2 Kings
8
- Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son
he had restored to life, "Go away with your family and stay for a while
wherever you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will
last seven years."
- The woman proceeded to do as the man of
God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines
seven years.
- At the end of the seven years she came back
from the land of the Philistines and went to the king to beg for her house
and land.
- The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant
of the man of God, and had said, "Tell me about all the great things
Elisha has done."
- Just as Gehazi was telling the king how
Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought
back to life came to beg the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, "This
is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to
life."
- The king asked the woman about it, and she
told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, "Give
back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land
from the day she left the country until now."
- Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king
of Aram was ill. When the king was told, "The man of God has come all
the way up here,"
- he said to Hazael, "Take a gift with
you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the LORD through him; ask him,
'Will I recover from this illness ?'"
- Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with
him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went
in and stood before him, and said, "Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has
sent me to ask, 'Will I recover from this illness ?'"
- Elisha answered, "Go and say to him,
'You will certainly recover'; but the LORD has revealed to me that he will
in fact die."
- He stared at him with a fixed gaze until
Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep.
- "Why is my lord weeping?" asked
Hazael. "Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,"
he answered. "You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their
young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip
open their pregnant women."
- Hazael said, "How could your servant,
a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?" "The LORD has shown me that
you will become king of Aram," answered Elisha.
- Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to
his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, "What did Elisha say to you?"
Hazael replied, "He told me that you would certainly recover."
- But the next day he took a thick cloth,
soaked it in water and spread it over the king's face, so that he died. Then
Hazael succeeded him as king.
- In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king
of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat
began his reign as king of Judah.
- He was thirty-two years old when he became
king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years.
- He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel,
as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil
in the eyes of the LORD.
- Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant
David, the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain
a lamp for David and his descendants forever.
- In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against
Judah and set up its own king.
- So Jehoram went to Zair with all his chariots.
The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and
broke through by night; his army, however, fled back home.
- To this day Edom has been in rebellion against
Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time.
- As for the other events of Jehoram's reign,
and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings
of Judah ?
- Jehoram rested with his fathers and was
buried with them in the City of David. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as
king.
- In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab
king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.
- Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother's name was Athaliah,
a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.
- He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab
and did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for he
was related by marriage to Ahab's family.
- Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war
against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram;
- so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover
from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle
with Hazael king of Aram. Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down
to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he had been wounded.
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