Then Joram said, Make ready. So they made his carriage ready; and Joram, king of Israel, with Ahaziah, king of Judah, went out in their carriages for the purpose of meeting Jehu; and they came face to face with him at the field of Naboth the Jezreelite.

Now when Joram saw Jehu he said, Is it peace, Jehu? And he said in answer, What peace is possible while all the land is full of the disgusting sins of your mother Jezebel, and her secret arts?

Then Jehu took his bow in his hand, and with all his strength sent an arrow, wounding Joram between the arms; and the arrow came out at his heart, and he went down on his face in his carriage.

And when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel had news of it; and, painting her eyes and dressing her hair with ornaments, she put her head out of the window.

Then, looking up to the window, he said, Who is on my side, who? and two or three unsexed servants put out their heads.

And he said, Take her and put her out of the window. So they sent her down with force, and her blood went in a shower on the wall and on the horses; and she was crushed under their feet.

And they went out to put her body into the earth, but nothing of her was to be seen, only the bones of her head, and her feet, and parts of her hands.

So they came back and gave him word of it. And he said, This is what the Lord said by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the heritage of Jezreel the flesh of Jezebel will become food for dogs;

Then he sent them a second letter, saying, If you are on my side, and if you will do my orders, come to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow, with the heads of your master's sons. Now the king's seventy sons were with the great men of the town, who had the care of them.

And when the letter came to them, they took the king's sons and put them to death, all the seventy, and put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel.

And a man came and said to him, They have come with the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Put them down in two masses at the doorway of the town till the morning.

And in the morning he went out and, stopping, said to all the people there, You are upright men: it is true that I made designs against my master, and put him to death; but who is responsible for the death of all these?

You may be certain that nothing which the Lord has said about the family of Ahab will be without effect; for the Lord has done what he said by his servant Elijah.

Then he got up and came to Samaria. And he was at the meeting-place of the keepers of sheep, by the way,

And when he had gone away from there, he came across Jehonadab, the son of Rechab: and he said good-day to him, and said to him, Is your heart true to mine, as mine is to yours? And Jehonadab in answer said, It is; and Jehu said, If it is, give me your hand. And he gave him his hand, and he made him come up into his carriage.

And Jehu sent out through all Israel; and all the servants of Baal came, not one kept away. And they came into the house of Baal, so that it was full from end to end.

And Jehu said to him who kept the robes, Get out robes for all the servants of Baal. So he got out robes for them.

Then when the burned offering was ended, straight away Jehu said to the armed men and the captains, Go in and put them to death; let not one come out. So they put them to the sword; and, pulling the images to the earth, they went into the holy place of the house of Baal.

And they took out the image of Asherah from the house of Baal, and had it burned.

The altar of Baal was pulled down and the house of Baal was broken up and made an unclean place, as it is to this day.

And the Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in doing what is right in my eyes and effecting all my purpose for the family of Ahab, your sons will be kings of Israel to the fourth generation.

And the time of Jehu's rule over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

And he gave them orders, saying, This is what you are to do: the third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the king's house,

And the two divisions of you, who go out on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the house of the Lord,

Will make a circle round the king, every man being armed; and whoever comes inside your lines is to be put to death; keep with the king, when he goes out and when he comes in.

And the captains of hundreds did as Jehoiada the priest gave them orders; every one took with him his men, those who came in and those who went out on the Sabbath, and they came in to Jehoiada the priest.

Then he made the king's son come out, and put the crown on him and the arm-bands, and made him king, and put the holy oil on him; and they all, making sounds of joy with their hands, said, Long life to the king.

Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down: its altars and images were all broken to bits, and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars. And the priest put overseers over the Lord's house.

So all the people of the land were glad, and the town was quiet; and they had put Athaliah to death with the sword at the king's house.

Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because he was guided by the teaching of Jehoiada the priest.

Let the priests take, every man from his friends and neighbours, to make good what is damaged in the house, wherever it is to be seen.

Then King Jehoash sent for Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and said to them, Why have you not made good what is damaged in the house? now take no more money from your neighbours, but give it for the building up of the house.

So the priests made an agreement to take no more money from the people, and not to make good what was damaged in the house.

But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and making a hole in the cover of it, put it by the altar, on the right side when one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put in it regularly all the money which was taken into the house of the Lord.

And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's scribe and the high priest came and put it in bags, noting the amount of all the money there was in the house of the Lord.

And the money which was measured out they gave regularly to those who were responsible for overseeing the work, and these gave it in payment to the woodworkers and the builders who were working on the house of the Lord,

And to the wall-builders and the stone-cutters, and to get wood and cut stone for building up the broken parts of the house of the Lord, and for everything needed to put the house in good order.

But it was all given to the workmen who were building up the house.

And they did not get any statement of accounts from the men to whom the money was given for the workmen, for they made use of it with good faith.

The money of the offerings for error and the sin-offerings was not taken into the house of the Lord; it was the priests'.

Then Hazael, king of Aram, went up against Gath and took it; and his purpose was to go up to Jerusalem.

Then Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the holy things which Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had given to the Lord, together with the things he himself had given, and all the gold in the Temple store and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram; and he went away from Jerusalem.

And his servants made a secret design and put Joash to death at the house of Millo on the way down to Silla.

But still they did not give up the sin of Jeroboam, which he made Israel do, but went on with it; and there was an image of Asherah in Samaria.)

For out of all his army, Jehoahaz had only fifty horsemen and ten carriages and ten thousand footmen; the king of Aram had given them up to destruction, crushing them like dust.

He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do, but he went on with it.

