I Kings 19-22

I Kings 19

¹Ahab gave Jezebel news of all Elijah had done, and how he had put all the prophets to death with the sword.

²Then Jezebel sent a servant to Elijah, saying, May the gods' punishment be on me if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

³And he got up, fearing for his life, and went in flight, and came to Beer-sheba in Judah, parting there from his servant;

⁴While he himself went a day's journey into the waste land, and took a seat under a broom-plant, desiring for himself only death; for he said, It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.

⁵And stretching himself on the earth, he went to sleep under the broom-plant; but an angel, touching him, said to him, Get up and have some food.

⁶And looking up, he saw by his head a cake cooked on the stones and a bottle of water. So he took food and drink and went to sleep again.

⁷And the angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touching him said, Get up and have some food, or the journey will be overmuch for your strength.

⁸So he got up and took food and drink, and in the strength of that food he went on for forty days and nights, to Horeb, the mountain of God.

⁹And there he went into a hole in the rock for the night; then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, What are you doing here, Elijah?

¹⁰And he said, I have been burning for the honour of the Lord, the God of armies; for the children of Israel have not kept your agreement; they have made destruction of your altars, and have put your prophets to death with the sword: till I, even I, am the only one living; and now they are attempting to take away my life.

¹¹Then he said, Go out and take your place on the mountain before the Lord. Then the Lord went by, and mountains were parted by the force of a great wind, and rocks were broken before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earth-shock, but the Lord was not in the earth-shock.

¹²And after the earth-shock a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a soft breath.

¹³And Elijah, hearing it, went out, covering his face with his robe, and took his place in the opening of the hole. And there a voice came to him saying, What are you doing here, Elijah?

¹⁴And he said, I have been burning for the honour of the Lord, the God of armies; for the children of Israel have not kept your agreement; they have had your altars broken down, and have put your prophets to death with the sword: till I, even I, am the only one living; and now they are attempting to take away my life.

¹⁵And the Lord said to him, Go back on your way through the waste land to Damascus; and when you come there, put the holy oil on Hazael to make him king over Aram;

¹⁶And on Jehu, son of Nimshi, making him king over Israel; and on Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, to be prophet in your place.

¹⁷And it will come about that the man who gets away safe from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will put to death; and whoever gets away safe from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will put to death.

¹⁸But I will keep safe seven thousand in Israel, all those whose knees have not been bent to Baal, and whose mouths have given him no kisses.

¹⁹So he went away from there and came across Elisha, the son of Shaphat, ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen, he himself walking with the twelfth; and Elijah went up to him and put his robe on him.

²⁰And letting the oxen be where they were, he came running after Elijah, and said, Only let me give a kiss to my father and mother, and then I will come after you. But he said to him, Go back again; for what have I done to you?

²¹And he went back, and took the oxen and put them to death, and cooking their flesh with the yokes of the oxen, he gave the people a feast. Then he got up and went after Elijah and became his servant.

I Kings 20

¹Now Ben-hadad, king of Aram, got all his army together, and thirty-two kings with him, and horses and carriages of war; he went up and made war on Samaria, shutting it in.

²And he sent representatives into the town to Ahab, king of Israel;

³And they said to him, Ben-hadad says, Your silver and your gold are mine; and your wives and children are mine.

⁴And the king of Israel sent him an answer saying, As you say, my lord king, I am yours with all I have.

⁵Then the representatives came back again, and said, These are the words of Ben-hadad: I sent to you saying, Give up to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children;

⁶But I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, to make a search through your house and the houses of your people, and everything which is pleasing in your eyes they will take away in their hands.

⁷Then the king of Israel sent for all the responsible men of the land, and said, Now will you take note and see the evil purpose of this man: he sent for my wives and my children, my silver and my gold, and I did not keep them back.

⁸And all the responsible men and the people said to him, Do not give attention to him or do what he says.

⁹So he said to the representatives of Ben-hadad, Say to my lord the king, All the orders you sent the first time I will do; but this thing I may not do. And the representatives went back with this answer.

¹⁰Then Ben-hadad sent to him, saying, May the gods' punishment be on me if there is enough of the dust of Samaria for all the people at my feet to take some in their hands.

¹¹And the king of Israel said in answer, Say to him, The time for loud talk is not when a man is putting on his arms, but when he is taking them off.

