2 Kings 10-12

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

10 Ahab had seventy [grandsons] in Samaria. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them from Jezreel to the rulers of Samaria, to the elders, and to those who brought up Ahab’s [grandsons], saying,

² Now as soon as this letter comes to you, seeing your master [Joram’s] sons are with you and also chariots and horses, a fortified city, and weapons,

³ Select the best and most fit of your master’s sons and set him on his father’s throne; and fight for your master’s house.

⁴ But they were exceedingly afraid and reasoned, The two kings could not stand before [Jehu]; how then can we stand?

⁵ And he who was over the household, he who was over the city, the elders also, and the guardians and tutors sent to Jehu, saying, We are your servants and will do all that you bid us; [but] we will not make any man king; do what is good in your eyes.

⁶ Then [Jehu] wrote a second letter to them, saying, If you are with me and will obey me, take the heads of your master [Joram’s] sons and come to me at Jezreel by tomorrow this time. Now the [dead] king’s sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were bringing them up.

⁷ When the letter came to these men, they took the king’s sons and slew them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

⁸ When a messenger came and told him, They have brought the heads of the king’s sons, he said, Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the city gate until morning.

⁹ The next morning he went out and stood and said to all the people, You are just and innocent. Behold, I conspired against my master and slew him, but who smote all these?

¹⁰ Know now that nothing which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab shall be unfulfilled or ineffective; for the Lord has done what He said through His servant Elijah.

¹¹ So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, his familiar friends, and his priests, until he left him none remaining.

¹² And he arose and went to Samaria. And as he was at the shearing house of the shepherds on the way,

¹³ Jehu met the kinsmen of Ahaziah king of Judah and said, Who are you? They answered, We are the kinsmen of Ahaziah, and we came down to visit the royal princes and the sons of [Jezebel] the queen mother.

¹⁴ He said, Take them alive. And they did so and slew them at the cistern of the shearing house, forty-two men; he left none of them.

¹⁵ When Jehu left there, he met Jehonadab son of Rechab coming to meet him. He saluted him and said to him, Is your heart right, as my heart is with yours? Jehonadab answered, It is. [Jehu said] If it is, give me your hand. He gave him his hand, and Jehu took him up into the chariot.

¹⁶ And he said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. So they made [the Rechabite] ride in Jehu’s chariot.

¹⁷ When Jehu came to Samaria, he slew all who remained of Ahab’s family in Samaria, till he had destroyed them all, according to what the Lord said to Elijah.

¹⁸ Jehu assembled all the people and said to them, Ahab served Baal a little; but Jehu will serve him much.

¹⁹ So call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers, and all his priests. Let none be missing, for I have a great sacrifice to make to Baal; whoever is missing shall not live. But Jehu did it with trickery, intending to destroy the Baal worshipers.

²⁰ Jehu said, Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it.

²¹ Jehu sent through all Israel, and all the worshipers of Baal came; not a man failed to come. They went to the house or temple of Baal, filling it from one end to the other.

²² And he said to the man over the vestry, Bring vestments for all the worshipers of Baal. And he brought them vestments.

²³ Then Jehu with Jehonadab son of Rechab went into the house of Baal and said to the worshipers of Baal, Search and see that there are here with you none of the servants of the Lord—but Baal worshipers only.

²⁴ And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed eighty men outside and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he who lets him go shall forfeit his own life for his life.

²⁵ As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Jehu said to the guards and to the officers, Go in and slay them; let none escape. And they smote them with the sword; and the guards or runners [before the king] and the officers threw their bodies out and went into the inner dwelling of the house of Baal.

²⁶ They brought out the pillars or obelisks of the house of Baal and burned them.

²⁷ They broke down the pillars of Baal and the house of Baal, and made it [forever unclean] a privy to this day.

²⁸ Thus Jehu rooted Baal out of Israel.

²⁹ But Jehu did not give up the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, by which he made Israel to sin, that is, the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.^(A)

³⁰ And the Lord said to Jehu, Because you have executed well what is right in My eyes and have done to the house of Ahab as I willed, your sons to the fourth generation shall sit on Israel’s throne. [Fulfilled in II Kings 15:12.]

³¹ But Jehu paid no attention to walking in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not quit the sins with which Jeroboam made Israel to sin.

³² [So] in those days the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel. Hazael [of Syria] defeated them in all the [across the Jordan] territory of Israel

³³ From the Jordan east, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, Reubenites, and Manassites, from Aroer which is by the Valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.

³⁴ The rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

³⁵ Jehu slept with his fathers. They buried him in Samaria. Jehoahaz his son reigned in his stead.

³⁶ The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

11 When Athaliah the mother of [King] Ahaziah [of Judah] saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal descendants.

² But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, [half] sister of Ahaziah, stole Joash son of Ahaziah from among the king’s sons, who were to be slain, even him and his nurse, and hid them from Athaliah in an inner storeroom for beds; so he was not slain.

