Ahab’s Family Killed

10 Now there were in Samaria^(A) seventy sons^(B) of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel,^[a](C) to the elders and to the guardians^(D) of Ahab’s children. He said,

⁶ Then Jehu wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are on my side and will obey me, take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel by this time tomorrow.”

Now the royal princes, seventy of them, were with the leading men of the city, who were rearing them. ⁷ When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all seventy^(A) of them. They put their heads^(B) in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel. ⁸ When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, “They have brought the heads of the princes.”

Then Jehu ordered, “Put them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning.”