¹²Now when this answer was given to Ben-hadad, he was drinking with the kings in the tents, and he said to his men, Take up your positions. So they put themselves in position for attacking the town.

¹³Then a prophet came up to Ahab, king of Israel, and said, The Lord says, Have you seen all this great army? See, I will give it into your hands today, and you will see that I am the Lord.

¹⁴And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, The Lord says, By the servants of the chiefs who are over the divisions of the land. Then he said, By whom is the fighting to be started? And he made answer, By you.

¹⁵Then he got together the servants of all the chiefs who were over the divisions of the land, two hundred and thirty-two of them; and after them, he got together all the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand.

¹⁶And in the middle of the day they went out. But Ben-hadad was drinking in the tents with the thirty-two kings who were helping him.

¹⁷And the servants of the chiefs who were over the divisions of the land went forward first; and when Ben-hadad sent out, they gave him the news, saying, Men have come out from Samaria.

¹⁸And he said, If they have come out for peace, take them living, and if they have come out for war, take them living.

¹⁹So the servants of the chiefs of the divisions of the land went out of the town, with the army coming after them.

²⁰And every one of them put his man to death, and the Aramaeans went in flight with Israel after them; and Ben-hadad, king of Aram, got away safely on a horse with his horsemen.

²¹And the king of Israel went out and took the horses and the war-carriages, and made great destruction among the Aramaeans.

²²Then the prophet came up to the king of Israel, and said to him, Now make yourself strong, and take care what you do, or a year from now the king of Aram will come up against you again.

²³Then the king of Aram's servants said to him, Their god is a god of the hills; that is why they were stronger than we: but if we make an attack on them in the lowlands, we will certainly be stronger than they.

²⁴This is what you have to do: take away the kings from their positions, and put captains in their places;

²⁵And get together another army like the one which came to destruction, horse for horse, and carriage for carriage; and let us make war on them in the lowlands, and certainly we will be stronger than they. And he gave ear to what they said, and did so.

²⁶So, a year later, Ben-hadad got the Aramaeans together and went up to Aphek to make war on Israel.

²⁷And the children of Israel got themselves together, and food was made ready and they went against them; the tents of the children of Israel were like two little flocks of goats before them, but all the country was full of the Aramaeans.

²⁸And a man of God came up and said to the king of Israel, The Lord says, Because the Aramaeans have said, The Lord is a god of the hills and not of the valleys; I will give all this great army into your hands, and you will see that I am the Lord.

²⁹Now the two armies kept their positions facing one another for seven days. And on the seventh day the fight was started; and the children of Israel put to the sword a hundred thousand Aramaean footmen in one day.

³⁰But the rest went in flight to Aphek, into the town, where a wall came down on the twenty-seven thousand who were still living. And Ben-hadad went in flight into the town, into an inner room.

³¹Then his servants said to him, It is said that the kings of Israel are full of mercy: let us then put on haircloth, and cords on our heads, and go to the king of Israel; it may be that he will give you your life.

³²So they put on haircloth, and cords on their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, Your servant Ben-hadad says, Let me now keep my life. And he said, Is he still living? he is my brother.

³³Now the men took it as a sign, and quickly took up his words; and they said, Ben-hadad is your brother. Then he said, Go and get him. So Ben-hadad came out to him and he made him get up into his carriage.

³⁴And Ben-hadad said to him, The towns my father took from your father I will give back; and you may make streets for yourself in Damascus as my father did in Samaria. And as for me, at the price of this agreement you will let me go. So he made an agreement with him and let him go.

³⁵And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbour by the word of the Lord, Give me a wound. But the man would not.

³⁶Then he said to him, Because you have not given ear to the voice of the Lord, straight away when you have gone from me a lion will put you to death. And when he had gone, straight away a lion came rushing at him and put him to death.

³⁷Then he came across another man, and said, Give me a wound. And the man gave him a blow wounding him.

³⁸So the prophet went away, and pulling his head-band over his eyes to keep his face covered, took his place by the road waiting for the king.

³⁹And when the king went by, crying out to him he said, Your servant went out into the fight; and a man came out to me with another man and said, Keep this man: if by any chance he gets away, your life will be the price of his life, or you will have to give a talent of silver in payment.

