2 Kings 13

²¹Joash was seven years old when he became king.

⁴Then in the seventh year, Jehoiada sent for the commanders of hundreds, the Carites, and the guards, and had them brought into the house of the Lord. There he made a covenant with them and put them under oath. He showed them the king’s son

²⁶Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

³⁵And Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoahaz reigned in his place.

³⁶So the duration of Jehu’s reign over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

²⁶Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom might revert to the house of David.

²⁷If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their hearts will return to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah; then they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”

¹⁶So He will give Israel over on account of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

²⁹but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, for he is determined to follow worthless idols.

¹¹And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not turn away from all the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit, but he walked in them.

²⁴When Hazael king of Aram died, his son Ben-hadad reigned in his place.

²⁵Then Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took back from Ben-hadad son of Hazael the cities that Hazael had taken in battle from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times, and so recovered the cities of Israel.

¹⁷Then Jehu will put to death whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death whoever escapes the sword of Jehu.

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

¹⁷At that time Hazael king of Aram marched up and fought against Gath and captured it. Then he decided to attack Jerusalem.

⁵Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

⁶I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

¹⁷And I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.

²⁶For the Lord saw that the affliction of the Israelites, both slave and free, was very bitter. There was no one to help Israel,

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

³⁴When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

³Call to Me, and I will answer and show you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

¹⁵“We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the Lord. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!”

¹⁶So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen how severely the Egyptians are oppressing them.

²⁵Then Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took back from Ben-hadad son of Hazael the cities that Hazael had taken in battle from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times, and so recovered the cities of Israel.

²⁵This Jeroboam restored the boundary of Israel from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word that the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.

²⁷and since the Lord had said that He would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²Even in times past, while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And the Lord your God said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

²¹The deliverers will ascend Mount Zion to rule over the mountains of Esau. And the kingdom will belong to the Lord.

³³Then he set up an Asherah pole. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.

⁴Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests second in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

²⁰So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel. He afflicted them and delivered them into the hands of plunderers, until He had banished them from His presence.

²¹When the Lord had torn Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king, and Jeroboam led Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin.

³And Abijam walked in all the sins that his father before him had committed, and his heart was not as fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his forefather had been.

²⁹but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

³This is what the Lord says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they threshed Gilead with sledges of iron.

³²In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory

²Who has aroused one from the east and called him to his feet in righteousness? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow.

⁴²I ground them as dust in the face of the wind; I trampled them like mud in the streets.

¹²“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹⁹And no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “The Hebrews must not be allowed to make swords or spears.”

²⁰Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles.

³⁴As for the rest of the acts of Jehu, along with all his accomplishments and all his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

³⁵And Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoahaz reigned in his place.

²⁹As for the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, along with all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

³¹And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David; his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. And his son Abijam reigned in his place.

⁴For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.

¹⁹As for the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he waged war and how he reigned, they are indeed written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰And the length of Jeroboam’s reign was twenty-two years, and he rested with his fathers, and his son Nadab reigned in his place.

⁸Then Amaziah sent messengers to the king of Israel Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu. “Come, let us meet face to face,” he said.

¹⁰In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Joash over Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned sixteen years.

¹³All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. For this is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will receive a proper burial, because only in him has the Lord, the God of Israel, found any good in the house of Jeroboam.

³⁵And Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoahaz reigned in his place.

¹³And Jehoash rested with his fathers, and Jeroboam succeeded him on the throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.

³Nevertheless, he clung to the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit; he did not turn away from them.

²⁹but he did not turn away from the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.

⁶Nevertheless, they did not turn away from the sins that the house of Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit, but they continued to walk in them. The Asherah pole even remained standing in Samaria.

¹⁷Then Amaziah king of Judah took counsel and sent word to the king of Israel Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu. “Come, let us meet face to face,” he said.

¹⁸But Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “A thistle in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ Then a wild beast in Lebanon came along and trampled the thistle.

¹⁴When Elisha had fallen sick with the illness from which he would die, Jehoash king of Israel came down to him and wept over him, saying, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

¹⁵Elisha told him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So Jehoash took a bow and some arrows.

²⁵This Jeroboam restored the boundary of Israel from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word that the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.

⁸Then Amaziah sent messengers to the king of Israel Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu. “Come, let us meet face to face,” he said.

