1 Kings 22:29-40

Living Bible

²⁹ So King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah led their armies to Ramoth-gilead.

³⁰ Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “You wear your royal robes, but I’ll not wear mine!”

So Ahab went into the battle disguised in an ordinary soldier’s uniform. ³¹ For the king of Syria had commanded his thirty-two chariot captains to fight no one except King Ahab himself. ^32-33 When they saw King Jehoshaphat in his royal robes, they thought, “That’s the man we’re after.” So they wheeled around to attack him. But when Jehoshaphat shouted out to identify himself,^[a] they turned back! ³⁴ However, someone shot an arrow at random and it struck King Ahab between the joints of his armor.

“Take me out of the battle, for I am badly wounded,” he groaned to his chariot driver.

³⁵ The battle became more and more intense as the day wore on, and King Ahab went back in, propped up in his chariot with the blood from his wound running down onto the floorboards. Finally, toward evening, he died. ^36-37 Just as the sun was going down the cry ran through his troops. “It’s all over—return home! The king is dead!”

And his body was taken to Samaria and buried there. ³⁸ When his chariot and armor were washed beside the pool of Samaria, where the prostitutes bathed, dogs came and licked the king’s blood just as the Lord had said would happen.

³⁹ The rest of Ahab’s history—including the story of the ivory palace and the cities he built—is written in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. ⁴⁰ So Ahab was buried among his ancestors, and Ahaziah, his son, became the new king of Israel.