⁴⁰But while your servant was turning this way and that, he was gone. Then the king of Israel said to him, You are responsible; you have given the decision against yourself.

⁴¹Then he quickly took the head-band from his eyes; and the king of Israel saw that he was one of the prophets.

⁴²And he said to him, These are the words of the Lord: Because you have let go from your hands the man whom I had put to the curse, your life will be taken for his life, and your people for his people.

⁴³Then the king of Israel went back to his house, bitter and angry, and came to Samaria.

I Kings 21

¹Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vine-garden in Jezreel, near the house of Ahab, king of Samaria.

²And Ahab said to Naboth, Give me your vine-garden so that I may have it for a garden of sweet plants, for it is near my house; and let me give you a better vine-garden in exchange, or, if it seems good to you, let me give you its value in money.

³But Naboth said to Ahab, By the Lord, far be it from me to give you the heritage of my fathers.

⁴So Ahab came into his house bitter and angry because Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, I will not give you the heritage of my fathers. And stretching himself on the bed with his face turned away, he would take no food.

⁵But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said, Why is your spirit so bitter that you have no desire for food?

⁶And he said to her, Because I was talking to Naboth the Jezreelite, and I said to him, Let me have your vine-garden for a price, or, if it is pleasing to you, I will give you another vine-garden for it: and he said, I will not give you my vine-garden.

⁷Then Jezebel, his wife, said, Are you now the ruler of Israel? Get up, take food, and let your heart be glad; I will give you the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite.

⁸So she sent a letter in Ahab's name, stamped with his stamp, to the responsible men and the chiefs who were in authority with Naboth.

⁹And in the letter she said, Let a time of public sorrow be fixed, and put Naboth at the head of the people;

¹⁰And get two good-for-nothing persons to come before him and give witness that he has been cursing God and the king. Then take him out and have him stoned to death.

¹¹So the responsible men and the chiefs who were in authority in his town, did as Jezebel had said in the letter she sent them.

¹²They gave orders for a day of public sorrow, and put Naboth at the head of the people.

¹³And the two good-for-nothing persons came in and took their seats before him and gave witness against Naboth, in front of the people, saying, Naboth has been cursing God and the king. Then they took him outside the town and had him stoned to death.

¹⁴And they sent word to Jezebel, saying, Naboth has been stoned and is dead.

¹⁵Then Jezebel, hearing that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, said to Ahab, Get up and take as your heritage the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he would not give you for money, for Naboth is no longer living but is dead.

¹⁶So Ahab, hearing that Naboth was dead, went down to the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite to take it as his heritage.

¹⁷And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

¹⁸Go down to Ahab, king of Israel, in Samaria; see, he is in the vine-garden of Naboth the Jezreelite, where he has gone to take it as his heritage.

¹⁹Say to him, The Lord says, Have you put a man to death and taken his heritage? Then say to him, The Lord says, In the place where dogs have been drinking the blood of Naboth, there will your blood become the drink of dogs.

²⁰And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you come face to face with me, O my hater? And he said, I have come to you because you have given yourself up to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.

²¹See, I will send evil on you and put an end to you completely, cutting off from Ahab every male child, him who is shut up and him who goes free in Israel;

²²And I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the family of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, because you have made me angry, and have made Israel do evil.

²³And of Jezebel the Lord said, Jezebel will become food for dogs in the heritage of Jezreel.

²⁴Any man of the family of Ahab who comes to his death in the town will become food for the dogs; and he who comes to his death in the open country will be food for the birds of the air.

²⁵(There was no one like Ahab, who gave himself up to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, moved to it by Jezebel his wife.

²⁶He did a very disgusting thing in going after false gods, doing all the things the Amorites did, whom the Lord sent out before the children of Israel.)

²⁷Hearing these words, Ahab, in great grief, put haircloth on his flesh and went without food, sleeping in haircloth, and going about quietly.

²⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

²⁹Do you see how Ahab has made himself low before me? because he has made himself low before me, I will not send the evil in his life-time, but in his son's time I will send the evil on his family.

I Kings 22

¹Now for three years there was no war between Aram and Israel.

²And it came about in the third year, that Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel.

³And the king of Israel said to his servants, Do you not see that Ramoth-gilead is ours? and we are doing nothing to get it back from the hands of the king of Aram.