⁹But Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “A thistle in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ Then a wild beast in Lebanon came along and trampled the thistle.

³¹and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes.

²⁸As for the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, along with all his accomplishments and might, and how he waged war and recovered both Damascus and Hamath for Israel from Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

²⁹And Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel. And his son Zechariah reigned in his place.

¹²And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.

¹⁰Then David rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David.

²¹Otherwise, when my lord the king rests with his fathers, I and my son Solomon will be counted as criminals.”

²⁶For he has been longing for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.

¹²As Elisha watched, he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And he saw Elijah no more. So taking hold of his own clothes, he tore them in two.

¹In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

¹Some time later Joseph was told, “Your father is ill.” So he set out with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”

¹The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous are taken away from the presence of evil.

²⁴Yet he steadied his bow, and his strong arms were tempered by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

³⁴Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm.

¹Of David. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

²⁶In the spring, Ben-hadad mobilized the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel.

¹⁰Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”

¹¹But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy.

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

³⁹“Take away the stone,” Jesus said. “Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”

⁴⁰Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

²⁴As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because this will mean that the Lord has gone out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

⁶Now six stone water jars had been set there for the Jewish rites of purification. Each could hold from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁶When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another.” But he replied, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

¹Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, you are living in a rebellious house. They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious house.

²the Lord had already spoken through Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and the sandals from your feet.” And Isaiah did so, walking around naked and barefoot.

³Then the Lord said, “Just as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and omen against Egypt and Cush,

¹¹As long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed; but when he lowered them, Amalek prevailed.

¹“As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword, use it as a barber’s razor, and shave your head and beard. Then take a set of scales and divide the hair.

²When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

¹“Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem.

²Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.

²⁵Then Jehoash son of Jehoahaz took back from Ben-hadad son of Hazael the cities that Hazael had taken in battle from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash defeated Ben-hadad three times, and so recovered the cities of Israel.

¹⁶Later, Moses searched carefully for the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up. He was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and asked,

⁹Then the man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Be careful not to pass by this place, for the Arameans are going down there.”

¹⁴But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and told them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

⁴⁰And they poured it out for the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they cried out, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!” And they could not eat it.

⁵Jesus looked around at them with anger and sorrow at their hardness of heart. Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and it was restored.

²And the Lord sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the Lord had spoken through His servants the prophets.

⁷And he sent a message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?” “I will go,” replied Jehoshaphat. “I am as you are, my people are your people, and my horses are your horses.”

²At this time the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken a young girl from the land of Israel, and she was serving Naaman’s wife.

⁵But after the death of Ahab, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

²⁴But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked them, and they fled before them. So the Israelites invaded their land and struck down the Moabites.

²⁵They destroyed the cities, and each man threw stones on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up every spring and cut down every good tree. Only Kir-haraseth was left with stones in place, but men with slings surrounded it and attacked it as well.

²³So the king prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. And the Aramean raiders did not come into the land of Israel again.

¹²so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and the diseases and evil spirits left them.

³⁵Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

¹The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by His Spirit and set me down in the middle of the valley, and it was full of bones.

²He led me all around among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, and indeed, they were very dry.

²⁸Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice

²⁹and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

¹⁵As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.

²⁵Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

¹²“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”

⁴⁰So the anger of the Lord burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.

⁴¹He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.

³So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them continually into the hands of Hazael king of Aram and his son Ben-hadad.

⁴Then Jehoahaz sought the favor of the Lord, and the Lord listened to him because He saw the oppression that the king of Aram had inflicted on Israel.

⁸He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

²⁷and since the Lord had said that He would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

¹⁵But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

²⁴So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

²⁵God saw the Israelites and took notice.

¹⁶I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted.

¹⁷Get up and walk around the land, through its length and breadth, for I will give it to you.”

³For the scepter of the wicked will not rest upon the land allotted to the righteous, so that the righteous will not put forth their hands to injustice.

⁷Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He delay in helping them?

¹⁸Then Elisha said, “Take the arrows!” So he took them, and Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground!” So he struck the ground three times and stopped.

¹⁹But the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times. Then you would have struck down Aram until you had put an end to it. But now you will strike down Aram only three times.”

³²In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory

²⁵This Jeroboam restored the boundary of Israel from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word that the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.