When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, "Please strike this people with blindness." He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

Elisha said to them, "This is not the way, neither is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek." He led them to Samaria.

It happened, when they had come into Samaria, that Elisha said, "LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." The LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

The king of Israel said to Elisha, when he saw them, "My father, shall I strike them? Shall I strike them?"

He said, "If the LORD doesn't help you, from where could I help you? From of the threshing floor, or from the winepress?"

The king said to her, "What ails you?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'

So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him;' and she has hidden her son."

Then he said, "God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stay on him this day."

But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Then the king sent a man from before him; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Behold, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold the door shut against him. Isn't the sound of his master's feet behind him?"

While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him. Then he said, "Behold, this disaster is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"

Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the LORD, 'Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.'"

Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, "Behold, if the LORD made windows in heaven, could this thing be?" He said, "Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat of it."

Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate. They said one to another, "Why do we sit here until we die?

For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great army: and they said one to another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come on us.

Then they said one to another, "We aren't doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we keep silent. If we wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king's household."

The king arose in the night, and said to his servants, "I will now show you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, 'When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive, and get into the city.'"

The king appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to be in charge of the gate: and the people trod on him in the gate, and he died as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.

and that captain answered the man of God, and said, "Now, behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be?" and he said, "Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat of it."

It happened, as he was telling the king how he had restored to life him who was dead, that behold, the woman, whose son he had restored to life, cried to the king for her house and for her land. Gehazi said, "My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life."

The king said to Hazael, "Take a present in your hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of the LORD by him, saying, 'Will I recover from this sickness?'"

So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, "Your son Benhadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, 'Will I recover from this sickness?'"

Elisha said to him, "Go, tell him, 'You shall surely recover;' however the LORD has shown me that he shall surely die."

Hazael said, "Why do you weep, my lord?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child."

Hazael said, "But what is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Elisha answered, "The LORD has shown me that you will be king over Syria."

Then he departed from Elisha, and came to his master, who said to him, "What did Elisha say to you?" He answered, "He told me that you would surely recover."

Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, "Put your belt on your waist, take this vial of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead.

When he came, behold, the captains of the army were sitting. Then he said, "I have a message for you, captain." Jehu said, "To which of us all?" He said, "To you, O captain."

He arose, and went into the house. Then he poured the oil on his head, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'I have anointed you king over the people of the LORD, even over Israel.

Then Jehu came forth to the servants of his lord: and one said to him, "Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you?" He said to them, "You know the man and what his talk was."

They said, "That is a lie. Tell us now." He said, "He said to me, 'Thus says the LORD, I have anointed you king over Israel.'"

but king Joram was returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria.) Jehu said, "If this is your thinking, then let no one escape and go out of the city, to go to tell it in Jezreel."

Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel, and he spied the company of Jehu as he came, and said, "I see a company." Joram said, "Take a horseman, and send to meet them, and let him say, 'Is it peace?'"

So there went one on horseback to meet him, and said, "Thus says the king, 'Is it peace?'" Jehu said, "What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me." The watchman said, "The messenger came to them, but he isn't coming back."

Then he sent out a second on horseback, who came to them, and said, "Thus says the king, 'Is it peace?'" Jehu answered, "What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me."

The watchman said, "He came to them, and isn't coming back. The driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he drives furiously."

Joram said, "Get ready." They got his chariot ready. Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot, and they went out to meet Jehu, and found him in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite.

It happened, when Joram saw Jehu, that he said, "Is it peace, Jehu?" He answered, "What peace, so long as the prostitution of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft abound?"

Joram turned his hands, and fled, and said to Ahaziah, "There is treason, Ahaziah."

Then Jehu said to Bidkar his captain, "Pick him up, and throw him in the plot of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember how, when you and I rode together after Ahab his father, the LORD laid this burden on him:

But when Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house. Jehu followed after him, and said, "Strike him also in the chariot." They struck him at the ascent of Gur, which is by Ibleam. He fled to Megiddo, and died there.

As Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, "Do you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?"

He lifted up his face to the window, and said, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked out at him.

He said, "Throw her down." So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses. Then he trampled her under foot.

When he had come in, he ate and drink; and he said, "See now to this cursed woman, and bury her; for she is a king's daughter."

Therefore they came back, and told him. He said, "This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 'The dogs will eat the flesh of Jezebel on the plot of Jezreel,

But they were exceedingly afraid, and said, "Behold, the two kings did not stand before him. How then shall we stand?"

