The king asked them, “What sort of man came up to meet you and spoke those words to you?”

Elisha replied, “Don’t kill them. Do you kill those you have captured with your sword or your bow? Set food and water in front of them so they can eat and drink and go to their master.”

and Hazael asked, “Why is my lord weeping?”

He replied, “Because I know the evil you will do to the people of Israel. You will set their fortresses on fire. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will dash their little ones to pieces. You will rip open their pregnant women.”

When Jehu came out to his master’s servants, they asked, “Is everything all right? Why did this crazy person come to you?”

Then he said to them, “You know the sort and their ranting.”

When he finished offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guards and officers, “Go in and kill them. Don’t let anyone out.” So they struck them down with the sword. Then the guards and officers threw the bodies out and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal.

Then Jehoiada the priest ordered the commanders of hundreds in charge of the army, “Take her out between the ranks, and put to death by the sword anyone who follows her,” for the priest had said, “She is not to be put to death in the Lord’s temple.”

All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet, for they had put Athaliah to death by the sword in the king’s palace.

I am about to put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place.