And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha replied, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho.

Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.

Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have [of value] in the house?” She said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a [small] jar of [olive] oil.”

Then she came and told the man of God. He said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

When she came to the mountain to the man of God, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi approached to push her away; but the man of God said, “Let her alone, for her soul is desperate and troubled within her; and the Lord has hidden the reason from me and has not told me.”

The mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So Elisha arose and followed her.

When the king of Israel (Jehoram) saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”

Elisha answered, “You shall not kill them. Would you kill those you have taken captive with your sword and bow? Serve them bread and water, so that they may eat and drink, and go back to their master [King Ben-hadad].”

Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of finely-milled flour will sell for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’”

It happened just as [Elisha] the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two measures of barley will be sold for a shekel and a measure of finely-milled flour for a shekel tomorrow about this time at the gate of Samaria.”

Hazael said, “Why are you weeping, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the sons (descendants) of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, kill their young men with the sword, smash their children to pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”

So Jehoram [king of Judah] went over to Zair [in Edom] with all his chariots. He set out by night and struck down the Edomites who had surrounded him and the captains of his chariots; but the people [of his army] fled to their tents.

So Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram [to dethrone and kill him]. Now Joram with all Israel was protecting Ramoth-gilead against Hazael king of Aram (Syria),

As Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, “Is it well, Zimri, your master’s murderer?”

When the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons and slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

The next morning he went out and stood and said to all the people, “You are just and innocent; behold, I conspired against [Joram] my master and killed him, but who killed all these?

So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his familiar friends and his priests, until he left him without a survivor.

Then Jehu said, “Take them alive.” So they took them alive and [later] slaughtered them at the well by the place of the sand heaps, forty-two men; he left none of them [alive].

And he said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.” So he had Jehonadab in his chariot.

When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed everyone who remained of Ahab’s family in Samaria, until he had destroyed all of them, in accordance with the word of the Lord which He spoke to Elijah.

Then it came about, as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guards and to the royal officers, “Go in and kill them; let no one come out.” And they killed them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the royal officers threw their bodies out, and went to the inner room of the house of Baal.

Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and tore it down. They utterly smashed his altar and his images to pieces, and they put Mattan the priest of Baal to death in front of the altars. And [Jehoiada] the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord.

His servants arose and formed a conspiracy [against him] and struck down Joash [in revenge] at the house of Millo, [on the way] that goes down to Silla.

As soon as the kingdom was firmly in Amaziah’s hand, he executed his servants who had killed his father the king.

But he did not put the sons of the murderers to death, in compliance with what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, in which the Lord commanded, saying, “The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, nor shall the sons be put to death for the fathers; but each shall be put to death [only] for his own sin.”

Amaziah killed 10,000 [men] of Edom in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela (rock) by war, and renamed it Joktheel, to this day.

Now a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and Amaziah fled [south] to Lachish; but they sent [men] after him to Lachish and killed him there.

So the king of Assyria listened to him; and he went up against Damascus and captured it, and carried its people away into exile to Kir, and put Rezin [king of Aram] to death.

“I dug wells and drank foreign waters,
And with the sole of my feet I dried up
All the rivers of [the Lower Nile of] Egypt.”

For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and [a band of] survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this.

Then it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down 185,000 [men] in the camp of the Assyrians; when the survivors got up early in the morning, behold, all [185,000] of them were dead.

The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

All the priests of the high places who were there he slaughtered on the altars, and burned human bones on them [to desecrate the places forever]. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Before him there was no king like Josiah who turned to the Lord with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, in accordance with all the Law of Moses; nor did anyone like him arise after him.

In his days Pharaoh Neco (Necho) king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates [to help him fight Nabopolassar the king of Babylon]. King Josiah went out to meet him, but Pharaoh killed Josiah at Megiddo when he saw him.

They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him [hand and foot] with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon.

But the captain of the bodyguard left some of the unimportant and poorest people of the land to be vineyard workers and farmers.