Jehu Seizes the Throne

¹⁴ Then Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. Now Joram and all Israel had been guarding Ramoth Gilead against Hazael king of Aram. ¹⁵ But King Joram^[a] returned to Jezre’el to recover from the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought against Hazael king of Aram.

Then Jehu said, “If you really want me to be king, don’t let any survivors get out of the city to go and report in Jezre’el.”

¹⁶ Then Jehu got in his chariot and went to Jezre’el, because Joram was resting there and Ahaziah king of Judah had gone down to see Joram. ¹⁷ Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezre’el, and he saw Jehu’s troops coming, so the watchman said, “I see a large group coming!”

Then Joram said, “Get a rider and send him to meet them and say, ‘Do you come in peace?’”

¹⁸ So a horseman^[b] went to meet him. He said, “This is what the king says. Do you come in peace?”

Then Jehu said, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”

Then the watchmen said, “The messenger reached him but did not return.”

¹⁹ So he sent a second horseman. He came to them and said, “This is what the king says. Do you come in peace?”

Jehu answered, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”

²⁰ Then the watchman said, “He reached them, but he did not return. But the driving is like Jehu son of Nimshi’s driving. He drives like a madman.”

²¹ Then Joram said, “Hitch up a chariot!” Then they hitched up his chariot, and Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his own chariot, to meet Jehu. They reached him at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth from Jezre’el.

²² When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Do you come in peace, Jehu?”

Jehu answered, “What peace can there be as long as so much of your mother Jezebel’s prostitution and witchcraft exists?”

²³ Then Joram turned his chariot around and fled. He said to Ahaziah, “Treachery, Ahaziah!”

²⁴ Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between his shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart, and he slumped down in his chariot. ²⁵ Then Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, “Pick him up and throw him onto the plot of land that belonged to Naboth from Jezre’el. Remember that when you and I were riding side by side in chariots behind his father Ahab, the Lord made this pronouncement against him: ²⁶ ‘As surely as I saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons yesterday, the Lord declares, I will repay you on this plot of land, the Lord declares.’ So now, pick him up and throw him onto that plot of land according to the word of the Lord.”

²⁷ Ahaziah king of Judah saw this and fled on the road toward Beth Hagan. But Jehu pursued him and said, “Shoot him too!” They shot him^[c] in his chariot on the way up to Gur, that is Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo and died there. ²⁸ His servants brought him in his chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb with his fathers in the City of David. ²⁹ (It was in the eleventh year of Joram son of King Ahab that Ahaziah had become king over Judah.)