A messenger came, and told him, "They have brought the heads of the king's sons." He said, "Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning."

It happened in the morning, that he went out, and stood, and said to all the people, "You are righteous. Behold, I conspired against my master, and killed him; but who struck all these?

Jehu met with the brothers of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said, "Who are you?" They answered, "We are the brothers of Ahaziah. We are going down to greet the children of the king and the children of the queen."

He said, "Take them alive." They took them alive, and killed them at the pit of the shearing house, even forty-two men. He did not leave any of them.

When he had departed from there, he met Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him. He greeted him, and said to him, "Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart?" Jehonadab answered, "It is" And Jehu said, "If it is, give me your hand." He gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot.

He said, "Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD." So he made him ride in his chariot.

Jehu gathered all the people together, and said to them, "Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu will serve him much.

Jehu said, "Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal." They proclaimed it.

He said to him who was over the vestry, "Bring out robes for all the worshippers of Baal." He brought robes out to them.

Jehu went with Jehonadab the son of Rechab into the house of Baal. Then he said to the worshippers of Baal, "Search, and look that there are here with you none of the servants of the LORD, but the worshippers of Baal only."

They went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had appointed him eighty men outside, and said, "If any of the men whom I bring into your hands escape, he who lets him go, his life shall be for the life of him."

It happened, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, "Go in, and kill them. Let none escape." They struck them with the edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal.

The LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in executing that which is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."

Then he brought out the king's son, and put the crown on him, and gave him the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they clapped their hands, and said, "Long live the king."

Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds who were set over the army, and said to them, "Bring her out between the ranks. Kill him who follows her with the sword." For the priest said, "Do not let her be slain in the house of the LORD."

Jehoash said to the priests, "All the money of the holy things that is brought into the house of the LORD, in current money, the money of the persons for whom each man is rated, and all the money that it comes into any man's heart to bring into the house of the LORD,

Then king Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the other priests, and said to them, "Why do you not repair the breaches of the house? Now therefore take no more money from your treasurers, but deliver it for the breaches of the house."

Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness of which he died: and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen."

Elisha said to him, "Take bow and arrows"; and he took to him bow and arrows.

He said to the king of Israel, "Put your hand on the bow"; and he put his hand on it. Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands.

He said, "Open the window eastward"; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, "Shoot." and he shot. He said, "The LORD's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you shall strike the Syrians in Aphek, until you have consumed them."

He said, "Take the arrows"; and he took them. He said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground"; and he struck three times, and stopped.

The man of God was angry with him, and said, "You should have struck five or six times. Then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it, whereas now you shall strike Syria just three times."

and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, "You shall not do this thing."

Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, "What confidence is this in which you trust?

But if you tell me, 'We trust in the LORD our God;' isn't that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?'

Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, 'Go up against this land, and destroy it.'"'"

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it. Do not speak with us in the Jews' language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

But Rabshakeh said to them, "Has my master sent me to your master, and to you, to speak these words? Hasn't he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own water with you?"

They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'This day is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

Isaiah said to them, "Thus you shall tell your master, 'Thus says the LORD, "Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, "The LORD, the God of Israel, who sit above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

By your messengers you have defied the Lord, and have said, 'With the multitude of my chariots, I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field.

In those days was Hezekiah sick to death. Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live.'"

Isaiah said, "Take a cake of figs." They took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "What shall be the sign that the LORD will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the LORD the third day?"

Isaiah said, "This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?"

Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah, and said to him, "What did these men say? From where did they come to you?" Hezekiah said, "They have come from a far country, even from Babylon."

He said, "What have they seen in your house?" Hezekiah answered, "They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them."

Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD.

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the LORD which you have spoken is good." He said moreover, "Isn't it so, if peace and truth shall be in my days?"

He built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, "I will put my name in Jerusalem."

He set the engraved image of Asherah, that he had made, in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name forever;

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, "I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD." Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, "Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the LORD."

She said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: 'Tell the man who sent you to me,

Then he said, "What monument is that which I see?" The men of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God, who came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel."

He said, "Let him be. Let no man move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

The LORD said, "I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, 'My name shall be there.'"

He carried out there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold, which Solomon king of Israel had made in the LORD's temple, as the LORD had said.

Gedaliah swore to them and to their men, and said to them, "Do not be afraid because of the servants of the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you."

Then said Saul to his armor bearer, Draw your sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armor bearer would not; for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell on it.

In times past, even when Saul was king, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. The LORD your God said to you, 'You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over my people Israel.'"