote letters, and he sent them to Samaria to the officials of Jezreel, to the elders and to the guardians of Ahab, saying,

Then he came to Samaria and killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria until he wiped them out according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken to Elijah.

They came to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed for himself eighty men outside, and he said, "The man who lets [anyone] escape from the men who I am {entrusting to you}, {he will pay with his life}!"

Now the days which Jehu had reigned over Israel [were] twenty-eight years in Samaria.

But Jehosheba the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah took Jehoash the son of Ahaziah, and she stole him from among the sons of the king who were being put to death, [putting] him and his nurse in the inner bedroom. So they hid him from the presence of Athaliah, and he was not killed.

Then Jehoiada the priest commanded the commanders of the hundreds, the appointed of the army, and he said to them, "Bring her out to the house of the ranks! The one coming after her [should] kill her with the sword," for the priest had said, "Let her not be killed in the temple of Yahweh."

All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city rested; [for] Athaliah had been killed with the sword in the palace of the king.

It happened in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash that the priests had not repaired the damage in the temple.

Jehoash king of Judah took all of the holy objects that Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah his ancestors, the kings of Judah, had devoted, and all his holy objects and all of the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of Yahweh, and [in] the palace of the king, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram, so that he went up from Jerusalem.

But he did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and he went after the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat with which he had caused Israel to sin, and he did not depart from it.

For there was no army left over for Jehoahaz except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry, for the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them as the dust at threshing.

But Yahweh had mercy on them and showed compassion to them and turned to them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was not willing to destroy them nor cast them from his presence up to now.

Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz returned and took the cities from the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Hazael which he had taken from the hand of Jehoahaz his father in the war. Three times Jehoash defeated him and recovered the towns of Israel.

He did right in the eyes of Yahweh, only not as David his ancestor; as all which Jehoash his father had done, he did.

It happened that when the kingdom was firmly in his hand, he killed his servants who had killed his father the king.

But the sons of the killers he did not kill, as it is written in the scroll of the law of Moses which Yahweh had commanded, saying, "Fathers should not be killed because of children, and children should not be killed because of fathers; but a man should die because of his [own] sin."

He did right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that Amaziah his father had done.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh as his ancestors had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat which he caused Israel to sin.

At that time Menahem destroyed Tiphsah, all who [were] in it, and all its territory from Tirzah, because [it] had not opened [to him], so he destroyed it and ripped open all of its pregnant women.

He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that Uzziah his father had done.

So King Ahaz went to meet Tiglath-Pileser the king of Assyria [in] Damascus, and he saw the altar which [was] in Damascus, so King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest the builder's plan of the altar and the {exact model of how it had been made}.

So Uriah the priest built the altar according to all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus; thus Uriah the priest did before King Ahaz came from Damascus.

The covering for the Sabbath which they had built in the palace and in the entrance of the king to the outside, he removed [from] the temple of Yahweh because of the presence of the king of Assyria.

But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he did not offer tribute to the king of Assyria as [he had] year after year; so the king of Assyria arrested him, and confined him [in] a house of imprisonment.

Now [this] happened because the {Israelites} had sinned against Yahweh their God when he brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh the king of Egypt and they feared other gods.

They walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}, which the kings of Israel had introduced.

They served idols which Yahweh had said to them, "You shall not do this thing!"

They rejected his statutes, his covenant which he {made} with their ancestors, and his warnings which he gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and [went] after all the nations which [were] all around them, which Yahweh had commanded them not to do as they [did].

For he had torn Israel from the house of David, and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king, but Jeroboam detached Israel from following Yahweh, and he made them sin a great sin.

until Yahweh removed Israel from his presence as he had foretold by the hand of all his servants, the prophets. And so he deported Israel from upon his land to Assyria until this day.

So one of the priests went, whom they had deported from Samaria, and he settled in Bethel and was teaching them how they should fear Yahweh.

Yet every nation was making their gods, and they put them in the shrine of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they [were] living.

Until this day they [are] doing according to their former customs; none of them [are] fearing Yahweh, and none of them [are] doing according to their statutes, to their decisions, to the law, or to the commands that Yahweh commanded the descendants of Jacob [to] which he had given the name Israel.

Yahweh had {made} a covenant with them and commanded them, "You shall not fear other gods, nor shall you bow down to them, nor shall you serve them, nor shall you sacrifice to them.

He did right in the eyes of Yahweh according to all that David his ancestor had done.

He removed the high places, and he smashed the stone pillars; he cut down the poles of Asherah worship and demolished the bronze serpent which Moses had made, for up to those days the {Israelites} were offering incense to it and called it Nehushtan.

He held on to Yahweh; he did not depart from following him, and he kept his commands that Yahweh had commanded Moses.

because they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh their God, and they transgressed his covenant; all that he had commanded Moses, the servant of Yahweh, they did not listen [to] nor did they obey.

At that time, Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of Yahweh and the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and he gave them to the king of Assyria.

But if you say to me, 'On Yahweh our God we trust,' [is] it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, and he had said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'In the presence of this altar you shall bow down [only] in Jerusalem?'

When [the] chief commander returned, he found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: She despises you, she scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion. Behind you the daughter of Jerusalem shakes [her] head.

By the hand of your messengers you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up [to] the height of the mountains. [To] the remote areas of Lebanon, I have felled the tallest of its cedars, the choicest of its cypresses. I have entered the place of overnight lodging. Even [to] the edge of forest of its fertile land.

Isaiah had not gone out from the middle of the city when the word of Yahweh came to him, saying,

Isaiah the prophet called to Yahweh, and he brought back the shadow on the steps where it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz, backwards ten steps.

At that time, Berodak-Baladan the son of Baladan king of {Babylon} sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been ill.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to the detestable things of the nations that Yahweh had driven out from the presence of the {Israelites}.

He returned and rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed. He erected altars for Baal and made a pole of Asherah worship just as Ahab king of Israel had made, and he bowed down to all of the host of heaven and served them.

He built altars in the temple of Yahweh [about] which Yahweh had said, "I will put my name in Jerusalem."

He put the image of the Asherah that he had made in the temple which Yahweh had said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this temple and in Jerusalem which I have chosen from all of the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh as Manasseh his father had done.

He walked in all of the way which his father had walked, and he served the idols which his father had served and bowed down to them.

Then the king went up [to] the temple of Yahweh, and all of the men of Judah and all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem [were] with him, [including] the priests, the prophets, and all of the people from smallest to greatest; and in their {hearing} he read all of the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the temple of Yahweh.

He removed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained [to] burn incense on the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem and who offered incense to, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

He kept the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from coming to the temple of Yawheh at the side room of Nathan-Melech the eunuch, which [was] in the court; and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.

The altars which [were] on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the temple of Yahweh, the king tore down and ran from there and threw their ashes into the Wadi Kidron.

The high places which [were] east of Jerusalem, which [were] on the south of the Mountain of Destruction which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the detestable thing of the {Ammonites}, the king defiled.

Moreover, the altar which [was] in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, had built, even that altar and the high place, [Josiah] tore down. Then he burned down the high place and crushed [the] pole of Asherah worship to dust and burned it with fire.

When Josiah turned and saw the tombs which [were] there on the hill, he sent and took the bones from the tombs and burned [them] on the altar. [Thus] he defiled them according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God had proclaimed who had proclaimed these things.

So Josiah said, "Let him rest and let no man move his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.