1 Kings 20:1-15

Complete Jewish Bible

20 Now Ben-Hadad the king of Aram rallied his whole army; with him were thirty-two kings, besides horses and chariots. Then he marched on Shomron and laid siege to it. ² He sent messengers inside the city to Ach’av king of Isra’el ³ to say to him, “Here is the message from Ben-Hadad: ‘Your silver and gold are mine, also your wives and your best children are mine.’” ⁴ The king of Isra’el answered, “Just as you say, my lord, king; I am yours, along with everything I own.”

⁵ The messengers returned and said, “Here is Ben-Hadad’s response: ‘I sent you a message to hand over your silver, gold, wives and children to me. ⁶ But I am going to send my servants to you tomorrow around this time; they will ransack your house and the houses of your servants; and whatever they see that they like they will seize and remove.’” ⁷ Then the king of Isra’el summoned all the leaders of the land and said, “Please take notice! Do you see how this man is trying to make trouble? First he demanded my wives, children, silver and gold; and I denied him nothing.” ⁸ All the leaders and all the people said to him, “Don’t listen, and don’t agree.” ⁹ So he said to Ben-Hadad’s messengers, “Tell my lord the king, ‘I will do all that you asked of me the first time, but this I cannot do.” The messengers left and brought word back to him.

¹⁰ Ben-Hadad then sent this message to him: “May the gods do terrible things to me and worse ones as well if there’s enough dust in Shomron to give each of my followers a handful!” ¹¹ The king of Isra’el answered, “Tell him: ‘He who is putting on his armor shouldn’t boast as if he were taking it off!’” ¹² It happened that Ben-Hadad received this message when he was drinking, he and his kings, in the field-barracks. He ordered his servants: “Take up your battle positions!” So they got ready to attack the city.

¹³ At that moment a prophet approached Ach’av king of Isra’el and said, “Here is what Adonai says: ‘Have you seen this vast army? I am going to give you victory over them today. Then you will know that I am Adonai!’” ¹⁴ Ach’av asked, “Who will defeat them?” He answered, “This is what Adonai says: ‘The young men who serve the district governors.’” He asked, “Who will start the fighting?” and he answered, “You will.” ¹⁵ He counted the district governors’ young men; there were 232. After that, he counted all the people, all the people of Isra’el; there were 7,000.