⁴And he said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead to make war? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are: my people as your people, my horses as your horses.

⁵Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

⁶So the king of Israel got all the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

⁷But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

⁸And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, Micaiah, son of Imlah; but I have no love for him, for he is a prophet of evil to me and not of good. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

⁹Then the king of Israel sent for one of his unsexed servants and said, Go quickly and come back with Micaiah, the son of Imlah.

¹⁰Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

¹¹And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself horns of iron and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

¹²And all the prophets said the same thing, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and it will go well for you, for the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹³Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs and say good things.

¹⁴And Micaiah said, By the living Lord, whatever the Lord says to me I will say.

¹⁵When he came to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, are we to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And in answer he said, Go up, and it will go well for you; and the Lord will give it into the hands of the king.

¹⁶Then the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

¹⁷Then he said, I saw all Israel wandering on the mountains like sheep without a keeper; and the Lord said, These have no master: let them go back, every man to his house in peace.

¹⁸And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good but of evil?

¹⁹And he said, Give ear now to the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord seated on his seat of power, with all the army of heaven in their places round him at his right hand and at his left.

²⁰And the Lord said, How may Ahab be tricked into going up to Ramoth-gilead to his death? And one said one thing and one another.

²¹Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick.

²²And the Lord said, How? And he said, I will go out and be a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Your trick will have its effect on him: go out and do so.

²³And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the Lord has said evil against you.

²⁴Then Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, came near and gave Micaiah a blow on the side of the face, saying, Where is the spirit of the Lord whose word is in you?

²⁵And Micaiah said, Truly, you will see on that day when you go into an inner room to keep yourself safe.

²⁶And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon, the ruler of the town, and to Joash, the king's son;

²⁷And say, It is the king's order that this man is to be put in prison and given prison food till I come again in peace.

²⁸And Micaiah said, If you come back at all in peace, the Lord has not sent his word by me.

²⁹So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-gilead.

³⁰And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress and went into the fight.

³¹Now the king of Aram had given orders to the thirty-two captains of his war-carriages, saying, Make no attack on small or great, but only on the king of Israel.

³²So when the captains of the war-carriages saw Jehoshaphat, they said, Truly, this is the king of Israel; and turning against him, they came round him, but Jehoshaphat gave a cry.

³³And when the captains of the war-carriages saw that he was not the king of Israel, they went back from going after him.

³⁴And a certain man sent an arrow from his bow without thought of its direction, and gave the king of Israel a wound where his breastplate was joined to his clothing; so he said to the driver of his war-carriage, Go to one side and take me away out of the army, for I am badly wounded.

³⁵But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans, and the floor of the carriage was covered with the blood from his wound, and by evening he was dead.

³⁶And about sundown a cry went up from all parts of the army, saying, Let every man go back to his town and his country, for the king is dead.

³⁷And they came to Samaria, and put the king's body to rest in Samaria.

³⁸And the war-carriage was washed by the pool of Samaria, which was the bathing-place of the loose women, and the dogs were drinking his blood there, as the Lord had said.

³⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all he did, and his ivory house, and all the towns of which he was the builder, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁴⁰So Ahab was put to rest with his fathers; and Ahaziah his son became king in his place.

⁴¹And Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa, became king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab's rule over Israel.

⁴²Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he became king, and he was king for twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Azubah, the daughter of Shilhi.

⁴³He did as Asa his father had done, not turning away from it, but doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord; but the high places were not taken away: the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁴⁴And Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel.

⁴⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his great power, and how he went to war, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

⁴⁶He put an end to the rest of those who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, all those who were still in the land in the time of his father Asa.

⁴⁷At that time there was no king in Edom;

⁴⁸And the representative of King Jehoshaphat made a Tarshish-ship to go to Ophir for gold, but it did not go, because it was broken at Ezion-geber.

⁴⁹Then Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, said to Jehoshaphat, Let my men go with yours in the ships. But Jehoshaphat would not let them.

⁵⁰Then Jehoshaphat went to rest with his fathers, and his body was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Jehoram his son became king in his place.

⁵¹Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of the rule of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and he was king over Israel for two years.

⁵²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, going in the ways of his father and his mother, and in the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel do evil.

⁵³He was a servant and worshipper of Baal, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath, as his father had done.