³ Joash was with his nurse hidden in the house of the Lord for six years. And Athaliah reigned over the land.

⁴ In the seventh year Jehoiada [the priest, Jehosheba’s husband] sent for the captains over hundreds of the Carites and of the guards or runners and brought them to him to the house of the Lord and made a covenant with them and took an oath from them in the house of the Lord and showed them the king’s [hidden] son.

⁵ And he commanded them, saying, This is the thing you shall do: a third of you who come in on the Sabbath shall keep watch of the king’s house,

⁶ A third shall be at the gate Sur, and a third at the gate behind the guard. So you shall keep watch of the palace [from three places] and be a barrier.

⁷ And two divisions of all you who should go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord to [protect] the king.

⁸ You shall surround the [little] king, every man with his weapons in his hand. And let anyone who breaks through the ranks be put to death. You be with the king when he goes out and when he comes in.

⁹ The captains over the hundreds did all that Jehoiada the priest commanded; and they took every man his men who were to come on duty on the Sabbath with those who should go off duty on the Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.

¹⁰ To the captains over hundreds the priest gave the spears and shields that had been King David’s, which were in the house of the Lord.

¹¹ And the guards stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, from the right corner to the left corner of the temple area, along by the altar [in the court] and the temple proper.

¹² And Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him and gave him the Testimony [the Mosaic Law]; and they proclaimed him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands and said, Long live the king!

¹³ When Athaliah heard the noise of the guards and the people, she went into the house of the Lord to the people.

¹⁴ When she looked, there stood the king [on the platform] by the pillar, as was customary [on such occasions], and the captains and the trumpeters beside the king, with all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing trumpets. And Athaliah rent her clothes and cried, Treason! Treason!

¹⁵ Then Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds set over the army and said to them, Take her forth outside the ranks, and him who follows her kill with the sword. For the priest had said, Let her not be slain in the house of the Lord.

¹⁶ They seized her, and she went through the horses’ entrance to the king’s house, and there she was slain.

¹⁷ And Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord, the king, and the people that they would be the Lord’s people—and also between the king and the people.

¹⁸ Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and destroyed it. His altar and his images they broke completely in pieces, and Mattan the priest of Baal they slew before the altars. And [Jehoiada] the priest appointed watchmen to guard the house of the Lord.

¹⁹ Then he took the rulers over hundreds, the captains, the guard, and all the people of the land, and they brought the king down from the house of the Lord and came by way of the guards’ gate to the king’s house. And [little] Joash was seated on the throne of the kings.

²⁰ So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet after Athaliah had been slain with the sword beside the king’s house.

²¹ Joash was seven years old when he began to reign.

12 In the seventh year of Jehu, ^[a]Joash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba.

² Joash did right in the sight of the Lord all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

³ Yet the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense in the high places.

⁴ And Joash said to the priests, All the current money brought into the house of the Lord to provide the dedicated things, also the money [which the priests by command have] assessed on all those bound by vows, also all the money that it comes into any man’s heart voluntarily to bring into the house of the Lord,

⁵ Let the priests solicit and receive such contributions, every man from his acquaintance, and let them repair the Lord’s house wherever any such need may be found.

⁶ But in the twenty-third year of King Joash’s reign the priests had not made the needed repairs on the Lord’s house.

⁷ Then King Joash called for Jehoiada the priest and the other priests and said to them, Why are you not repairing the [Lord’s] house? Do not take any more money from your acquaintances, but turn it all over for the repair of the house. [You are no longer responsible for this work. I will take it into my own hands.]

⁸ And the priests consented to receive no more money from the people, nor to repair the breaches of the house.

⁹ Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in the lid of it and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the Lord; and the priests who guarded the door put in the chest all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.

¹⁰ And whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord and tied it up in bags.

¹¹ Then they gave the money, when it was weighed, into the hands of those who were doing the work, who had the oversight of the house of the Lord; and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the Lord

¹² And to the masons and stonecutters, and to buy timber and hewn stone for making the repairs on the house of the Lord, and for all that was outlay for repairing the house.

¹³ However, there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, any vessels of gold or of silver, from the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.

¹⁴ But they gave that to the workmen, and repaired with it the house of the Lord.

¹⁵ Moreover, they did not require an accounting from the men into whose hands they delivered the money to be paid to the workmen, for they dealt faithfully.

¹⁶ The money from the guilt offerings and sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord; it was the priests’.

¹⁷ Then Hazael king of Syria went up, fought against Gath [in Philistia], and took it. And Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.

¹⁸ And Joash king of Judah took all the hallowed things that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his [forefathers], kings of Judah, had dedicated and his own hallowed things and all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and in the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Syria; and Hazael went away from Jerusalem.

¹⁹ The rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰ His servants arose and made a conspiracy and slew Joash [in revenge] in the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.^(B)

²¹ It was Jozachar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, who smote him so that he died. They buried [Joash] with his fathers in the City of David. Amaziah his son reigned in his stead.