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

Then he said; Let the window be open to the east: and he got it open. Then Elisha said, Let the arrow go; and he let it go. And he said, The Lord's arrow of salvation, of salvation over Aram; for you will overcome the Aramaeans in Aphek and put an end to them.

Then the man of God was angry with him and said, If you had done it five or six times, then you would have overcome Aram completely; but now you will only overcome them three times.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, though not like David his father; he did as Joash his father had done.

He put to the sword twelve thousand men of Edom in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela in war, naming it Joktheel, as it is to this day.

It is true that you have overcome Edom and your heart is uplifted; let that glory be enough for you, and keep in your country; why do you make causes of trouble, putting yourself, and Judah with you, in danger of downfall?

But Amaziah gave no attention. So Jehoash, king of Israel, went up, and he and Amaziah, king of Judah, came face to face at Beth-shemesh, which is in Judah.

And Jehoash, king of Israel, made Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, son of Ahaziah, prisoner at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and had the wall of Jerusalem pulled down from the doorway of Ephraim to the door in the angle, four hundred cubits.

And they took his body on horseback and put it into the earth with his fathers in Jerusalem, the town of David.

And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done.

This was what the Lord had said to Jehu, Your sons to the fourth generation will be kings of Israel. And so it came about.

Then Menahem sent destruction on Tappuah and all the people in it, and its limits, from Tirzah, because they would not let him come in; and he had all the women who were with child cut open.

And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Uzziah had done.

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king; he was ruling for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as David his father did.

But he went in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even made his son go through the fire, copying the disgusting ways of the nations whom the Lord had sent out of the land before the children of Israel.

At that time the king of Edom got Elath back for Edom, and sent the Jews out of Elath; and the Edomites came back to Elath where they are living to this day.

And the king of Assyria, in answer to his request, went up against Damascus and took it, and took its people away as prisoners to Kir, and put Rezin to death.

Then King Ahaz went to Damascus for a meeting with Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria; and there he saw the altar which was at Damascus; and King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest a copy of the altar, giving the design of it and all the details of its structure.

And from the copy King Ahaz sent from Damascus, Urijah made an altar and had it ready by the time King Ahaz came back from Damascus.

And when the king came from Damascus, he saw the altar; and he went up on it and made an offering on it.

He made his burned offering and his meal offering and his drink offering there, draining out the blood of his peace-offerings on the altar.

And the brass altar, which was before the Lord, he took from the front of the house, from between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar.

And King Ahaz gave orders to Urijah the priest, saying, Make the morning burned offering and the evening meal offering and the king's burned offering and meal offering, with the burned offerings of all the people and their meal offerings and drink offerings, on the great altar, and put on it all the blood of the burned offerings and of the beasts which are offered; but the brass altar will be for my use to get directions from the Lord.

And King Ahaz took off the sides of the wheeled bases, and took down the great water-vessel from off the brass oxen which were under it and put it on a floor of stone.

Then the king of Assyria went through all the land and came up to Samaria, shutting it in with his forces for three years.

And the wrath of the Lord came on Israel because they had done evil against the Lord their God, who took them out of the land of Egypt from under the yoke of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and had become worshippers of other gods,

Living by the rules of the nations whom the Lord had sent out from before the children of Israel.

They put up pillars of stone and wood on every high hill and under every green tree:

But the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt with his great power and his outstretched arm, he is your God, to whom you are to give worship and make offerings:

And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as David his father had done.

He had the high places taken away, and the stone pillars broken to bits, and the Asherah cut down; and the brass snake which Moses had made was crushed to powder at his order, because in those days the children of Israel had offerings burned before it, and he gave it the name Nehushtan.

Now in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria, shutting it in with his armies.

And at the end of three years they took it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah's rule, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

Because they did not give ear to the voice of the Lord their God, but went against his agreement, even against everything ordered by Moses, the servant of the Lord, and they did not give ear to it or do it.

And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to Lachish, to the king of Assyria, saying, I have done wrong; give up attacking me, and whatever you put on me I will undergo. And the payment he was to make was fixed by the king of Assyria at three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

And at that time Hezekiah had the gold from the doors of the Lord's house, and from the door-pillars plated by him, cut off and gave it to the king of Assyria.

And they sent for the king, and Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to them.

And the Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, These are the words of the great king, the king of Assyria: In what are you placing your hope?

See, now, you are basing your hope on that broken rod of Egypt, which will go through a man's hand if he makes use of it for a support; for so is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who put their faith in him.

And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar in Jerusalem?

And have I now come up to send destruction on this place without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.

Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, Will you kindly make use of the Aramaean language in talking to your servants, for we are used to it, and do not make use of the Jews' language in the hearing of the people on the wall.

But the Rab-shakeh said to them, Is it to your master or to you that my master has sent me to say these words? has he not sent me to the men seated on the wall? for they are the people who will be short of food with you when the town is shut in.

This is what the king says: Do not be tricked by Hezekiah, for there is no salvation for you in him.

Do not give ear to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me; and everyone will be free to take the fruit of his vine and of his fig-tree, and the water of his spring;

Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah? have they kept Samaria out of my hands?

Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah, with their clothing parted as a sign of grief, and gave him an account of what the Rab-shakeh had said.

And on hearing it, King Hezekiah took off his robe, and put on haircloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

It may be that the Lord your God will give ear to the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria, his master, sent to say evil things against the living God, and will make his words come to nothing: so then make your prayer for the rest of the people.

And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.

So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah, for it had come to his ears that he had gone away from Lachish.

This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse; and will you be kept safe?