² Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner; put on mourning garments, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead.^(A)

Jeroboam II Reigns over Israel

²³ In the fifteenth year of King Amaziah son of Joash of Judah, King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel began to reign in Samaria; he reigned forty-one years. ²⁴ He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat that he caused Israel to sin. ²⁵ He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet who was from Gath-hepher.^{(A) 26} For the Lord saw that the distress of Israel was very bitter; there was no one left, bond or free, and no one to help Israel.^{(B) 27} But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash.^(C)

²⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he fought, and how he recovered for Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel?^{(D) 29} Jeroboam slept with his ancestors, the kings of Israel; his son Zechariah succeeded him.^(E)

⁵ And you shall flee by the valley of the Lord’s mountain,^[a] for the valley between the mountains shall reach to Azal,^[b] and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him.^(A)